B-HAG Running Episode 17: My First Marathon

In this episode I share with you my race report from my first marathon! I also discuss new B-HAGs and the future of this podcast.
The Sydney Marathon
http://www.sydneymarathon.org

My Race Report on Corso La Meta

http://corsolameta.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-sydney-marathon-race-report.html

Listener feedback from: @Caffinara @OasisDouglas @Krister_RtNP Dave from Wales and Mick from Queensland.

World Wide Festival of Races Sydney Meet-Up
http://sydneywwfor.info/

Song: ‘Calling to You’ by Isaboe

All music in this episode is from www.musicalley.com

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My Sydney Marathon Race Report

As this was my first marathon, I hadn’t gone into this event with a time goal, but I had gone in with two key aims: firstly and most importantly to have fun and enjoy myself; and secondly, to finish strong.

NB: Warning... this is a long post. But as this event is what this blog was first started for, I figured you'd understand! Plus, there's a neat video my wife took at the end.

The weather forecast for Sunday had been threatening rain all week, but the weather on the day couldn’t have been better. A cool, overcast start with the sun appearing later in the morning to create a beautiful spring day. No wind to speak of and a low relative humidity. Temperature range 11C/52F to 19C/66F.

I’d slept surprisingly well the night before and awoke feeling refreshed and ready at 5:00am. I took my time getting ready – all my gear had been prepared and laid out the day before. I had a breakfast consisting of two slices of wholegrain toast with peanut butter, some black coffee and 500ml of Powerade. My son O-Dub had eaten the last bananas so I had to skip that part of my routine, (this kid would live on fruit if you let him – he eats about half a dozen apples a day and as many bananas as he can get his hands on… I swear he’s part fruit bat!).

I caught the train I to the race’s start at the northern end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge where I arrived at 6:50am with plenty of time to spare to take care of business in the portajohns with million dollar views (all lined up with amazing panoramic views across the harbour to the CBD and the Opera House!).

Start to 5km
I entered the corral for my starting group around 7:15am. I’ve started from this same start line three times for the Half Marathon which takes place on the same day and leaves an hour earlier. That is quite a crush with a big crowd. However, with only 3500 entrants in the marathon, there was plenty of room for everyone to feel very comfortable. I was feeling pretty relaxed. I even got out my Blackberry and sent off a quick tweet!

After the wheelchair athletes started first, we were off at 7:35am. My plan for this race was pretty simple. Stick as close as I could to my planned marathon pace (MP) of 5:23min/km (8:39min/mile) as long as I was able until the end. I’ve only ever run as far as 32km/20miles in training, so the last 10km/6.2 miles were uncharted territory.

We headed from the start towards North Sydney, then back around onto the Warringah Freeway and across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. You don’t realise just how colossal this structure is until you find yourself on foot, in the middle of the bridge, 161 ft above the water below and 295 ft below the top of the arch above you.

For the first five kms or so sticking to my MP required some effort. The temptation is to run with the flow of the crowd. However, I kept very close watch on my pace, didn’t deviate and was content to let people pass me knowing that holding back now would help me in the second half of the race. After the bridge, the course runs through ‘the corkscrew’ a traffic tunnel cut through sandstone in a descending arc. Then along the Cahill expressway and into the city proper.

Splits: 5:22, 5:21, 5:11, 5:20, 4:16 (the last km the Garmin was thrown out by lost satellite reception in the corkscrew)

5-11km
The course then went up Macquarie Street , past Hyde Park then wound down through the Botanic Gardens and back up again to Hyde Park where we ran a cross a temporary pedestrian bridge over Park Street. From the end of Hyde Park the course heads up Oxford Street. I was feeling strong and very comfortable sticking to my pace. I had my Camelbak on and avoided slowing down through the drink stations, instead drinking the Powerade I was carrying and consuming three Endurolyte tablets and three trusty jelly snakes every 10km or so.

Splits: 5:20, 5:13, 5:22, 5:31, 5:21, 5:35.

12-21 km
We turned right off Oxford street and ran past plenty of folks still coming out of nightclubs in Darlinghurst… their Saturday evening revelry only just coming to an end at around 8:30am on Sunday. There were a few bleary-eyed looks of disbelief at the freaks running past en masse and some very half-hearted cheering!

