Race Report – The London Marathon 2015

It was kind of strange, the days leading up to the race I swung between nervousness and calm. I knew the big day was coming up, but at the same time it still felt forever away. I didn’t sleep the night before. But that was alright. I knew that was coming. It would mean that I wouldn’t miss my alarm come morning.

Getting up to the start was nice and easy. A train to London and then follow the runner to the train to take us to the  Blackheath Blue Start. It was a chilly morning, many of the runners were wrapped up warm in layers of clothing, plastic bags or foil capes. I happily ate my porridge while waiting for other Team SpecialEffect members to appear. Dave was easy to find. I knew roughly when his train was coming in and simply stood by the gate waiting. Nick on the other hand, was a little more difficult to locate. But locate him we did. After a final trip to the loos, we headed to the starting pens.

And waited. Seriously guys, don’t worry if you’re in one of the further pens. I’ve always started in the final pen and twice I’ve started right at the back. At the end of the day, we all have the same distance to run.

Myself, Dave and Nick before the little run around London.

When we did finally start walking towards that starting line, I had a huge grin on my face. I know I had 26.2 miles to run, but just getting to that start line was thrilling. Over the line I went, clicked on the Garmin and began my run. I watched both Nick and Dave disappear into the crowds after we set off. I’m a slow runner and I knew what pace I was supposed to be going at, so that was okay. I had a plan and I was trying my best to stick to it.

Early on in the race I got to run past the team with the guy in the big dinosaur. I wish I’d been able to have taken a picture with them behind me, it would have been great! But I’ll settle for running next to them for a bit. It wasn’t long after that that I got to see part of my race support group, my wonderful Sister and her awesome boyfriend had come out to cheer me on. Huge grin and a wave and I was past them wondering where they would turn up next. I ran past Team Stiletto next I think. That’s the lady that was running in 3inch high heels. I went up to say hi and to give her a little fist bump. Marathons are tough enough without adding heels into the equation. I think it was around this time I spotted the other half of my race support team. My Dad had also come up to cheer me on. Now, I’ll say this for both my Sister and my Dad. Even though I didn’t really know where about on the course they would be (my Sis had given me a rough idea where she was heading to, but my Dad was a wildcard), they managed to appear at three different places each throughout the course. I only failed to spot my Sis once and my Dad had somehow managed not only to see me, but in the cases where he was next to the road he managed to pick the side I’d be on as well. He’s a race support wizard, I swear. My Sis is awesome as well and she always bring me extra gels.

I was going fine up until the halfway point. My training had been a bit rough this year. My longest run was about 12.5miles, so anything after that was going to be interesting. I wasn’t doing too badly. My pace had dropped a little and a bathroom break had made something of a dent in the 5:30 time I was aiming for. It was around the 18 mile mark that I started having some proper issues. I had what felt like a golf ball sized knot of cramp in my right calf muscle. I was stopping and starting, trying to stretch it out. I ended up stopping at a St. John Ambulance bay, where a very nice gentleman gave my calf muscle a quick massage. With a quick walk after the massage, the calf muscle was working enough for me to start running again. Sort of.

Things to remember while running.

In the last two marathons I had a hard time come miles 16-20ish, so I knew when I was getting into my tough sections. The calf muscle certainly had not helped through that later part. I saw my target time of 5:30 time slip further away. Although I was a little disappointed, I let it go. I was going to enjoy this run. The crowds were still amazing, all the more so for the amount that had jelly sweets and the sweet joy of fresh orange slices. Both times I ran Brighton I wasn’t quick enough to get them. I would always run past long after they had been eaten by the quicker runners. This time however I was able to nab a good few slices and I swear, nothing tastes as good as fresh fruit after you’ve been running for 4+ hours.

The final push was going down Embankment. There wasn’t long left to go (two miles? I can run two miles, I’ve run lots of two miles, two miles is nothing). Soon I was up to the yards left signage, 800 to go, 600 to go. I checked my watch. I was still under my PB. Head down, keep going, not long now.

