Posts Tagged ‘marathon’

Last year, I had an awful time at Dublin Marathon and it was a real struggle to finish. But I did and was very proud of doing so. This year, I wad hoping for more of a victory lap where I enjoyed the run and felt good.

To avoid the transport chaos of the morning, I decided to book a hotel. We booked a Staycity, which we tried back in 2012 where it was a bit of a mess. Unfortunately, again it was a mess. We booked a suite, which is supposed to sleep three people but only has one bed and no sofa. It was absolutely tiny. I would say that a regular hotel room would have more space.

Thankfully, the morning was milder than the night and I got to the start line feeling good. Once we were through the check in and into the starter area, there was a kilometre or two walk from there to the start line. This included a convenience store that was open exclusively for runners. I used it to stock up on a bit of extra chocolate while the guy in front of me in the queue hopefully enquired as to whether they sold energy gels. Like the one I was eating at the first photography point.

Then we were underway. I did actually feel reasonable for the first 15k. This section passes through some of North Dublin and spends a lot of time in Phoenix Park. All of this was pleasant enough. After this point, I was on and off with a bit of panic. Nothing like last year but not feeling great, either.

This lasted for most of it. From 30k onwards I couldn’t really decide whether I was physical or mentally stressed. But there were highlights, too. Especially Johnny leading a rendition of happy birthday half way up Clonskeagh hill.

The final few kilometres were a real struggle. I could feel my pace dropping off and I wasn’t sure if I was about to pass out from dehyration, or about to die from hyponatremia. I suspect neither and that I was actually completely fine. Things picked up for the final few hundred metres and I enjoyed crossing the finish line.

Congratulations to th other 87 Blackrock athletes that finished. Especially Gerry, completing his 61st marathon. This was only my 5th big organised chip-timed marathon. But in my defence, two weeks after completing my first, I completed my first ultra and never really looked back.

Dublin Marathon is a city marathon and one of the biggest running events in Ireland with 20,000 athletes taking part. I was really nervous about taking part but also determined to do what I could.

For background, my physical and mental health has taken a real battering over the past two years. I’ve gone from finishing IRONMAN Copenhagen and running 100k to struggling to make it around the 10k at EcoTrail Wicklow last month.

The last time I tried to run a marathon, which was Westport in April, I dropped out at 21k which was my first ever DNF in a running event (not counting backyard ultras, where everyone but the winner is officially a DNF).

Preparation wasn’t what I hoped. I was planning to do the 47k or 30k at EcoTrail but was too ill due to stomach issues. I got one 30k run in beforehand and a 14k + 10k at EcoTrail day, but everything else was 20k or shorter. I knew returning to the marathon was going to be a huge psychological challenge and went in thinking “it would be nice to finish but if it is not on the cards, at least I tried.”

Registration

You have to collect your number from the RDS. It’s a pain because it is about 3km out of the city centre so too far out for public transport and too close to the city centre to find free parking.

It was very well organised, though. There was no waiting to get my number and there were lots of volunteers on hand. I cycled down and between all of the things I had in my pockets and I ended up leaving my phone on the registration deck! Thankfully, a volunteer spotted it and kept it safe for me.

Pre-race

I took the tram into town on the morning of the race. It was the first one of the day to get there on time and was so busy that even from my stop it was already standing room only. It just kept getting busier and by halfway it was so busy that it looked like one of those scenes in Japan where professional shovers cram people onto the metro.

This was not fun. I was in a full panic. I told myself it was only another 15 minutes. But the tram was running so slowly it took an extra 10 minutes to get into town. By the time I got off the tram, I was visibly shaking. Not the start I really wanted.

It was quite a long walk to the start with a choke point for bag checks, then bag drop, then a 2k walk or so to the start pens. By the time I got there, I had already done 8,000 steps. But that’s somewhat inevitable with such a large event.

The first hour

Almost as soon as I crossed the start line I started feeling panic again. The start goes around the city and there were probably some lovely sights but I was finding it difficult to engage in anything.

I knew my friend Holly was working on the water station at 8k so I kept telling myself “just get to 8k and Holly will be there and say encouraging things”. Thankfully, I made it, and Holly was there and gave me the first pep talk I needed to keep going.

The second hour

Anxiety still running high I plodded on. After the first hour of heading north through Phoenix Park, you turn back and come back along the bottom of Phoenix Park and I took a walking break here to gobble some Haribo. Thankfully, I was able to stick to my nutrition strategy for the whole race.

