Rightzone Triathlon

A few thoughts from me on Sundays London Marathon.

I'm now completely fired up (For the triathlon season), feeling positive and have entered the Berlin Marathon in September with a view to achieving my goal of running under the 2.45 barrier (i.e. unfinished business).

After all the amazing Turbo performances by the runners at London and the duathletes at Milton Keynes I'm afraid this story doesn't really measure up. It would be easy to hide for a few weeks and hope nobody mentioned that fact that I fell short!

I ran 2hrs 49mins 25s and I'm extremely disappointed. Read on to find out why. Writing this is part of the mental healing process for me. It's kinda like therapy!

Firstly a big mention to John Taylor who stuck with another one of my grueling plans to run a lifetime and household best 3hrs23mins. Here's a man who has tried, failed and now succeeded in beating a truly challenging goal and at the age of 50!

Speaking of challenging goals, it's no secret I was hoping to break 2hrs 45 mins on Sunday. Why 2.45? Because it's widely considered to be the divide between club runner and elite runner. My lifetime PB is 2hrs47mins. This was set off the back of some monster Ironman training but only a peak running volume of 45 miles in any week. Naturally there were some big bricks and some looooong rides.

Recently I'd run a 1.16 half marathon and a 1.35 Kingston 16 miler. Surely a sub 2.45 was possible (the race calculators predicted anything from 2.38-2.41). Those race calculators assume that you'll do the correct training though. In the main I did (hit a lifetime peak 7 day volume of 75 miles) but due to a bout of illness in late February (lost a week) and some pretty acute ITBS problems (not irritable bowl…..but a painful side of the knee overuse type injury), I lost out on some key 20 milers.

The above isn't meant to be an excuse for why I didn't run to my potential more of a way of picking myself up and fronting up to the challenge once again. I've now failed twice to beat the 2.45 mark. Last time (2006 London Marathon - at mile 19) I convinced myself briefly that I'd never be able to do it. This time I'd paced the first half marathon extremely sensibly and at times it felt like I was holding back big time. Went through half way in 1hrs.21m.40s. This was 10s slower than my goal but in my book spot on otherwise. I was strong to mile 21 and was hitting goal mile splits of around 6.13-6.19. I was starting to reel people in by the dozen and was starting to get excited about what might happen if I simply kept going at the pace I was running. THEN I HIT THE WALL.

Miles 22.5 - 26.2 were terrible in every way. People were coming past in droves, my splits were 1m20s per mile slower than goal pace and I must have looked knackered. Most of you havel been there so there's no need to explain how bad it felt.

So I finished with a shocking last 5km split and 4 mins over my goal. It all went wrong in 4 short miles. Once again I briefly considered throwing in the towel and admitting defeat. I'll never be able to hold 6m16s miles for the full 26.2 miles!! But Chairman John didn't give up after the wind and rain at the Luton Marathon (where he missed his goal by 3 short mins). Nor did Warren when tendonitus threatened to end his epic MTB race with Barry, nor did all of you out there who battle through low points in races only to come through the other end victorious in achieving your goals.

So I'm entered for Berlin in September.

What am I going to change? I'm going to introduce a longer midweek run (say 15 miles), insert one 3.5hr cross country run 4 weeks out, run up to 18 miles at race pace once a week, cut out some of the trash 10 mile nothing type runs and make sure I hit 6 x 21 mile runs in the 9 week prior.

Bring it on (again).

This shot tickled me. Surely some of the worst conditions seen at a UK triathlon. This was the Steyning triathlon that started in normal conditions only to end up looking like this!

I'm not a worrier by nature but it's fairly typical for me to start doubting myself in the week before a major race. Equally, I'm well aware that this is extremely common or should I say normal. I know that most athletes doubt the training they've done. Thoughts that come to mind include:

• Did I do enough?
• Does my knee hurt?
• I feel really tired and lethargic
• My legs look thin and weak
• I feel heavy
• Am I coming down with something

I say with the exception of feeling tired and lethargic I've felt all of the above recently.

The marathon really is such a tough cookie to crack. Every year it's a different test with factors such as illness, work, family and of course injury getting in the way of the "perfect" build up. I refuse to use any of these as excuses for not achieving my goal this year. I'll talk a little more about the goal though.  The goal is to break 2.45. There you go, I've said it, although I think I said it back in November when I started training properly. In fact the quote was as follows:

"The primary goal is to dip under 2hrs 45 mins although I do feel I'm capable of closer to 2.40"

I still concur with the later part of this statement although I'm not going to allow any goal creepage. One day I'll go close to 2.40 although I'm setting my stall out to just run 2.45 on Sunday by aiming to run the 1st half marathon in around 1h.21m.30s. that translates to 6mins13s per mile. Assuming I run the dream race and don't fade at all that will bring me into the finish in around 2hrs43mins. If by some miracle i run a negative split………yeah whatever. If you look at the splits for people who do the London Marathon in under 2.45, very few run a negative split. The top elite runners will though.

My preparation has had the following flaws:

1) I had 2 weeks off in January and 1 week off in February due to colds that turned into infections (and antibiotics)

2) 3 weeks out from the marathon I developed acute ITBS. I've not been able to taper properly and missed the last long 20 mile run. 

There have been times when I've doubted whether I'll start and also times I've felt like packing the campaign in and entering a late season marathon instead. I actually believe I can run sub 2.45 even off an imperfect build. Kingston was run at 5m54s per mile which using the many race calculators that exist out there would bring me home in around 2.39-2.41. I'm calculating that the lack of miles over the last 3 weeks will take the edge of this as most calculators assume you've done the miles (although it's anyone's guess as to the definition of what this actually is). In 2003 when I ran my marathon PB I didn't exceed 45 miles, but then again I was riding 5-6 hours on the bike. This time I put in 2 excellent weeks in early March to compliment all the steady mileage I'd done in January and February. I've never run over 60 miles in one week before. This time I managed two weeks of over 70 miles (even a 75 mile week!).

So I'm signing off now having talked it all through. Writing it all down is like self help therapy! Watch this space to see what happends on Sunday. 

I saw this clip a few months ago and have been meaning to share it. It's a great motivational clip that really wowed me the first time I saw it. You've gotta watch this with the sound turned ON!

IMG_9673, originally uploaded by David Rowe.

16 miles before breakfast? I ask ya! 

Finish time was 1.35.11 for 10th place overall (out of 2000). So a personal worst time as I was exactly 1 min quicker in 2006. I put this down to the head to head I had with Jamie Helmer in 2006.

Results can be found at

http://www.humanrace.co.uk/results08/brun16all.html

I used the Garmin 305 I borrowed from Tim Male for this race. Unfortunately I hadn't spent much time with the watch and it didn't help. I set it up to pace me in for a 1.33 and thought this was on the cards until the last few hundred metres when I realised it had been telling me porkys. Or I just didn't know how to use it.

I went off hard and finished hard. I had stuck with Eoin O'Connell to mile 7 but then the group of three got split up by a surge from a runner who came through the field. I backed off and let them fight it out. Felt very strong throughout which is encouraging. Somehow managed to lose 3 places in the last 2 miles though which was a bit disappointing.  

The ITBS I picked up while running too many hills down in Cornwall has now developed into a pretty acute injury. I'm probably not going to be able to run much until the marathon. Lots of ice, rest, physio and stretching for me.