The Greater Manchester Marathon

Last weekend saw the culmination of two stories of blood, sweat and hard work.  One personal, and the other from the wonderful, over the top pantomime like entertainment that is WWE wrestling, which I will talk about in a later blog.

My story is one that in some ways was 20 years in the making.  As I finished the Greater Manchester Marathon in a time of 3 Hours 4 minutes 22 seconds, and in doing so recorded a, to be confirmed, “good for age” marathon time for London, it was as much a victory for me as it was the 14 year old me, who was unfit, physically lazy, picked last for sports at school and couldn’t run more than 50 meters without dying of exhaustion. 

Even after completing a fair number of triathlons since taking up the sport in 2009, including the toughest of them all, Ironman, I see this as the greatest sporting achievement.  A triathlon friend of mine once pondered, what is more difficult – the marathon at the end of an Ironman or a standalone, ran as hard as possible, marathon?  I tend to say the standalone is harder. 

An Ironman marathon is pure survival and you run it at a gentle pace.  You are only concerned with finishing (unless racing).  Whereas with a standalone marathon its all about time (quick disclaimer, I appreciate most marathon runners only care about finishing and not what time they finish as they run to raise money for a charity or to just do a marathon, but this is aimed more at “racers”).

Last September I ran my first standalone marathon in Wolverhampton in a time of just under 3 hours 26 minutes.  I was pleased, but felt I could get faster with some good training.  I targeted a sub 3:10 at Manchester and trained for it, running 50-60 miles per week, all at varying intensities.  But 4 weeks ago, during the Ashby20 mile race, I realised I could go faster after running at marathon pace, but discovered I went faster very comfortably.   Having figured I would need a year to get to GFA (good for age) pace, I had a decision to make – stick to the original plan or take a gamble.  I went with the gamble thinking to myself you only live once!

The race strategy was simple; run at 7 minute per mile pace for as long as possible, and see how long I can hold on.  This is not the correct way of pacing a marathon.  You should hold back a little, run comfortably, and then if you can, increase the pace at the 20mile mark where the race starts.  However, I know from experience, a set pace is going to be ok after one mile if I am feeling comfortably and not working hard.  This was very true at the marathon so I carried on running at that pace. 

At the halfway point I was starting to tire a little, but physically felt ok.  I think my baby boy waking us up at 4:30am may have been the reason for this!  I even posted a PB for a half marathon.

It was mile 22 where it started to get hard; it is a running cliché, depending on who you talk to, but the marathon either doesn’t start until mile 20 or is only halfway at mile 20.  I was fine at that point, still running around 7 minutes per mile, then mile 22 hit and the last 4 miles suddenly became absolute torture.  Perhaps my pace had been just a tad too hard, maybe my inexperience at the marathon came into play (this was my second standalone and third in total) or maybe it is always hard at mile 22! 

I had to dig deep, I had to work very hard and I could only really afford to drop to 7:20 to 7:30 min per mile pace to get the GFA time.  I was over taking a lot of people, so the drop in pace wasn’t as bad as I thought – in fact I believe taking over people so easily had a adverse effect on me as I wasn’t “racing” anybody to keep my pace up.

The last half mile was unbearable but having seen my family and then having complete strangers cheer me on, I managed to drag my sorry ass to the finish seeing the time on the line and knowing I had done it.  Echoing my favourite wrestler Daniel Bryan, I side stepped to the finish line, arms pointing skywards, shouting YES repeatedly.

This would mirror Wrestlemania in the early hours of the following morning when the very same Daniel Bryan achieved his goals (in both storyline terms and probably real life terms too).

Post race I was knackered.  I had left everything on the course.  I could hardly walk and felt sick.  Racing a marathon is very demanding, both physically and mentally.

In fact 5 days later, I have a cold.  Undoubtedly due to having a weakened immune system but I am also thinking about the future. 

My time is good enough to get an automatic entry to next years London Marathon in their “good for age” entry system.  However, last year they changed the entry time from 3:10 to 3:05 after Manchester meaning a fair number of people missed out.  So hopefully they don’t do that a second year running!

I am planning to run the Robin Hood marathon in Nottingham in September, with the aim at present to pace it better and get another marathon under my belt.  I am tempted to go for a sub 3 hour time, but we will see.  I have a fair number of shorter races with my club this summer which should help get me faster.

But for now, it’s all about recovery.  And rest, plenty of rest.