As halfway approached my anxiety built as that is where I dropped out in Westport. I hoped it would get easier after the halfway point but also knew it was unlikely to make much of a difference.

Luckily, my friend Monica was cheering people on at 21k and she was the perfect person to run into at this point, delivering an impromptu counselling session on the side of the road.

The third hour

The lonely 20s. You’re hurting by this point and yet still nowhere near the end. I brought two flasks with me: one with Lucozade and one with Red Bull and at the magic 28k point where I had decided I could start on the caffeine. Delicious caffeine.

I think one of the walking breaks paid off as I managed to crack a smile at some point.

The fourth hour

Into the 30s and things did start getting a bit easier here. The mental pain was receding slightly as the physical pain really started to ramp up. Approaching the four-hour mark I was getting really sick of gels and took a Quality Street from a kind man on the street. I was starting to recognise some places here and that was nice.

The finish

As we approached 40k and beyond I was now feeling confident that I had done it. The last 2k were lovely: I was hurting but it was only physical pain and I was quite misty-eyed knowing that I was going to make it. It felt great to finally be able to take some of the atmosphere in and enjoy it.

My official finish time was:

4:33:07

I met Patricia just after the finish line. She started in a later wave than me but ran a wonderful time to finish well ahead of me. We then met some of the other club members at a local coffee shop for some well-earned caffeine and cake.

Conclusion

I’m absolutely delighted to have finished. I feel like I instantly got some of my mojo back.

I came in thinking it would probably be hell. And it was. Just hours and hours of it and I wanted to quit so bad. But I stuck with it and I finished it. A massive thank you to everyone who came out and cheered, and especially to Holly and Monica for their mid-race pep talks.

I went straight back to running on Tuesday, which I wasn’t physically ready for, but I was just so excited to feel like I was probably running again that I just wanted to get back out there. Everything over the past two years has felt like things were getting worse and this feels like things are getting better. Here’s to much more running to come!

I booked this race a while ago as a chance to take a trip to Ireland’s west coast. Then I picked up an injury and haven’t run much for the past two months. Still, I was armed with some good distance in me and sign-off to run from two physios. I actually suggested I should skip it but they said it would be fine: must be the first time a phyio has talked a runner into running!

The race starts in the quay and takes in a two laps of the green way before heading out along the coast road. The course is described as having some hills but probably nothing that counts as a hill in Yorkshire. There was sunshine before the race. But then the gun went and the rain arrived. It rained a lot for the first hour and it was real stinging rain pelting you in the face.

The rain wasn’t the worst of it, though. I couldn’t shake the feeling that my ankle would give out at any moment and I would be stranded. I knew that was ridicious but it kept distracting me and no amount of psychological tools was shifting the feeling. I tried to keep going as long as I could, which took me through the half way point, but with another 7k to go until the turnaround to come back into town I decided it was too much and called it a day. A big thank you to the marshal and Kevin for giving me a lift back.

It was disappointing as I don’t think I have ever had to DNF on a run before but I live to fight another day.

What could be better than doing a middle distance triathlon an then resting? Following it up with a marathon the next day! It is very much unclear why I thought this would be a good idea at the time.

I missed a spot on my collar while applying suncream on Saturday, and even the area I did cover were not looking too fresh. otherwise, I felt an acceptable level of stiff. You might ask how I stayed hydrated the evening before given I had just done a triathlon. This is how:

There were around 26 of us from the running club down at the event so we met before the race for a few team photos.

The first 10k of the race is hilly. I was aiming for a “let’s just get around but it would be nice to go somewhere between 4:00 and 4:30” mood. Given how tired I was from the day before, it soon became clear that 4:30 was going to be difficult but possibly achievable, even with talking the initial hills.

After this, the course moves onto the greenway and levels out. The morning clouds were gradually giving way, though, and the sun kept coming out and slowly baking us all. The organisers had put additional water stations on so I was able to douse myself every 4k or so.

I was tired the whole way around. It felt good getting to the half way point but I began to feel quite anxious after this. I’m not sure if it was the no-mans-land of being past half way and yet no way near finishing, or just being so far away with it being and out-and-back, or just the rest of life getting on top of me. Really disappointing, though, as running is my thing. I kept moving with some running and some walking.

Having raced the day before, it was impossible to come into the race with perfect hydration, so I ran with my backpack and flasks. This mean I had 250 ml of Red Bull sitting in one of them that I saved for the 30k point. The combination of closing in on home and caffeine kick gave me the boost to get through the final hour.

