Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

vanderlyle

Sandwell wrote: »

I've decided to turn to Pfitzinger once more in the search of some structure (and faster times!). The plan for the past couple of months had been to increase my mileage and do the odd race without worrying too much about pace. Illness and niggles meant that the mileage hasn't increased as much as I'd have liked but I have been able to manage 30-40 miles relatively comfortably on the good weeks so I should have a reasonable base on which to build.

I'm going to go with the 45 mile per week 10km plan from Faster Road Racing with the Dunshaughlin 10k in June as my goal race. That race gets glowing reports on here and it suits me perfectly timewise as I'll be heading to Glastonbury the following week for a rather different type of endurance event. I'd also be hopeful of improving my 5k time in the build up to Dunshaughlin if the plan goes ok. I've never trained specifically for the 10km distance before but the plan looks like the best of both worlds with an equal emphasis on speed and tempo work. I have half a mind to have a crack at an autumn marathon if this training block goes well and I reckon a plan of this kind should be good preparation.

I've got a few weeks yet until the start of the plan so I'll be focusing on easy running with a few races thrown in including Ballycotton next weekend.

Good luck, always good to have a plan and a target, will be following with interest. Hope you can maintain a consistent block of training up to Dunshaughlin.

Sandwell

Fri 26

Rest.

Sat 27

9 miles easy @ 8'14. A nice loop from Glasnevin along Tolka Valley Park and back via the canal towpath.

Tue 1

9 miles easy @ 8'09. A similar loop to Saturday.

Wed 2

6 miles treadmill. This was a shorter variation of a session I found on demfad's log: 10 min warmup; 10 min climb (7%@10kph); 10 min tempo (15kph); 10 min climb (10%@8.5kph); 10 min tempo (15kph); 10 min cooldown. It was a tough session but doable, somewhere between steady and tempo effort. I could have managed another climb if put to it but with Ballycotton coming up on Sunday it wouldn't have been a good idea. I've a couple of IMRA races coming up in the next month and these treadmill sessions will hopefully make up for my lack of opportunity to get out train in the mountains.

Thu 3

4 miles recovery @ 9'07. Ran this on grass.

Sandwell

I've had a couple of days of easy running with Ballycotton on the horizon. I did four easy yesterday and three more this morning with a few strides thrown in. Although it's not a goal race I want to have a good crack at the ten mile distance tomorrow. A PB is a certainty so I'm tempted to shoot for the sub-60. The conservative option is to run at 6'15 or so, a pace I know is achievable, but as the missus said on the way down this afternoon, when you're travelling this far you may as well go for it. So I probably will.

ThebitterLemon

"...but as the missus said on the way down this afternoon, when you're travelling this far you may as well go for it."

Ah here man, get a room

Best of luck with the sub 60, give it (the race) a lash!!

TbL

Sandwell

Ballycotton 10

Well we did get a room but the paper thin walls in our B&B ensured that merely getting a half-decent night's sleep was an achievement in itself. We stayed in Youghal and like many a seaside town it's pretty grim out of season. I was awake way too early full of pre-race energy but managed to kill a couple of hours doing some work on the laptop before heading down to a breakfast room full of runners. A quick stop in the local Tesco to buy a towel and we were off. Our host had recommended we take the coast road via Ballymacoda as the views are apparently lovely. They weren't yesterday although if you were a pothole enthusiast you'd have been in your element. Approaching Ballycotton we were strongly encouraged to park up and use the shuttle bus service. That didn't really suit my wife who wasn't running so we stubbornly ignored the dire warnings that we'd never get into Ballycotton today and carried on via backroads until we somehow ended up in the main car park where there was predictably lots of room, this being more than two hours before the race.

