Run > Race

Wow, what a lot of lovely comments. Thanks you lot. And for such a mediocre marathon performance! I'm fine with it, and probably a fair reflection of age, current fitness and result off medium level of training. Obviously you don't get your best without doing more training. No sh*t Sherlock one might say! However, I don't think I could have done a much bigger training load on what is effectively my first training cycle since 2019, so 4 years. And I still had a couple of injuries last year - calf after Tay 10 in May and then hip in December. So really only 14 weeks of training getting up from rest from injury early December, and that's including 2 week taper and starting from treadmill trial of hip. Long runs starting at 8, 10 miles in January, so a late and tentative start. Only two 20 mile training runs and only one MP block. Weekly mileage never hit 50 miles. No 10K or half marathon tune up races, and very little tempo or interval training. So neither quantity nor quality! But I arrived at the start line with the right Achilles / lower calf niggles mostly abated and some steady and consistent training, if not stellar.

The weekend was obviously not as planned either, with flight to Hamburg cancelled due to German airport workers striking. Was very fortunate to have found a marathon on the same day and easy to drive to. I looked on Fetch, found it, signed up on Wed just after getting flight cancellation notification and before the midnight deadline for entry! Serendipity. £38 entry too, which was pretty decent I thought. I lost the 98Euros entry for Hamburg, as they would only refund if you had taken out insurance, which I hadn't. Got accommodation and flights refunded though (hopefully, KLM dependent!)

That won't have affected the marathon result - might even have been more suitable, with just a Saturday drive down to Blackpool instead of flights with the old mother! Drive down and finding hotel (Travelodge) all fine. A wee walk around Blackpool on Saturday but oh, dear, what a sad looking place. Almost felt a bit dangerous, though I'm sure it wasn't, but just very, very rough. We found a wee vegan jazz cafe but it was the only place that wasn't fish n chips and beering it up! Off feet, early to bed. Bit of disrupted sleep as usual, and woke before alarm about 06.45. Made my porridge, a coffee and energy drink and one of the gels. Fuel early and all that. Was going to jog down to the start 1.7 miles, but bumped into a local Meedies guy, Campbell who was walking to start, so chatted to him. And met Emma from Carnegie and Meedies at start too. Small world! Didn't bother with warm up, had done some dynamic stretches etc.

Low key start line, only a few hundred marathon runners and maybe 1000 half marathon. Starting in different directions! Weird, but fine. And off we trotted. Started slowly, bit congested but no matter, then we went down towards the prom by the sea away from road. Nice, but surprised to be going down and slight fear that meant coming back up! There was a to be a theme of unexpected slight climbs. I hadn't actually looked at the route at all, except to see that it went north and south along the coast a couple of laps. Last minute sign up and all that!

Short way north along prom beside beach, then turn back up towards road and then south back through the town. Main road closed, half and marathon runners running together and a bit of support. Got chatting to a couple of people, first time marathoners, a couple of 100 marathoners (there were a lot maybe a dozen of them across the course. (I guess small events attract them or how else can you do marathons every other weekend - that's not going to be London, Berlin, New York, Tokyo etc!) Only saw one costume (pink gimp suit - not for a charity, I did ask him! Strange!) At 5 miles past south pier and the Pleasure Beach (theme park) we turned round a little loop round some houses then back on to main road facing north. Notice it was slightly uphill and into the wind but obviously as only miles 6 - 10 felt fine. Was going for just under 08:00 min miles and saw that it was ave 7:57 despite feeling I was doing 7:45s at place and running quite hard. So really didn't have any more to give it. Felt comfortable at some points but hard at others. Got much more scenic when we passed the north pier and the finish line that you could hear the fast half marathoners finishing. Pointing towards Fleetwood, the beaches and greenery was much nicer. Had to follow another chap in behind a locked toilet block to take a quick emergency stop about 10 miles. So sue me! No one saw!

The turn at 11 and back down to the prom by beach was nice, but again, you could feel this was more downhill and wind behind. That was going to be good at the finish! So lap 2, back through the town. Saw missus at 15 miles, great of her to come out, told her 90 mins to go and which direction to go back to the finish. Turn at south most point at 17.5 miles, was still feeling OK, but ouch, after the turn, the wind had got up quite a bit and it was definitely a northerly and in our faces. Tried to keep the pace going but once the slight uphill start about 18ish miles, I definitely slowed. It felt like Everest now (as a chap on the first lap had said it would!). Quick shout out for some chats. A guy early on when I was chatting to a 100 miler Simon, caught back up with him a guy Bob who was coached by Dave Shaw, who finished 6th and was in 2nd at one point. There was also Liverpool runner 100 plus marathons too, Gary, I had chatted to about 10 miles and went ahead of a bit, and a guy aged 53 going for a Boston qualifier. Nice to chat to people. So as I was struggling at 21 miles Gary caught me at the turn at the north most point at 22 miles and he said hi again. I hadn't been overtaken by anyone though I could hear some foot steps behind. As he went past I thought I'll try and hang on and said same to the other guy that I was running beside. So I said to Gary I'm going to try and hang on to you. And the wind was now behind us, and under 3 miles to go, so we both pushed on and I went ahead of him then beside him, then ahead again and just kept pushing. A slight wind behind makes such a difference, and knowing the finish is coming. I knew I was going to be under 3:30 having seen average under 08:00 min per mile throughout, but it was nice to try and finish strongly. I really didn't have anything in the tank particularly, but had paced it pretty much right.