Best of all, there was a crowd from the club cheering us home. My official time was:

4:23:19

We finished the day with a celebration at the pub, followed by a meal and craic. It was lovely to get to know everyone better and thank you for making me feel welcome.

Tollymore is a forest park located at the foot of the Mourne Mountains in Newcastle. So that’s not the Newcastle in England, nor the one that is in County Dublin, or the five others that are in the Republic of Ireland. It’s the one in County Down, Northern Ireland. There are a lot of them.

It is a pretty hilly affair. The race starts from the car park which is not too far from the river at the bottom of the valley, and then goes up the hill and down again four times. It’s not mountainous but the over 1,000 metres of evaluation gain mean there are long, steep climbs that switch back and forth. The route comes out of the vegetation several times onto the barren hilltops.

The race is available in half marathon (one loop), marathon (two loops) and ultra (three loops) formats. The first few kilometres were about people sorting out their positions as we ran in a large group before the inevitable thinning out that allows you to see the ground in front of you.

It rained most of the morning, right up until the start. I started in a buff and rain jacket but was soon too warm and packed everything away into my running pack. Despite the clouds and gloom it was comfortably warm after this. On the second lap my stomach was starting to moan so I switched out some of my nutrition for the cake on offer at the feed station.

As I reached the main road that brings you back into the finish of the lap, Elina and Venla came walking along it from Newcastle. A lovely boost to cheer me home. My official time was:

4:21:15

That was good enough for 34 out of 73. I had no time ambition going in, but was pushing for sub-4:30 towards the end. Nobody managed to run under three hours. Despite the hills, or more likely because of them, it was an incredibly beautiful event and I will probably return to the Mournes for future races.

In autumn last year, I noticed my motivation was flagging. I decided to set myself a challenge and didn’t think that anything shorter than a marathon would really do it, so I signed up for the Sir Titus Trot. I was supposed to run the race (half-marathon distance) but picked up an injury before the race. This year was not to be either as the government pulled the race licence 48 hours before.

By that point, I was ready to race, though, so I decided to turn it into a self-supported marathon.

It was bright and sunny when I set off but still cold. The grass was frozen which made for a nice surface. I turned around just after Apperley Bridge and headed back to the car park to pick up more supplies. On the way back, the ground was a little muddier as the sun melted it. And then the snow arrived. It settled on most of the canal making it a bit slippy under foot.

As I got back to Leeds it cleared up and I set off toward Skelton Grange bridge for the final out and back. By this point at the Yorkshire marathon I was dying, but I felt good this time. The final quarter hurt about the same as the third quarter, which is not insignificant, but manageable compared to how the fourth quarter felt! I realised I could set a PB if I put in a fast final few kilometres and finished in:

3:55:33

That is 1:44 seconds faster than my previous PB. And that was in the snow without trying (for example, I stopped to take a selfie). That said, I was wearing my Nike Vaporfly Next%, so what are records now that I should be running 4% faster because of the shoes?

In any case, a great way to begin 2021.

Chicago is one of the six marathon majors in the world, along with London, Berlin, Tokyo, New York and Boston. Why this is, is unclear. Nobody turns up to Chicago. The London route is lined with supporters the entire route. In Chicago, you can hear the footsteps of the athletes on the TV camera because there is no other sound.

That did not stop Brigid Kosgei, however. The London marathon winner shot out of the gate and refused to slow down, coming home in a new world record time of 2:14:04. This smashed the previous record of 2:15:25 that has been held by Paula Radcliffe since 2003 by 1:21.

On the finish line, Radcliffe congratulated Kosgei and said she always knew this day would come. I think collectively, as white people, we all knew this day would come, too. Radcliffe’s previous record was itself phenomenal, being over 3 minutes ahead of Catherine Ndereba’s 2001 world record time. It had stood for 16 years. The nearest anyone has got to it until now was Mary Keitany with 2:17:01.

Notably, of the 10 fastest marathon times ever for both men and women. Radcliffe’s time was the only one not set by a Kenyan or Ethiopian. Whatever genetic or cultural factors allow Africa to produce the world’s best distance runners, Radcliffe has been the only person in the world who was able to keep up with them. On the men’s side, you have to go back to before I was born to find a non-African world record holder.