The rain made the pre-race build up a bit of a drag with people huddling for shelter wherever they could rather than mingling and strolling about. We found a nice seat at the bar of a pub near the harbour where I had a sneaky espresso. With half an hour to go I headed to get warmed up. I was surprised to see relatively few people around as even after I returned from a jog up the cliff path at 1.20 I was comfortably able to make my way up to near the front. It turned out that most of the crowd were backed up the hill by the baggage area. Arriving early certainly was worth it. Having discarded my t-shirt and waiting for the start I was struck by the mildness of the day. I'd expected it to be so much colder but I was actually comfortable in a singlet and shorts. I could feel no breeze whatsoever which boded well for running conditions.

The start was fairly chaotic so I just concentrated on staying upright and tried to avoid weaving in and out and wasting energy. I was far enough up that most runners around me seemed of a similar standard although there were a few chancers who had clearly paid no heed to the suggested finishing times. By the end of mile one things were beginning to thin out enough to start thinking about looking for a group. My watch had six minutes even for that first mile which was slightly concerning it had been downhill and I'd been warned that you'd need time in the bank after the first few miles. I pushed on and had plenty of people to work with over the next couple of miles where I was able to keep the average pace just under the six minute mark. Anytime I sensed the pace around me was flagging I pushed on to try and catch the next group. This was never too daunting a task as the depth of the field meant that few large gaps were forming and there was always someone to chase. Miles two and three were both 5'50 which gave me the bit of a buffer that I felt I'd need. Miles four and five were each pretty much six minutes flat. Passing through the five mile gantry I was reassured to see that the official timing confirmed my calculations. All I needed to do was hold that six minute pace.

The miles ticked by and the effort began to hurt but my breathing was still pretty comfortable and as ever there were numerous other runners to pace off. Generally, however, they were slowing and it was necessary to push on after a few seconds in their company. I caught up with a small group including who I later discovered was the first lady around the end of mile seven. They were moving nicely and I settled in for the next mile or so until a glance at the watch showed me the average pace was slipping. At this stage I knew the hills of the last two miles were coming and that I couldn't afford to lose any time so I pushed on again and managed to get the pace back under six. Now for the first hill, pretty steep but not that long. I had a couple of runners just up ahead to target so I played the usual mental game of trying to catch the closest. It worked too. Although my breathing was becoming laboured and the legs burned I managed to overtake a couple of lads on the climb.

As the road flattened again I knew there was about a mile and a half to go, much of it on a long steady uphill drag into the town. I could see from my watch that I hadn't lost too much time on the previous hill so those twenty odd seconds were still in the bank. I was hurting though, and the distance remaining was far from trivial. I kept telling myself that I'd done great to get this far, way better than I'd imagined, and that it would be shameful to throw it away now. This seemed to work as despite the pain I managed to get back into the rhythm of chasing the nearest vest up ahead. I gained a couple more places and finally reached the last mile. This was familiar from earlier yet predictably the distance between each landmark seemed to have vastly increased. Would it ever end? There was a gap of maybe twenty metres between myself and a Lucan Harriers runner so I tried to use him as my latest distraction. It worked too and I gradually reeled him in, passing him and a couple of others over the final few hundred metres. One guy may have taken a place back around this time but by this stage I could see the finish and more importantly the clock. I had the sub 60 and with it a top hundred finisher t-shirt!

So this came as a massive surprise. As I had mentioned on the log I didn't think I was in this type of shape. My training has been patchy with no speedwork of note. My tempo runs were well above six minute mile pace so there was little evidence to suggest that I had the endurance to run ten of them back to back. That said, I knew I wasn't super far away and all week at the back of my mind I knew that I was going to go for the sub 60. Not having a PB for ten miles probably made it easier to go for broke because even if I was to blow up I knew I'd still end up with a decent enough time that I could improve on again. One factor that almost certainly helped was cutting out the sugar a couple of weeks ago. I'd lost over two kilos by Saturday morning which is a considerable amount to be carrying around. The depth of the Ballycotton field certainly helped too. It's so much easier to push yourself when you have people around you to pace off. Thinking back to my 1'22 hallf-marathon last autumn, I spent most of that race on my own. I felt at the time I'd paced it very well but in hindsight I could likely have pushed harder with some company. I think what I've learned most of all from this is that I may have a tendency to run a bit too conservatively. By aiming for a target slightly above my perceived level I ended up surprising myself this time.

