It was hot. For 26.2 miles it was hot. It was a shock to the system. Until last week I was running in Ron Hill tracksters and a jacket. The body just wasn’t acclimatised for wall to wall sunshine. The forecast (which some of you know I check “occasionally” before a marathon!) said sunny intervals. Someone forgot the intervals bit.

Fortunately I had the forethought on Saturday to purchase sun cream from Morrisons. So by the start of the race I was well suncreamed and vaselined to an inch of my life. Fuelled by a lovely big bowl of porridge especially provided by my great B&B we were off.

I was experimenting running by cadence rather than by pace. I’d done this quite successfully during my training and it worked well. By keeping an eye on the time I could tell I was running to my plan at a steady pace. The plan had been to up it a bit after halfway but with the heat I reconciled myself to continuing steadily on. Miles 13 to 15 for some reason felt hard – I’d have expected this to be a good period seeing as we’d turned at 13.1 and were on our way back. Gel and stretch at 15 miles seemed to give me a boost and I felt a bit better for the next few miles.

From there on it really was just a matter of grinding out the miles. I had to stop to stretch another couple of times as I was afraid of cramping but fortunately this didn’t happen. I always start near the back knowing I’m a slower runner but from mile 14 I was passing quite a few people who were obviously suffering from the heat. From mile 20 the mind games started. Once we got to 22 I told myself it was just a wee 4 miler left, imagining my 4 mile route at home. Then it was a matter of teeth gritted saying to myself the next sign will be 23, then 24, 25 then just 1 more mile to 26. I even managed to push a little in the last mile or so and to sprint at the finish (I use sprint in the loosest sense!). 4:33 on the clock. I was happy with that considering the heat and the training I’d done.

PS  By the way, I now have a lovely brand new Montane lightweight jacket bought a few weeks ago when the forecast read sleet/rain for 10 April. That’s probably why it was so sunny…..!

PPS At mile 21 I consoled myself that I just needed to run 5 more miles and I never had to do another marathon if I didn’t want to… by the time I was in the shower I was already planning the next one. Sound familiar anyone…

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Having had a bit of time to reflect on Sunday’s race, these are just a few of my thoughts.

First of all – just to says cheers to the folks on Twitter for all your positive comments – much appreciated.

General reflections

• There is always an unknown quantity about the marathon, no matter how well you think you have prepared.
• You can train yourself to be mentally stronger and push yourself harder than you think you can.
• What could be called a “bad” race experience, can in fact be a catalyst to improvement and a chance to reevaluate where you’re at with your training, diet and fitness.

What went wrong?

My poor hubby must by now be “race postmortemed out”. Bottom line seems to be that, having considered other factors such as the heat which could well have played a part, he reckons I need to improve my ankle stability and the tracking of my knee. So I need to do strengthening exercises with weights and balance exercises on my wobble board and the Wii Fit.

What’s next?

I have 6 months until my next marathon in Dublin in October. Sunday made me re-evaluate where I was at with my running I think if I’d had a half decent time I would probably have meandered on with my training much as before. Sunday galvanised me into action and made me realise there’s stuff I need to do if I seriously want to improve my running – and I DO want to improve. So looking forward:

• incorporate strengthening and balance exercises into my routine
• increase amount of stretching I do – flexibility is an issue
• maintain a base weekly mileage of about 30 miles a week
• reduce my weight by 1 stone

So in fact rather than being despondent about Lochaber I think I needed such an experience to catapult me into thinking seriously about what I wanted to get out of my running and how much I was willing to put in and what changes I was willing to make.

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Race: Lochaber Marathon
Date: 19 April 2009
Time: 04:58

In case you can’t be bothered to read right through here is a very brief synopsis, as tweeted on Twitter – Had an awful race. Leg seized at mile 10. Nearly quit glad I didn’t. PW 4:58.

In case you’re bored and want the gory details here they are.

I felt relaxed at the start. Felt I had trained and prepared for this marathon better than my previous two marathons. It was sunny and hot, but there was a breeze and I had my Garmin and my pace band to help me keep track of how I was doing.

And I was doing just fine up to mile 10 and within my planned pace but felt comfortable. How quickly it can all go horribly wrong.

My right leg seized up – I had pain right up my shin and into my thigh. I struggled to the halfway point where hubby was waiting poised with camera. I stopped here but he told me to stretch and keep going which I did. However by this stage every other step was painful and I hobbled/ran v slowly/stopped/walked a bit etc for the next few miles. Miles 13-17 are a complete blur. I really wanted to quit – the thought of another 8/10 miles of the pain was unbearable and I knew hubby would be coming past in the car.

He did, with another injured runner and stopped. I thought seriously about giving up at this point but decided to keep going a bit more. He said he would come back as far as Banavie (about mile 22) to see how I was doing.

Not very well at all as it turned out – I struggled to mile 22 having decided to pack it in. My mistake at this point was to think in terms of time rather than distance. On one hand I thought “it’s only 4 miles I can do it “- then immediately thought “that’s another 45-50 mins of running” (as my pace had slowed way down) and just couldn’t get my head round the thought of keeping going for that length of time.

Hubby should be a pyschologist! He listened patiently as I said I couldn’t continue and said if I was sure then that was okay. However, his final words were “so you’re quitting” and I thought – heck no – that word QUIT – I don’t quit. So gritted the teeth and somehow got to the finish line in a personal worst of 4:58.

Part 2 to follow – analysis on what went wrong and the way forward in preparation for Dublin Marathon in October.

I would add that this is a very beautiful and scenic part of the world. The views are spectacular along the route. The marathon is low key with a small field (about 400 runners) but really well organised and I will most certainly return next year to kick those demons into touch.

Lochaber Marathon

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