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Barcelona Marathon
March 17 Distance: 26.2 mi Time: 3:10:28 Avg Pace: 7:14 min/mi
With the initial post marathon buzz finally worn off I suppose the main feeling looking back at the Barcelona marathon is one of slight disappointment. Having already qualified for Boston from DCM last year my hope here was to dip under 3:10 so as to get the earlier entry date for people who had times 5 minutes quicker than required. And after a couple of miss starts in training back in Nov/Dec it went reasonably well in the end, so I was hopeful enough.
I set my alarm for 6am Sunday morning, had porridge, a croissant and coffee before heading off for an 8:30am start. The starting area was very well organised, I had no trouble accessing my pen 10 or 15 minutes before the start. After a fair bit of congestion in the first mile I settled into a nice rhythm even though from the start we were on a gradual incline for the first 5k, this first section came in at 22:15 and was in 1584th position.
It was around here I came across a fellow Irishman who assured me once we got to the far side of Camp Nou there was one more hill but then we'd be onto Diagonal Ave and we’d have a nice downhill section for a few miles. He’d done the race two years previously. After a brief enough chat I pushed on once we established we had slightly different finishing goals. The pace on the next 5k section picked up a bit due to the downhill but I made an effort to hold back it being so early in the race. The second 5k section came in at 21:54 and by now I’d climbed to 1529th.
Nothing much stands out about the third 5k bit except I was feeling comfortable, the pace was 22:06 and I climbed another few places to 1521st.
At the 10 mile mark I got chatting to an English guy called Chris, this was one of my favourite sections of the race. Going by La Sagrada Familia was a real goose-bump moment, the crowds here were great. I looked down at my garmin and I was doing 6 minute lap pace :eek: very easy to get carried away at times like that. For the next 10 miles myself and Chris would swap places numerous times. The fourth 5k block was 21:52 and I was up to 1492nd.
We were now on the first of the two out and back bits, this was a horrible section. It seemed to go on forever and was a bit of a pain looking at all the quicker guys coming back in. Chris by now had opened up quite a bit of a gap and I thought I wouldn’t be seeing him again. Surprisingly this was my fastest section of the race at 21:47 and I gained nearly 50 places bringing me up to 1444th.
The second out and back bit was just as unenjoyable as the first but by now I’d caught up with Chris again. Things were starting to get harder though; we started swapping places again, at 19.5 miles I hear ‘go on ya boy ya’ from a fellow runner I was passing which actually gave me a great boost, Chris didn't pass me again after that in the race. The next 5k split was 22:46 which brought me to 30k but a noticeable slowing of my pace. Saying that I was still gaining places, now up to 1408.
30k-35k was a further 19 seconds slower, 23:05 but I obviously wasn't the only one struggling because I passed nearly 100 in this section. By 35k-40k I was hanging big time but hit 40k still a good 40 seconds up on sub 3:10 time. All I had to do was hold the current pace for the last 2k. Unfortunately this coincides with the last hill on the course so the last 2k came in at a shocking 10:59. Try as I did I just couldn't pick up the pace any further. I ended up with a disappointing 5 minute positive split for a 1289th position.
Could I have done any better? I think so!! Because of babysitter arrangements we travelled over very early Friday morning, two days of sightseeing later (including every inch of Park Güell
) some fine dining and even a few pints Friday night, its bound to have had some effect (this was a break for my wife just as much as for me afterall so no regrets there). I shouldn't complain though it was a 1:27 minute PB but I reckon there was at least 3-5 minutes more there for the taking. Frustrating thing is having to wait till DCM to put it right.
As for the break itself Dublin and Berlin have much better atmospheres in the marathon itself but neither are a patch on Barcelona as a city, we had a fantastic trip!!0 -
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Congrats Neil. That's a great performance. Your splits were super until that long drag towards the finish got ya.
I remember reading about that before last year, and walked along the street the day before and thought, there's no hill there to be worried about. But it saps the calves and everything else when it greets you at 40km in. I walked a few times on it last year. The fact it's a straight climb doesn't help either!
I had forgotten you already had the BQ, so thought you might have been cursing the 30 seconds when I saw your post on the other log.
A nice summer of warm weather training
and you'll probably aiming sub 3 in DCM! 0 -
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So with a new running chapter about to start I’ve decided to give the old log another bash. Hard to believe it's been two and a half years since my last post here and the Barcelona marathon, it seems so long ago now. It still remains as my pb btw.
Just to fill in the gap briefly between then and now, I’ve ran five marathons since. A couple just for fun and but three I thought I trained fairly well for.
First up was London ’14, what a disaster!! Was fecked from 12 miles in, struggled home in a very disappointing 3:28:00. Easily the most painful marathon experience since my first at DCM ’09.
Next was DCM ’14, went with one of the Daniel’s plans for that one and was fairly happy heading into the race. With the combination of wind and heat on the day I was happy to come home in 3:14:25. A decent confidence booster after London.
Unfortunately I picked up a calf injury in Dublin which kept me out for a frustrating few months. This time consisted of me doing a test run, making it worse and repeating weekly! Eventually I reached out to ecoli following a post from another poster on here singing his praises and the power of his healing hands Low and behold he had me sorted in jig time and also agreed to coach me for the London ’15 cycle. Because it was now early February initially we planned to get fit enough just to get around and enjoy it. But only 10 weeks later on race day I was delighted how things went and thought I could sneak in just under 3:15. Turned out even better with a 3:12:08 finish and my first negative split in any race ever. Not a pb but definitely my best marathon yet.
So since London I’ve been doing sfa, just running here and there for fun. It’s been tough the last few years balancing home-life, work and training and on numerous occasions have felt completely burnt out. Since Barcelona this has been my second decent break from running but now I’m ready to get back to it again!!
My next challenge is Boston next April. I’ve qualified a couple of times before but finally this time bit the bullet and just entered. It was a no brainer reaching out to ecoli again following the success of London and thankfully he’s agreed to coach me again!
So to start we’re going to build up the miles for a while before marathon specific stuff later on. This far away it’s hard to say but a pb is the minimum goal. Judging by what ecoli could do with me in 10 weeks for London I’m starting to day dream about getting close to sub three again, we’ll see!!0 -
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ThebitterLemon wrote: »Best of luck with the sub 3, just don't get there before me :)TbL
Not likely you're in savage shape despite your recent injury woes and work disrupted training cycle. 0 -
Tuesday 13th - 4 easy. Averaged 8:15 pace, a touch faster than prescribed. For these easy runs I've decided to ditch the garmin and try and just run by feel. Couldn't resist recording with my phone in my pocket though stat ocd!
Wednesday 14th - 5 steady. Averaged 7:39 pace. Perfect conditions but too fast, meant to be 7:50 - 8:05. First mile clicked in at 7:19 and from there till the end it was a case of trying to slow down. Only managed to do the fourth mile at the prescribed pace
must do better! 0 -
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