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Sorry, I thought you said get faster before the 100th Marathon
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In all fairness, I was more relaxed about this year’s run then last year’s. Having arrived in Oughterard on the Saturday, I enjoyed a cold pasta salad mix to avoid the long late evening wait in the restaurant for food like last year. The lack of sleep because of the rowdy drinkers, disco and the occasional row underneath didn’t faze me after banking a few great nights sleep in the days before.
My Expectations
Last year I completed the race in 6:36. In the weeks coming up to this race, I was happy with just beating the time. As the time drew nearer, I was planning 9:30 pacing and hope to come in as close to 6:15 as I could get. After the great run in Mallow, I threw the whole thing out the window and decided on maintaining 9min/miles for as long as I could and taking it from there. If everything went perfectly, I’d have a chance of a sub 6, but that was only if everything ran smoothly or else keep it under 6:15.
Nutrition plans were as follows
Drink no more then 250 at each water point, unless I felt I really needed it, to avoid over hydrating
Mile 13:
500ml bottle of flat coke with chia seeds and carbo power
Rice Krispie Chocolate Bar
Spare Gel for the belt
Mile 26
500ml bottle of flat coke with chia seeds and carbo power
Red Bull Shot
Hi5 Protien bar
Spare Gel for the belt
Mile 32
500ml bottle of flat coke with chia seeds and carbo power
Red Bull Shot
Rice Krispie Chocolate Bar
Spare Gel for the belt
Water Belt was armed with 4 gels, two small bottles of my coke cocktail for emergencies and a couple of salt tablets.
Pre Race Preparation
Had a bowl of porridge with chia seeds, cinnamon and honey for breakfast. Had a banana too, but couldn’t face the bagel.
Took the bus into Maam’s Cross with Hot2Trot. She thought I was joking when I told her to brace herself for the overpowering smell of Deep Heat when she walks into the meeting room. During the race briefing, I cracked open a large can of Sugar Free Red Bull (to compensate for not being able to get a coffee close enough to the race start, but avoid the sugar rush and crash)
Had good relaxing banter with the rest of the familiar faces at the start line and the race started. As I began running, I spotted a major Schoolboy error. The lace on my left runner had become loose. About half a mile down the road, I was able to pull over and sort it out and got back into my spot.
Mile 1-5
Pace was going well, I didn’t speed off too early like in most of my other races. At mile 5 I had to take a gel, because it was another 8M before the first food pick up point and if I had a gel at the 10M station, it would still be sitting on me.
Mile 6-10
The mile markers seemed to be a bit off for the first 10 miles and they weren’t consistently off either, so it wasn’t my Garmin. By mile 11, the Garmin and mile markers were bang on.
Mile 11-15
Immediately after the first turn, there was a bit of an incline and I started overtaking some runners. My pace was still consistent, they must have been easing off. I then realised I was starting to sweat all of a sudden. I put it down to some sheltering and the humidity because we were running alongside one of the lakes.
At the first food pick up, I was able to grab my food straight away, thanks to the girly pink Christmas Wrapping. Worked a treat. Didn’t fancy the Gel just yet, so I tucked it into my belt along with my Krispie Cake. Drank the 500ml of coke over the next six miles before changing back to water at mile 19.
I passed the first 13.1M timing mat at about 1:55 and was running very comfortably. Pace was averaging 8:50 and I felt comfortable putting the extra seconds in the bank for each mile. Before mile 15, I had the Rice Krispie Bar ‘Nyom Nyom’ (tucking the wrapper into the belt until the next station of course)
Mile 16-20
The miles were going by surprisingly fast. Not because I was running fast, but I just didn’t notice the time going by. Before I knew it, another mile marker was always just ahead. The hill out of Mile 17 was no problem, just kept running, despite the people who were now slowing to walk. At mile 16, I had half the bottle of coke left, so I lashed half a salt tablet into it to sip for the next 3 miles. Took my second Gel at mile 19, met my first marathon walker at mile 20
Mile 21-25
Was glad to have kept running up all the little hills before reaching the peak and enjoying the free running through Killary into Leenan, getting encouragement from the marathon people as I passed them by.