Gun time 59:41 (59:32 chip)

Splits: 5:58, 5:49, 5:51, 5:59, 5:58, 5:52, 5:57, 5:57, 5:59, 5:53

ThebitterLemon

Great running well done, your strength probably stood to you and made up for not having much race specific work done

TbL

yaboya1

Great report and super solid splits (especially miles 9 & 10).

Well done

Sandwell

Mon 7

Rest.

Tue 8

4 miles recovery @ 9'28. Set off to do an eight miler I had scheduled in my training plan for some absurd reason. After half a mile or so I saw sense. Four very easy miles ensued.

Wed 9

8 miles easy @ 8:26. The legs were still very heavy for this one but I got through it comfortably enough. Thoughts of Annagh Hill this Saturday were extremely unappealing but hopefully another couple of days of easy running will have me in some kind of shape to go again. While I've no ambition to race it I do want to get a good session in on the hills in advance of the Maurice Mullins Trail at the end of the month. By the sounds of things the climbs on Annagh are much nastier that anything on the Wicklow Way so it should provide a good workout.

Sandwell

Time for a long overdue update.

Thu 10

5 miles easy @ 8'33. The legs were beginning to feel reasonably normal once more.

Fri 11

3 miles easy @ 8'30. Felt pretty good for this one. Ran it on grass.

Sat 12 IMRA Annagh Hill

I made the long trip down to North Wexford for this race on a beautiful spring morning. I had a full car from the IMRA carpool and everyone was in great spirits. The main discussion on the way down was the notorious difficulty of the course with the race director having warned novices to give it a miss. None of the four of us had run it previously so there was much speculation as to how hard it could be. It lived up to expectations.

The race took the form of a brutally steep ascent, a long lumpy bit along a ridge, a ridiculously steep descent, a flattish fireroad section, another brutal ascent, the lumpy ridge section again (now seemingly twice as long) followed by one more sharp descent to the finish. I settled into around twentieth position for the first climb which seemed to have reduced everyone to a walk. After what seemed like forever the top of the ridge was reached and the racing began in earnest. The next couple of kilometres provided plenty of opportunity for overtaking as the track undulated and runners were forced to negotiated their way around huge puddles and over several technical rocky sections. I took a spill on one of these, making the dumb mistake of trying to traverse a sloping slab of rock in my Inov-8s. Thankfully the damage was fairly minimal and I was able to pick myself up and keep going. I must have witnessed three or four other falls over the course of the race as Annagh took its toll on the runners.I felt pretty strong throughout the race but my lack of downhill experience saw me lose a number of places on the two almost vertical descents. I was happy enough to finish just inside the top 20 and close enough to guys that would be in or around my level.

Sun 13

Rest.

Mon 14

3 miles recovery. This was painful. My quads took an absolute mauling at the weekend on those steep downhills and I had the worst attack of DOMS I've had in ages.

Tue 15

Nothing.

Wed 16

9 miles easy @ 8'58. I got out early in the morning for this and kept the pace fairly slow. Quads still in bits.

Thu 17

7 miles inc. 3 mile tempo. I did this one with a few from the club around the Garda XC route in the Phoenix Park. Held 6'32 avg for the tempo section. Quads feeling somewhat normal again.

Fri 18

15 miles hilly @ 9'18. Having the day off work I took the opportunity to recce the second half of the WWT course between Crone Woods and Johnnie Foxes. I'm fairly familiar with the other half but I'd never run this section of the Wicklow Way. Apart from suffering the effects of a dodgy stomach after a few too many the night before I really enjoyed this run. I kept the effort levels as easy as possible given the length and finished comfortably enough.

Sat 19

Rest.

Sun 20

8 miles easy @ 8:52. A fairly uneventful loop around Tolka Valley and back by the canal towpath.

Mon 21

3 miles easy @ 8'11.

