More Marathon Photos

Some more race pics that turned up from a different photographer. Facial expressions are even worse on these ones, it looks like I was really struggling!

Halstead and Essex Marathon 2011

Well, race day finally came round. Got up nice and early and had a good hearty breakfast of meusli and fruit about three and a half hours before the race start. Left in plenty of time, and enjoyed driving through the picturesque rolling Essex contryside to get there. In fact the route itself was through lots of small villages, lanes and minor roads, all looking at their best this time of year.

Registration and preparation all went super-smoothly, leading up to the set off at 10am. I wouldn’t say I was nervous, just really unsure what to expect as I’ve never done anything remotely like this before.

Despite trying not to, I did the first couple of miles way too quick. This is quite common, and usually a result of people being keyed up, and feeling quite fit and strong due to the training tapering off in the previous fortnight. The steepest hill was in the first couple of miles too, which didn’t help, although it wasn’t as bad as I was anticipating. In fact the entire course was pretty hilly, as you can see from the elevation profile:

Elevation Profile (click to zoom)

You can tell from the pics I was concentrating all the way through, in fact for much of it the legions of marshals and well-wishers cheering everyone one was a bit of a distraction, as I kept coming out of my focus to acknowledge them. Later on, though, they really made a difference, as many of them seemed to find something personal and positive to call to each individual runner, despite the fact that most of them must have really just been one more face in an endless succession. In some of the more thickly populated sections of supporters towards the end, I managed to get quite emotional if I let myself think about it too hard.

So the first half of it was really quite positive, and I had settled down into somewhat of a groove. It was really quite hot though (about 21 degrees), which together with the hills was really taking its toll. I was having two full cups of water at each water stop (about every three miles), and even that didn’t feel enough. There were also sponges at some of the stations, which helped. Although I did feel dehydrated for much of the first three quarters, I didn’t have any symptoms of heat exhaustion etc, fortunately.

Almost exactly at the half way mark I started to have problems, partly from fatigue, and partly from injury. My physio had treated the knee, which was the last thing to have problems, and that held up remarkably well. The thing that really started to do me in though was my illiotibial bands. I had been having problems with these on and off for weeks, although I thought I had largely got them conquered. When it flares up, it feels like the outside of your thigh grates backwards and forward across your hips every time you take a step, which is either painful, or even if not does affects your stride. Walking or running normally you feel like you are striding like John Wayne when he wasn’t on his horse.

In the end I found that running with very short baby steps was the only way I could carry on, as even walking was slower and more painful. Hence you can see in the data from my GPS watch (below) my pace for each mile got significantly slower. Generally, starting and stopping was very painful, but keeping going wasn’t too bad, so that’s what I tried to do for most of the second half! A lot of other people were alternating walking and running (faster than me) by that stage, so there was a lot of me overtaking and being overtaking by the same people repeatedly.

For much of the second half I ran with a nice guy called Chris from St Albans, who like me had hopes of doing a lot better if the circumstances had been ideal, but had unexpectedly got sick from the energy gels he was taking (about once every couple of minutes for much of it, which was a real drag). So we kept each other going fairly effectively. Fortunately my gels and my breakfast sat really well on my stomach, so that was one thing didn’t have to worry about. (I did have a diarrhoea attack along with flushes and chills, which I really didn’t need, but the immodium I was carrying partially dealt with that.)

I was expecting, as everyone says, that the last six miles are really the hardest of all. And in fact they were. Every tenth of a mile felt like one mile usually does. What I hadn’t been prepared for, though, was such a long period of struggling from the 13th mile onwards. Realistically I can’t say I’m surprised, with the double whammy of injury and missing nearly two weeks of peak training because of the injury. Officially I kept saying that I wasn’t setting any goals other than just to finish, as these just set you up for feeling like you’ve failed if you don’t meet them. But secretly, I suspect like many people who say the same thing, I was hoping that I could do the thing in under 4 hours. But looking at my splits I’ve got to say that that wasn’t really ever on the cards, even before I started to slow down. All this psychological management goal setting is of course just as much a part of the training as the physical side.

So here’s the data as taken from my GPS watch. The overall times aren’t really accurate as I accidentally left the auto-pause setting turned on, and I forgot to press Stop at the finish line, but the rest of it should be reasonably accurate:

Click to view data in Garmin Connect

And here are some pics. Still haven’t got the official time, but the finish line photo has it as 04:35:13!

Scheduled Distance: 26 miles
Actual Distance: 26.24 miles (not following the racing line, etc!)
Rate of Perceived Exertion: Moderate to very hard effort
Avg HR: 150 bpm, zone 3.6
Avg Pace: 10:19 min/mi
Time: 04:35:13
Weather: 21°C(!), sunny/intermittently overcast, intermittent breezes

5 Miles

5 Miles

5 Miles

13 Miles

25 Miles

Finish

Finish

Fifth Physio Appointment

Missed the final run and final walk this week before the race, because my knee mysteriously swelled up. Not fussed about missing them, as training is essentially finished and they were really only to keep me loose.