This is where we started into what I thought was the most technically challenging part of the race – 17kms of loops and switchbacks through the Sydney Cricket Ground precinct, Moore Park and Centennial Park. The route was flat, but at some points there were three lanes of traffic with runners heading up and down in different directions and at different stages of the race. Despite having studied this part of the route very carefully, it was still very confusing – although well marked and marshalled.

I reached the 21km point in Centennial Park in around 1hr53mins. I was feeling strong, still hitting my target paces fairly well and things were looking good. There was heaps of great crowd support in Centennial Park.

Splits: 5:34, 5:19, 5:21, 5:27, 5:19, 5:25, 5:24, 5:31, 5:29, 5:35

21-30km
The switchbacks continued up until the 28km mark and then we started heading towards the city, back down ANZAC Parade to Oxford Street and then back to Hyde Park. At around the 27-28km mark I started to experience a stomach cramp and that started to slow me down a bit. It abated fairly quickly, but by the 29km mark I was noticing that while I felt as though I was running at around 5:30min pace, my Garmin was telling a different story. I was physically making the same effort, my heart rate hadn’t changed, but I was going 30 seconds slower per km and was finding it difficult to pick up the pace. I had started to hit the wall.

Splits: 5:35, 5:23, 5:35, 5:32, 5:35, 5:37, 5:47, 5:58, 6:13, 6:01.

31-39km
From Hyde Park, we ran through the financial district to Circular Quay, from where we could see where we would eventually finish at the steps of the Sydney Opera House. My quads and hamstrings felt sore, but I didn’t feel like they were cramping yet. They just couldn’t go as fast as I wanted them to any more. We ran through the Rocks, under the southern edge of the Harbour Bridge and along Hickson Rd through Millers Point and Barangaroo. By the 37km mark, My legs really began cramping up and for the next 3km through Darling Harbour and Ultimo and back to Millers Point I walked for one minute and ran for five minutes to give my legs a little rest. I began to see my aim of ‘enjoying the run’ start to fail as this was just a hard, gruelling slog. But I comforted myself that the ‘enjoyment’ factor is not just that which you experience at the moment, but also what you can look back and reflect on at the end.

Splits: 6:08, 7:09, 6:20, 6:54, 6:39, 6:36, 7:33, 7:26, 7:45

40-42.2km
At the 40km mark I experienced something I’ve never known in my running. My right leg began to feel as though it was asleep. I couldn’t get it to respond properly. I felt as though I had to flick it forward with each step to keep going. There were a lot of folks starting to really feel it by this stage. I’d seen folks passed out at the aid stations with the medics, people stopping and sitting down at the edge of the road. I told myself there was only 2km to go and that I just had to suck it up and keep going. I started getting some feeling back in my leg and picked up the pace a little, but felt like I wasn’t doing much more than a shuffle. But when I came back around under the bridge and saw the Opera House and the finish line about 1.5km away, I picked up the pace and gave it everything I had left.

There were great crowds through Circular Quay and I could hear people saying “Keep it up mate!” and “Keep going, you’re almost there!” I also knew that somewhere among the crowd on the final few hundred metres would be Ms Jaydub, and the kids. Sure enough, about 300 metres from the end, there they were yelling out to me. I ran over to them and grabbed their hands telling them I’d see them after the finish.

I ran on feeling like a million bucks and as the finish came into sight I started laughing uncontrollably as I was running.

Splits: 8:26, 7:20, 7:18.

I crossed the finish line of my first marathon in 4 hours, 13 minutes and 28 seconds.

Had I finished strong? Yes, I think I had. Check.

Had I enjoyed myself? Most of the run was a joy. As the day wore on after the race, and as I had the opportunity later on to share some wine with some friends and reflect about what it was like, I realised that yes, I had enjoyed it. Very much! Check.

Now… what next?

Pre-Race OCD. Thirteen and a half hours till the starting gun...

Pre-Race OCD:

• Nike Dri-Fit Tech Tee
• Nike Dri-Fit Shorts
• Skins Long Compression Tights (optional)
• Wright Running Socks
• Mizuno Wave Nexus 3's (c. 950km)
• Army Issue ESS Ice Sunglasses
• Garmin 305 and HR strap
• 2Litre / 70 Oz Camelbak (for Powerade)
• 12 Endurolyte tablets
• 12 Jelly Snakes

Now all I have to do is check the weather forecast every 5 minutes.