But all records fall eventually (except Jerry Rice, obvs), and Brigid Kosgei’s incredible performance puts her nearly three minutes ahead of any time other the Radcliffe. That’s a huge gap. Will it too stand for decades, or give other runners the self-belief that they can run faster, too? I’m excited to find out.

Back in 2017, Eliud Kipchoge led the charge at the #breaking2 event, the first attempt to run a sub-2 hour marathon. On that occasion, we came up 26 seconds short. A the time, I was desperately trying to run a sub-2 hour half (for the record, I did).

Two years later, and Kipchoge arrived in Vienna for the 1:59 Challenge. If the attempt in Italy was well-planned, it was nothing compared to this. Sponsored by INEOS, Dave Brailsford from British Cycling was brought in to mastermind the entire operation.

The perfect location had been selected: a straight road with two roundabouts at each end. The perfect time of year had been selected, with a 10-day window to get the right weather. A team of seven pacers would run with Kipchoge at all time, in a Flying V formation with two runners at the back. The idea was that this created the perfect shape to protect Kipchoge from the wind. A team of 41 world-class runners were brought in, each asked to run a 5km in 14:10 (2:50 per kilometre). A car in front of the runners projected lasers on the ground telling each runner where to be.

In the end, Kipchoge finished in 1:59:39, making it the first-ever sub-2 hour marathon.

It won’t stand as a world record. This is because pacers were swapped in and out, nutrition was delivered via a bike and there was only one “competitor”. This makes it much easier than a real race where you would have to have your face in the wind once the pacers dropped away, and dodge around other runners to pick your nutrition up from a table at the side. I also heard a rumour that the special Nike shoes may not be legal in a marathon, but I am not sure if this is true or not.

Regardless, though, running 26.2 miles in under two hours is an incredible achievement. I’m a little disappointed as I always wanted to be the first person to run under two hours. But, realistically, it is starting to look like I won’t be able to do that anyway. Since I have been a runner, there has been a lot of debate as to whether sub-2 was even theoretically possible. Many people said it wasn’t. Now we know.

Last Sunday I completed the Hubble Hubble ultramarathon. I came 5th overall with a time of 5:18:11. It turns out that if you want to place in the top ten, the easiest way is to enter an event with only 11 participants.

52.6 km (32.7 miles) in 5:18:11

Two weeks ago I ran the Yorkshire Marathon. Why run an ultra two weeks later? Sheer laziness. Training for a marathon is a big undertaking: even coming off the triathlon season I had to spend a few months building up the distance. It seemed like a lot of effort to do that twice. On the other hand, if I stacked them two weeks apart, one big training block beforehand would allow me to call myself both a marathon and an ultramarathon runner without ever having to run again.

Besides which, it was my stomping ground. The run starts in Kirkstall and is exclusively based on the towpath. You run down into the city centre, out to Saltire, back to the city centre and finally back to Kirkstall. A total of 52.5 kilometres, which makes it a mere ten kilometres longer than a marathon. Easy, right?

The first 30 kilometres passed without incident. I felt good all the way to Saltaire. But, as I headed back, I began to feel the strain. By 35 kilometres in I could keep running no more and began to allow myself short walks between running segments which carried on for the rest of the race. Luckily, it didn’t affect my pace too much and I continued to do around 6:15 per kilometre. I was very relieved to pass back through Kirkstall at the 43-kilometre point where I was able to pick up my second bidon, complete with a set of caffeine gels.

The weather was reasonably kind. It was cold, a little under ten degrees, but that is a good temperature for running, and we only experienced a little bit of rain. Nothing compared to the Yorkshire Marathon.

The winner, Robert Eagles, was 40 minutes ahead of me at 4:37:32. I was eight minutes behind the guy in fourth place and 40 minutes ahead of the guy that finished behind me. All participants finished in under seven hours.

One of the highlights of It’s Grim Up North Running events is the amazing selection of homemade cakes. Unfortunately, by the time I finished the runners doing the shorter distances had almost cleaned them out. But I did come away with a Halloween-themed cupcake.

Recovery was a mixed bag. I didn’t have the muscle fatigue I had after the marathon where it hurt to get up and down. I was a little stiff after not moving for a while but otherwise fine. However, the bottom of my foot really hurt and gave me quite a limp. Not sure which one was worse but neither have been terrible.

And now I look forward to never having to run again. Well, after the Dash next week…

As it was my first marathon event, I decided to splash the cash on the official photos.

This one is near the start. You go from the university, into town via the Minster, and then out into the countryside. So, at this point, I’m feeling okay.

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