Saw my missus at the finish line and got to wave to her. She tried to take a pic or a video but it didn't come out. No matter! Nice chat with volunteers and other runners over the line. We even got a coffee from a stall. Forgot to pick up medal and t-shirt on way back to car, so just walked back to get it. Which shows I wasn't feeling too bad. Saw Bob and missus and Dave Shaw and one other of his coached runners (they were from Dumbarton, by the way, so that was the Scottish connection!). Bob didn't get the 3:25 he was looking for, slowed to 3:42 unfortunately, though he prefers off road ultras I think. And as we walked back to car we crossed the marathon course, so saw Campbell from Meedies which was great and he looked in good spirits, finished about 5 hours I think, long day out. Respect to him and Emma.

S had brought car really close to finish which was fab. We'd paid extra for late checkout so had a good hour to go back to hotel, have a shower, change and pack for journey home. Vowed not to even try and have lunch in Blackpool, but Googled a nice cafe in Halton half hour up road past Lancaster. Was much better! Yum. Broke my veggie streak of 8 years as I was craving meaty lunch! Good drive back home, stopped to charge car at Southwaite, same as way down. And at Gretna to see S's horsey friend and saw round their place (17 horses, 30 dogs, half dozen cats - aargh, not my cup of tea, but I was polite, I hope!) and nice pizza takeaway. S drove last hour home as I was getting sleepy. Home at 11 and straight to my bed! A successful marathon weekend away, if not the one we had planned! G

* Gel and water update (prompted by larkim's comprehensive blog!): had one gel (all SIS caffeine blackcurrant - yeuch!) before leaving hotel, 500 ml Lucozade waiting for start, then 4 gels in race 5, 10, 15, 20 miles and *lots* of water - maybe 4 or 5 x 500ml bottles from water stations, drunk almost all of, maybe 1/3 thrown away, so over 1.5 litres drunk? Last marathon, Boston 2019, I'm pretty sure dehydration contributed to my demise. This was similarly chilly at start but warm with sun on face or back of neck alternately, and a bit of sunburn after. So I think a lot of water was a good idea!

Split Summary
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1) 1mi - 8:15(8:15/mi) 146/155bpm [1205b/mi] 108cal
2) 1mi - 7:44(7:44/mi) 156/162bpm [1207b/mi] 110cal
3) 1mi - 8:06(8:06/mi) 147/151bpm [1190b/mi] 107cal
4) 1mi - 7:55(7:56/mi) 153/157bpm [1213b/mi] 110cal
5) 1mi - 7:59(7:59/mi) 152/157bpm [1213b/mi] 109cal
6) 1mi - 7:58(7:58/mi) 155/160bpm [1235b/mi] 111cal
7) 1mi - 7:46(7:46/mi) 157/161bpm [1220b/mi] 112cal
8) 1mi - 7:55(7:55/mi) 158/169bpm [1251b/mi] 114cal
9) 1mi - 7:53(7:53/mi) 156/165bpm [1231b/mi] 111cal
10) 1mi - 8:15(8:15/mi) 156/163bpm [1286b/mi] 116cal
11) 1mi - 7:57(7:57/mi) 155/160bpm [1231b/mi] 110cal
12) 1mi - 7:48(7:48/mi) 157/159bpm [1224b/mi] 110cal
13) 1mi - 7:48(7:48/mi) 158/160bpm [1233b/mi] 111cal
14) 1mi - 7:54(7:54/mi) 160/164bpm [1265b/mi] 115cal
15) 1mi - 7:38(7:38/mi) 158/162bpm [1205b/mi] 108cal
16) 1mi - 7:56(7:56/mi) 159/162bpm [1262b/mi] 114cal
17) 1mi - 7:36(7:36/mi) 161/165bpm [1224b/mi] 112cal
18) 1mi - 7:34(7:34/mi) 163/166bpm [1233b/mi] 113cal
19) 1mi - 7:56(7:56/mi) 163/168bpm [1293b/mi] 119cal
20) 1mi - 8:09(8:09/mi) 163/167bpm [1327b/mi] 123cal
21) 1mi - 8:17(8:17/mi) 165/172bpm [1366b/mi] 128cal
22) 1mi - 8:11(8:11/mi) 163/167bpm [1335b/mi] 123cal
23) 1mi - 7:58(7:58/mi) 163/169bpm [1300b/mi] 120cal
24) 1mi - 7:54(7:54/mi) 163/174bpm [1288b/mi] 118cal
25) 1mi - 7:42(7:42/mi) 163/167bpm [1255b/mi] 116cal
26) 1mi - 7:34(7:34/mi) 166/170bpm [1256b/mi] 119cal
27) 0.3mi - 2:10(7:05/mi) 171/176bpm [1212b/mi] 36cal