Run > Race

After bumping into some forumites at the start, but not as many as I'd have liked to owing to lots of nervous checking and rechecking that I had everything prepared, I lined up at the start of my first proper crack at a marathon with the aim of catching the Sub 3 train and staying on board for as long as possible. A quick lap of the track later, and we hit the roads, and got into a (hopefully) maintainable rhythm of 6:40-6:52 miling, with the pace varying with the slight undulations and slight breeze, but an ever constant effort, going through halfway at 1:28:30(ish). At this point, the legs still felt okay, the HRM indicated that my "feel" for how I was running was spot on, so I continued to churn out the miles. I had a little bad patch at 17 miles, owing (I think) to a reasonable headwind at this point, but since my legs were okay, and the pace was constant, I decided it was all in my mind and got on with the job in hand, and my mental outlook improved as the 18 mile mark came and went. The watch was showing 2:15:29 as I went through 20 miles, giving me the best part of a 2 minute cushion over the sub 3 schedule, and indicated that it was "just" a 10k to go.

At this point, a mental check of my body showed no major problems, I felt fine and started preparing to throw the kitchen sink at the last few miles to the finish. However, just after the 22 mile signpost, I hit a really bad patch (which can't have been aided by forgetting I had one more gel to take - I only remembered as I was getting changed for a shower after the race!) and was desparately hanging onto the required pace, and trying to use the rapidly disapearing figure of Blisters as a hare to chase to help me home. I don't really remember much past this point apart from some noisy crowds in the town center, and that bl***y underpass in the 25th mile, finally reached the 25 mile marker in 2:50 leaving my addled mind with the simplest of pace calculations - run the last 1.2 miles at 8 minute miles or less, and the sub 3 is in the bag. Finally arrived at the finish elated in 2:58:24 (chip).

All in all it was a great day out, with plenty of support on course from the marshalls and spectators, and good to put some more faces to forum names, though sorry for being really untalkative in the pub afterwards, I think I may have been more tired than I realised!