 

B-HAG Running Episode 16: Final Thoughts Before My 1st Marathon

In this episode I share some final thoughts before attempting my first marathon on September 19, 2010.

The Sydney Marathon
http://www.sydneymarathon.org/

Worldwide Festival of Races
http://www.worldwidefestivalofraces.com

WWFoR Sydney Get-together
http://sydneywwfor.info/

Geeks in Running Shoes
http://geeksinrunningshoes.com/

Stuart’s Quadrathon podcast and blog
http://quadrathon.blogspot.com/
Title Music is from www.musicalley.com

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B-HAG Running Episode 15: Taper Madness

In this episode I discuss taper madness, earthquakes and recap week 14 of my training.

The symptoms and treatment of taper madness
http://blog.runnerslounge.com/2008/09/symptoms-and-tr.html

This week’s song: ‘Ray of Gob’ a mash-up by Mark Vidler from
http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/

Title Music is from http://www.musicalley.com/

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Vale: My Mizuno Wave Nexus 2's - Farewell good and faithfull servants.

1400 kilometers of diligent service. 1100 of those in the last eight months. I can't for the life of me work out how the heels wore the way they did, I am a confirmed mid-foot striker.

Goodbye old friends.

Route Video of the 2010 Sydney Marathon

A high-speed video of the route for this year's Sydney Marathon on September 19. It just seems to go on and on forever! Only 11 days to go!

There is also a Course Map and a Course Profile

Training Update Week 35: Wherein I realise I can do this marathon, and I mourn the passing of my running shoes.

Aug 27 – Sept 2. There was an extra run in this training week as The Tempo run from my previous week’s marathon training was a day later than usual. This ended up making Week 35 a new record week in terms of the number of kilometres run with a total of 67km for the week. This was the training week where I finally came to realise that I can do this marathon – not necessarily at my target marathon pace – but I can finish strong. A lot can happen between now and race day on September 19, but I’m feeling ready!

The First Tempo Run

The plan called for 13km at my 'target' marathon pace of 5:23min/km. I was very cautious to keep to that pace as I want to get an instinctive feel for what that sort of effort entails. I don't honestly think I'll manage that average pace on the day over 42km, but I'm just sticking to the plan... it hasn't let me down yet.

The Long Run

This was the fifth and final 32km/20 mile run for my 16 week training program. It was also the one with the most challenging target pace - 5:32min/km. I have been pretty certain for the last two weeks that this was going to be beyond me. But I was wrong - the plan had more faith in my ability to do this than I had faith in myself!

Anyway, I did it. I hit the target pace over the whole 32km, AND I felt as though I could have kept going for another 10km. This is the run that said I'm ready to run my first marathon.

The Track Workout

While the big long runs are now behind me in this program, it’s still serving me up some pretty tough track workouts.

The plan called for 8 x 800m with 1:30 rest intervals. The Target pace for the 800s was 3:29 each.

My splits were: 3:14, 3:20, 3:26, 3:28, 3:29, 3:26, 3:22, and 3:18.

Not quite as consistent as I would have liked, but pretty good nonetheless.

The Other Tempo Run

My shortest training run for quite a while.

The plan called for 8km at my (unachievable!) marathon target pace of 5:23min/km (8:39min/mile). I felt comfortable and strong for this one and maintained a good, easy pace for the 8km. I’m not too sure about throwing another 34km on top of that at that pace!

My Mizuno Wave Nexus 2's which now have almost 1400kms on them breathed their last on this run. They have served me long and well. I feel they deserve a decent send off... Perhaps an old style viking funeral; cast adrift in a flaming longboat on their final run to Valhalla.

I shall have to rely solely now on my Wave Nexus 3s, mere whipper-snappers with only 880kms on them.

Total for the week: 67km
Total for the year: 1346km

B-HAG Running Episode 14: Planning for Race Day

In this episode I discuss the practical and mental considerations in planning for race day and update weeks 12 and 13 of my training.

Listener B-HAG from Barry L. (aka ‘Barry from suburban Baltimore!’)

The Comrades Marathon http://www.comrades.com/

What is a B-HAG? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hairy_Audacious_Goal

What is Corso La Meta? http://corsolameta.blogspot.com/2010/03/corso-la-meta-whats-in-name.html

The title song: ‘Golden Year’ by Isaboe http://isaboe.com/isaboe/index.html

 All music in this episode comes from http://www.musicalley.com/

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