Tue 22

8 miles inc 10/8/8 LT intervals off 3 min recovery. The first session of a new Pfitzinger cycle. Very happy that I managed to hit and hold the target pace fairly comfortably throughout. Intervals and average pace below:

10 min @ 5'52
8 min @ 6'00
8 min @ 5'55

I've a few days of easy running ahead of me now before the Maurice Mullins Trail on Saturday. The weather forecast for that isn't great at the moment but I guess this dry spell couldn't last forever.

Sandwell

Wed 23

9 miles easy @ 7:46
My regular loop out to Ashtown and back.

Fri 25

4 miles very easy @ 8:48
Threw in a few strides at the end.

Sat 26 IMRA Maurice Mullins Trail

I'd had this race as a loose target since the beginning of the year. I suppose I saw it as a logical goal for my winter training which was focused on endurance and building mileage. In fact building endurance has been the primary aim since last August when I started half-marathon training. I definitely felt the benefits of all this in Ballycotton where I was able to finish strongly over the final couple of miles. The race today, at 25km, was considerably longer than Ballycotton and included just under 1000 metres of climb so it was going to provide a different test of that increased stamina.

Having looked at results from previous years I suspected that if all went well I could be reasonably competitive in this race. It looked like some of the pure mountain runners tended to skip it while there was a sizeable IMRA contingent down in Kerry for the annual training weekend. The profile is basically two long, gradual climbs followed by two long descents. These are interspersed with some sharper, shorter climbs and the odd bit of road running. The course follows the Wicklow Way so, apart from the occasional short technical section, most of the trail is extremely runnable with long stretches of it on Coillte fire road. I prefer to avoid fire road when out training but it does play to my strengths as a road runner. My main concerns beforehand were the boardwalk section over Djouce and the long technical descent to the Dargle. I have a slight phobia of running on boardwalks, particularly when it's wet and windy, and I knew that there would be a lot of traffic to negotiate with runners from the Ultra coming down as Trail runners went up. I had run the Dargle descent a few times in the past and knew that a mistake here could prove costly and painful. The second half of the route I had recently recced and it held no real fear for me apart from the usual danger of running out of steam towards the end.

I parked at Leopardstown and ended up on the first bus out to Ballinastoe. This saw us arrive over an hour before the start! Luckily the bus was staying put as otherwise it would have been a fairly miserable wait in damp conditions. Coincidentally enough, the guy in the seat next to me ended up one place behind me at the finish. I reluctantly left the warmth of the bus to do my warm up before gathering at the start for the race briefing. I recognised a couple of runners who I suspected would be in contention for the win and a few others who I knew from experience were of a similar standard to myself. The race started and we began the long climb up to Djouce. I settled into the back of the lead group and tried to get into a comfortable rhythm. Before long the eventual top three runners had opened up a gap that would leave them well ahead of the rest of the field. The remainder of the top 10-15 runners began to string out gradually. I felt quite strong and passed a few runners on the stretch before the boardwalk. It wasn't always clear whether these were Trail or Ultra runners so I didn't really worry that much about places. I figured I was probably in or around tenth.

On the boardwalk I focused on running steadily, keeping my balance and trying to conserve energy. The runner ahead of me began to open a bit of a gap but I didn't bother trying to chase. At the same time, nobody passed me on this section so I figured that I must be climbing at a decent enough pace. There was a pretty strong breeze up there but luckily it was coming mostly from behind. Off the boardwalk at the shoulder of Djouce the trail begins to descend, first along a rocky single track and then over a wide boggy, grassy section where it's possible to gain ridiculous speeds if you let go. My main concern here was to run in a controlled manner. I expected to lose a few places but figured that if I could allow myself to relax that I'd be able to save some energy to chase them down on the less technical sections later in the race. Sure enough, a couple of runners steamed past me early on. As the descent continued, however, I gradually got into my stride and I managed to stay pretty comfortable and relaxed the whole way down to the river. I think the ludicrously steep descents of the Annagh Hill race a couple of weeks back had the effect of making this one seem more tame.