Mile 26-30
Last year at mile 26.2, I hung around the table before the timing mat eating my fig rolls and lost time on the marathon split. After last year’s mistake, I was more prepared this year. When I picked up my next Christmas Present at mile 26, I kept running until I passed the timing mat, then helped myself to a red bull shot. Crossed the mat in about 3:56 and I didn’t feel like I just ran a marathon. The mental state of mind was still in good form. I had a protein bar to chomp on now and fast walked up part of the first section of the Leenan hill so that I could chew and swallow the bar a bit easier. Last year, I hit a major mental dip at this point because the body wanted me to stop. Thoughts of “If you had just signed up for a marathon, you’d be finished now, just slow down and relax” was going through my head last year and I lost a lot of time slowing down and walking, trying to conserve energy for the remainder. This year, I was feeling much fresher and there was going to be much less walking involved. Popped another half Salt tab into the coke around mile 29 to keep everything topped up.
Mile 30-35
Passed the 50k mark in about 4:40 which is about 15 mins quicker then the Donadea 50k in February.
This is where my nutrition plan went a little bit awry. Despite only eating a Krispie Bar, Protein Bar and two gels so far, the stomach was feeling quite full and heavy. I think the carbo powder and chia seeds made the Coke too rich and I was drinking too much of it, even over the long distance. Probably would have got away with a 250ml bottle at the stops. Got a stitch which made me slow the pace a bit until it eased off. At the 32M food station, I took the Red Bull shot, had a gel with some water and tucked the Krispie Bar into my belt for after the race. Threw the whole bottle of coke mix straight into the bin because I still had the small emergency bottles of coke on my belt anyway if I needed a fix.
Mile 36-39.3
I was taking small amounts of water from the stations, diluting the sludge in the stomach. The belly cramps and stitch was gone, but there were a few times earlier when I felt like just throwing up the lot and getting on with it. Up to this point, I think I only walked twice and that was brief. Once coming out of Leenan chomping my bar and on a short section of some other hill that eludes me at the moment. I still felt good overall on the run and felt like I was running comfortably, but needed to save a bit for the HOTW. The chance of the ideal sub 6 had slipped away but I knew I wouldn’t be too far over it. On the Hell, I took the option to walk in some sections for about 100-200m then carry on running. I didn’t have to do it that often, but found when it came to running after the walk, I was feeling much fresher and managed to tackle the sudden head on wind that the Hell was saving for the last challenge. Cresting the hill, I could see the tower at Peacocks and the shining orange beacon light welcoming us in. As I built up a bit of speed, the left hammer started to give out lots of warning shots and I took the decision to hold back for a bit until the legs had recovered from the big hill. With a half mile left, I soaked up the atmosphere as the spectators started to appear and I got great encouragement from the Full and Half marathon runners that I was overtaking. I think the Ultra sign on our back they gave us this year really helped. I got a mention from the commentary box and gave the cameraman a big thumbs up coming over the line.
The official time was 6:04:41! Thats 32 minutes off last year. It was probably the most enjoyable race I have ever had, considering I felt in great shape for the whole thing (bar the sludge in the tummy around mile 30) and I never even contemplated a ‘What the hell am I doing’ or ‘Never Again’ moment at any point. Except for the settling down in the first few miles, I cannot recall any ultra runners overtaking me for the whole race, expect for when I slowed at my food stations to rip off my wrapping paper, but I managed to catch up and pass them out eventually.
One guy that helped me keep up the pace for the latter half was John Brady who also ran the Donadea 50k in February and we ran for a while together there. I caught up with him by mile 15 and along the way we were occasionally passing out each other. I did notice that even though he tackled the HOTW running, My run walk approach helped me to gain ground on him and overtake him with half a mile to go. Unfortunately, when he passed me again with about 300m left, I didn’t have the gas in the tank for a decent enough sprint finish challenge, but that wasn’t taking away from the result.
Got my medal from Hunnymonster at the end and enjoyed the soup and sambos before heading back to Galway for the mother of all celebrations with Menoscemo, SarsefieldRock, Osisin and Claralara. I still had enough energy in the legs for lots of jumping and dancing around the dance floor, but apologies to anyone’s toes that got crushed during some of the more complicated dance moves.
The one big thing I will be taking from this race is to cut down on the Coke in-take. 250ml over 6 miles would be more palatable then 500ml, and ease off on the chia and probably cut out the carbo powder altogether.
I was surprised with how little I had over the run. Three gels, one Krispie Bar, one Protein Bar, two Red Bull shots and a Salt tablet.
The race was run very well. I’ve no criticisms that come to mind. I thought the expo was a bit smaller this year with less races being advertised and it occurred to me that there was no goody bag given out before or after the race. But delighted to see that the Ultra top is a technical one this time around. Short sleeves would have been better coming into the warm weather, but beggars and choosers and all that.
Looks like I might be back again next year for that Sub 6
39.3M in 6:04:41 (9:16 pace)
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