James did another good job of fixing me up yesterday, with acupuncture, massage and his most creative kinesio taping job yet. Apparently the thing that usually causes swelling like that is giving your knee or leg a hard bump, which I just haven’t done. Anyway it’s gone down now and feeling pretty good.

Quite relaxed about the race tomorrow. Lots to remember and organise, and not much time to actually think about the event itself!

Marathon Training Week 16.1

Nice easy run in my final week before the race. These are not really training runs, just to keep me all loosened up. Nice sunny cool evening for it. One more run to go…

Click to view in Garmin Connect

Scheduled Distance: 3 miles
Actual Distance: 3.23 miles
Rate of Perceived Exertion: Easy effort
Avg HR: 148 bpm, zone 3.4
Avg Pace: 08:52 min/mi
Time: 00:28:39
Weather: 12°C, sunny

Marathon Training Week 15.4

Another lovely day at Felixstowe. Nice and warm but a very strong wind which kept me cool, helped me along when I running south, and made it practically impossible to run north!

You can see the difference in the splits: miles 1, half of 5, 6 and 7 were run south, the rest north. Mile 1 was my fastest mile yet, at 7:21 min/mile.

So this was my last long run. Felt very strong and my knees didn’t bother me. If race day’s like this Sunday week I’ll be very pleased. Two more runs and a walk to go…

Click to view in Garmin Connect

Scheduled Distance: 8 miles
Actual Distance: 8.06 miles
Rate of Perceived Exertion: Moderate effort
Avg HR: 154 bpm, zone 3.4
Avg Pace: 08:35 min/mi
Time: 01:09:10
Weather: 16°C, sunny, 20 mph wind

Marathon Training Week 15.3

12°C is not so cold really, but I’ve been feeling absolutely freezing for several days, after the nice weather we’ve got used to. Only three more training runs to go!

Click to view in Garmin Connect

Scheduled Distance: 3 miles
Actual Distance: 3.22 miles
Rate of Perceived Exertion: Easy to moderate effort
Avg HR: 148 bpm, zone 3.4
Avg Pace: 08:56 min/mi
Time: 00:28:48
Weather: 12°C, cloudy

Fourth Physio Appointment

Last week’s heavy duty ITB massage seemed to really work wonders, and left quite a bruise in the process. I could really feel a grating noise and sensation as the tendon layers separated away from each other. James did a bit more of this this week, concentrating on the upper part of the tendon instead of the lower as last week.

The other breakthrough we had was with my knees. My knee pain was never present in any of the three previous sessions, but this time I felt it as soon as James put the ultrasound unit on my kneecaps – it felt like he was pressing down really hard, although he was barely touching it to the skin. The weird thing was, if he or I did the same thing with our fingers I felt nothing, no matter how hard the pressure. Something to do with how the ultrasound stimulates it.

Anyway, it means this is defintitely diagnosed as patellar tendinitis, aka jumper’s knee, and quite treatable. He did some kinesio taping and gave me some strengthening exercises for it, and said the jumper’s band (which I was already using, having stumbled onto it pretty much my accident) was good to relieve the symptoms.

Marathon Training Week 15.2

Four more runs to go! Time for my weekly physio and acupuncture appointment tomorrow…

Click to view in Garmin Connect

Scheduled Distance: 5 miles
Actual Distance: 5.15 miles
Rate of Perceived Exertion: Moderate effort
Avg HR: 151 bpm, zone 3.7
Avg Pace: 08:45 min/mi
Time: 00:45:05
Weather: 12°C, cloudy

Marathon Training Week 15.1

Long time no post… I missed about a week and a half of runs through injury, then got out of the habit of updating the blog. Then I nearly gave up twice, then decided not to give up, and am now fully committed to running the marathon.

The good news is that the ITB problems have been brought under control and made a lot better by my physio, and that I have been carrying on running. At some point I’l go and retrospectively update all the runs on the blog that I didn’t miss.

Well into the training taper now, and only 5 more runs (and a walk) to go before the race on Sunday 8th May!

Click to view in Garmin Connect

Scheduled Distance: 3 miles
Actual Distance: 3.23 miles
Rate of Perceived Exertion: Easy to moderate effort
Avg HR: 154 bpm, zone 3.9
Avg Pace: 08:34 min/mi
Time: 00:27:41
Weather: 15°C, sunny

Marathon Training Week 14.3

Another nice run in the late sun today. Seemed to go very smoothly. Hopefully I’m over the wobble now.

Click to view in Garmin Connect

Scheduled Distance: 5 miles
Actual Distance: 5.17 miles
Rate of Perceived Exertion: Moderate effort
Avg HR: 151 bpm, zone 3.7
Avg Pace: 08:56 min/mi
Time: 00:46:14
Weather: 21°C, sunny