The short climb up from the Dargle is usually a hands on knees effort for me but today I was able to run it, a good sign. On then to the long fast fire road section down to Crone Wood car park. I was feeling good at this stage knowing that I'd negotiated the trickier sections fairly smoothly and suspecting that I was still in or around the top ten. On the way down I passed the first lady who had taken a slight wrong turn. She was the last Trail runner I saw for quite a while and I ran much of the stretch from Crone to Prince William's Seat solo apart from the occasional encounter with an Ultra runner, recognizable by their slower pace and additional gear. Just at the start of the descent from PWS to Glencullen I was passed by a runner who I hadn't even realised was gaining on me. He must have climbed really strongly up from Curtlestown. I decided to chase rather than admit defeat and the two of us ended up racing stride for stride for the next mile or so down the fire road. At one point I thought I had shook him but he closed that small gap again and by the bridge at the foot of the valley he had his own gap of maybe ten metres. I knew there was sharp road climb to come here and figured, correctly, that our personal battle would be won or lost here. As it happened he was the stronger climber and while the gap didn't grow that much more it was never in any danger of closing either.

Even though I lost out, my encounter with my rival had proved extremely beneficial as locked in our own battle we passed several other Trail runners over the final three miles. Arriving at the finish I could see straight away that I had managed my best IMRA placing to date. The official results confirmed this, placing me in fifth overall. Beforehand I held outside hopes of sneaking into the top ten so this was hugely satisfying. Almost equally satisfying was knowing that I had paced the race well, the endurance was there to finish strongly and that I'd handled the more technical sections pretty well.

Sun 27

Rest

Mon 28

5 miles recovery @ 9:43. Legs heavy, right hamstring sore.

Tue 29

4 miles recovery @ 9:37. Hamstring still sore.

Wed 30

9 miles easy @ 8:39 Hamstring still a little tight but much improved.

Kennyg71

great racing congrats on top five finish, great achievement.

vanderlyle

Hey sandwell, training going ok lately? Any target races coming up? Cheers.

Sandwell

Hey vanderlyle. I've had a frustrating few months with niggles so have had little incentive to log. In hindsight I must have overdone it I'm March with 3 hard races and not enough recovery. I've struggled to get much in the way of consistency since and have suffered from Achilles and metatarsal issues. Then I managed to sprain an ankle into the bargain. I'm back running daily again and if I can string a couple of solid weeks together I'm going to start a marathon plan at the end of the month. If that happens, then I'll start logging again.

Sandwell

The background to my first marathon is almost two years of relatively consistent training after a two year layoff from running due to injury. When I was finally able to run pain free again in early 2015 I decided to focus on the 5k. I followed a Pfitzinger plan for the first time from Faster Road Racing book and had some decent success with that. I then had a fairly relaxed summer before jumping into a half-marathon plan from the same book and culminating in a 1:22:xx last November. I spent last winter doing a lot of easy running and very little in the way of speedwork. I had an entry for Ballycotton and surprised myself by breaking sub 60 there. My plan after that was to follow another 5k cycle and hopefully get the PB down below 17 mins. However, I had a number of niggles in the second quarter of the year and to cap it off I sprained an ankle in mid-May. This put and end to any thoughts of focusing on the shorter stuff. I knew that once the ankle was healed enough to get out running again that I’d be best off sticking to easy aerobic stuff for a couple of months while cutting back on any speedwork. It seemed like the obvious thing was to take the opportunity to follow the 18 week P&D 55 marathon plan. I’d been humming and hawing about having a crack at the distance this year so in a sense circumstances made up my mind for me.

The early weeks ticked by nicely enough although it took several months before I was able to run fully pain free. In fact, between recovering from the sprain and managing various other niggles it felt like I was performing a constant balancing act between getting fitter and getting injured again. One of the reasons I didn’t do any logging on here was that I was terrified of jinxing my progress! Thankfully as the summer crept into autumn the niggles began to clear up and I started to really feel the benefits of the consistent mileage. I stuck to the limited racing schedule specified in the plan which saw me do two Parkruns and a low-key 10 mile race (which ended up being more like 7 miles when I took a wrong turn) as my ‘tune-up’ races. This meant that I didn’t have the confidence boost of any PBs during the cycle. However, the key sessions in the P&D plans are the long runs with MP miles and I managed to hit my target pace in each of those. The final one, 18 with 14 at MP, actually felt the easiest and that was when I first really felt like I had a good chance of achieving the sub 3. I stuck to the plan pretty strictly throughout although I did switch out a couple of the midweek LT sessions for MP miles. I enjoyed the VO2max sessions in the later stages and was impressed at how much improvement I saw from week to week.

My main concern going into the marathon was the relatively low mileage I had run. Although I’d been very consistent for the past two years my mileage averaged only 25-30 per week. The plan had obviously boosted this somewhat but I was well aware that the P&D 55 plan is the ‘entry-level’ plan and not really designed for sub 3 attempts. Nevertheless, my times from shorter races suggested I was well capable and in any case I was pretty sure that if I tried to increase the mileage any higher that it would just lead to injury. Another more general concern was my inexperience at the distance, one not helped by me having missed one of the three 20 mile long runs in the plan.

The taper went well and I was particularly careful to watch what I ate for the final few weeks. I dropped from 77kg to 74kg by cutting back on booze and junk food which left me at something approaching race weight (although I’m sure I could go lower if I was more disciplined). I’d been conscious of getting plenty of sleep right through the plan and made an extra effort to get to bed early during the taper. This turned out to be just as well as I slept very poorly for the last three nights before the race. Even though I felt quite relaxed about it during the day at night I lay awake obsessing about tiny details like which socks to wear! I’d also been debating with myself all week (often while lying awake at night) as to whether or not I should stay with the 3 hour pacers. I finally made up my mind sometime in the last 24 hours pre-race to stick with them as I figured that it should prevent me from getting carried away and overcooking the pace early on. I could always push on a bit later in the race if feeling good.

Sandwell

Pre-race

Raceday morning couldn’t really have went any better. I got up at 5.45 and had my well-tested pre-race breakfast of porridge and a bagel. I killed time by doing a few stretches and reading tunguska’s guide to the DCM course for the final time. It reminded me once again of the importance of allowing for the inclines in the first half and being prepared to let the pacers drift ahead a bit if needs be. My wife drove down and we got a parking spot near Grand Canal before walking up to Merrion Square together. Straight away on hitting Mount St the buzz of a big race day hit me. I said my goodbyes just before the bag drop and headed up towards the wave 1 pen around 8.30. I wasn’t sure if there’d be space to do much of a warm up but was happy to find that there was ample room to get a short jog in on one side of Fitzwilliam Square. It was nice to be able to follow my usual pre-race routine. I squeezed into the pen with around ten minutes to go feeling incredibly relaxed and confident. I took my first gel here, with five mins to go, as instructed by GU nutrition. I’d never really taken gels before but after trying a couple of brands out in training I found these most to my liking (Chocolate peanut butter flavour ). I also liked the fact that they only recommended one gel per 45 minutes. That would mean I should only need to take three during the race itself.

Race

Apart from having to dodge the abandoned motorbike I had an uneventful enough first couple of miles. The congestion combined with street furniture did make it somewhat stressful but thankfully I was able to stay out of trouble and keep the lead pacers in close sight as we crossed the Liffey. As soon as we hit the hill up to the NCR I deliberately eased off the pace a bit. I was feeling very comfortable and was probably still a bit stunned by the whole experience – the volume of runners and the level of support and noise from the side of the road. I found the first mile or so through the Park very congested and was glad to hit the wider expanses of Chesterfield. I’d missed the first water station due to congestion so made sure to grab a bottle at the next one and start getting the fluids in. I managed to have a few mouthfuls at each subsequent station.

I let the pacers move ahead again on the long drag up to Castleknock. I was feeling great at this point. Castleknock was insane. I couldn’t believe the level of noise, something that would be replicated at many other points along the course. Once we hit the downhill towards the Knockmaroon gate the pacers began to come back to me. I found things quite congested here and in hindsight probably should have stayed further back from the lead balloons. The pacers seemed to deliberately hold back on the pace going down the Upper Glen Road. I was somewhat frustrated by this but passing them out was not really an option with the level of congestion so I did my best to relax and told myself that they knew what they were doing. It was at some point not long after this that I pretty much stopped looking at my watch and just let them do their job.

The miles from Chapelizod up to Walkinstown passed uneventfully enough. I passed the ten mile mark feeling very comfortable and the halfway point came at Dolphin’s Barn with me still feeling pretty good. I found the long drag up through Crumlin begin to gnaw at the legs a bit but I was distracted by looking out for some friends who were out to support me on the Drimnagh Road. Walkinstown roundabout came and went and now I was into the ‘faster’ miles and a net downhill section. By this stage the pace group had thinned out nicely and I was able to run pretty much alongside the lead pacers with plenty of room. The effort levels were definitely creeping up by now and Terenure, Rathgar and surrounds all somewhat blur into one in my recollection. However, I was never in any danger of falling off the pace and I was alert enough to take on water at every station. My next major landmark was Milltown where I knew my wife and my parents would be out to support me. It’s amazing the difference that knowing someone is waiting up ahead to cheer you can make to your mentality.

Mile twenty crept by and by this stage the reality of being just 10km from the finish and a sub 3 was beginning to sink in. The effort was certainly high at this point but I had no physical issues and I felt very clear-minded and confident that I was going to do this. The lead 3 hour pacer really came into his own during the hilly section up through Clonskeagh as he reminded us constantly to moderate our efforts on the downhills and to dig in on the climbs. Roebuck Hill seemed to come and go in an instant and suddenly we were on the dual carriageway. I assessed myself here and apart from the expected fatigue I honestly felt great. I pushed on a little off the front of the pace group and began that game of catching the runner in front. Before long the sound of the lead pacer behind me had faded away and I could see by my occasional glances at the watch that I was hitting 6:20 pace at times. The final few miles were a mixture of pain and elation, but certainly more of the latter. Thoughts of how lucky I was to be in this position would flood into my mind any time the pain got to be an issue. Having doubted at one stage if I’d ever be able to run again I have a very us Northumberland Road felt like it was never going to end but finally the canal bridge appeared and I knew that I was almost home and hosed. I began to soak up the support for the final time and I was surprised to catch the eye of my cousin in the crowd cheering me on. I could see 2:57 something on the clock up ahead and made a bit of a burst to make sure I dipped under. The next few minutes were a surreal mix of joy and exhaustion. I almost instantly bumped into a clubmate who had finished a minute or so ahead. Cue hugs and congratulations. Shortly after that I spotted my wife and things got even more emotional. I remained on an incredible buzz for the rest of the day and late into the night.

Strava link : https://www.strava.com/activities/761600433

Final thoughts

Looking back I’m still surprised at how well everything went. I had of course trained hard and prepared thoroughly but I’m well aware that that is no guarantee of anything when it comes to the marathon. I almost certainly ran slightly within myself for the majority of the race, something that saw me with a good bit left in the tank come mile 22 and lead to a big negative split. I think using the pacers in the way that I did is a good strategy for an inexperienced runner that’s trying to hit a time goal. It removed a lot of the stress involved in checking the watch although there were times early in the race where I did worry that I was being held back.

The plan now is to recover for the rest of the month, have a crack at the Jingle Bells 5k in early December and after that gradually build up the mileage before a concentrated effort at lowering my 5k and 10k times in the first half of next year. I’ve also entered the lottery for Berlin…

snailsong

Well done, great race, great pacing and great report. I followed you there on Strava if you're wondering who it is.