My Dad was on the side of the road again, snapping pics and giving words of encouragement. Then the turning past Buckingham Palace. After that corner was the finish line. That finish line. I’d decided weeks ago that I was going through the middle arch. I know they wanted us to go hand in hand, and if I’d been thinking straight I might have gone to grab someones hand, but after 5 and a half hours plus of running the only thing going through my head was “bring me that finish line”. I managed to speed up a tiny touch. I always manage to find that last bit of energy, that last sprint to get over the line.

Arms up in triumph I crossed that finish line, then stop the Garmin, finally stagger forward to gratefully receive my medal. I earned that medal, it was mine. A quick photo, an official finish one. Might not buy it, but it’s nice to have the choice. I’m given a goodie bag and then I slowly get to the baggage lorry’s. Before I’d gotten to the lorry with my bag, the volunteer was already handing it over the barrier to me. I continued out to the runner meeting point C, where my Dad was waiting and after a little while my Sis and Sid joined us. And slowly we walked (and I hobbled) towards home. The Facebook auto-posting thing confirmed my new PB of 5.47:02. Just under 2 minutes off last years PB.

Fat loot!

Okay, that was quite a long post, so if you’re still here, well done! If you’ve just scrolled down to the end, TL:DR, I ran the London Marathon, it was awesome, I got fat loot and a new PB.

I’m very happy with how the race turned out. I may not have gotten the time I was aiming for, but for all the issues that I did have in training and on the day, I still managed another PB. It was an amazing day. The volunteers were top notch, the crowds were simply great, the atmosphere was electric. 11/10, would run again.

Post Marathon Kit

The London Marathon is just 6 days away now, so I’m into the last bits of taper and finalising all of my Race Day prep.

With my previous two marathons I was either at a hotel right by the finish line (that was ace) or picked up and driven straight home (also ace). This time however, I’m going to be up in London and I’ll either be meeting up with people or taking the train back home again, so I’m going to have to prepare my bag a little better this time. I asked on Twitter what kit people take for after the marathon and I got a bunch of awesome replies.

With the help of the guys on twitter, this is what I’ve decided I’m going to be sticking in my post run bag.

Change of clothes – Wearing damp sweaty run kit is not big and it’s not clever. You’ll get cold and that’s no fun.

Sandles – I know that people suggest flip flops, but I can’t stand wearing them*, so something that is as close as.

Wet wipes – I don’t think I need an explanation here.

Deodorant – Again, pretty self explanatory.

Snacks –  I’ll probably stick some sort of snacky food into my bag. The contents of the goodie bags can be hit and miss for me. I’m a vegetarian that hates the taste of nuts**, and I’ve found that usually the goodie bags have nuts or stuff I’m not sure I can eat.

Drinks – I’ve got a post run recovery drink from HIGH5 that I’ll take, plus some water and some of the HIGH5 Zero tabs to stick in it. I’ll probably want some sort of juice, so I’ll be seeking that out at the finisher area or maybe a pub.

More blister plasters – Just in case.

So that’s what I’m taking. What are you taking in your post run kit?

*Not a joke, I have actually fallen over due to flip flop style shoes. I can’t wear things between my toes.

** And I’m not fond of mushrooms either, worst veggie ever!

It’s All In The Mind – Mental Tricks And Other Stuff That Gets Me Through Marathons.

I’m not going to lie. I’m not feeling as confident about this marathon as I have in the past. After a month of injury recovery, if feels like my long run mojo has up and left. I have a little over two weeks of taper to get it back.

I am quite stubborn when I want to be. This is one of the things that I think has helped me get through some of the hardest points of my long runs and marathons. Being the stubborn cow that I am can only get me so far though and with the way that I’m feeling right now, I’m going to need to employ a few mental exercises and other bits to go along with that stubbornness to keep me going till the end. All 26.2 miles if I need to.

Aww, my first marathon at roughly 12 miles in. I look so happy there.

The mental tricks and other stuff that helps keep me going.

Beat the person in front of you – There’s almost always going to be a runner in front of you in race conditions. Concentrate on just getting past them (especially effective when said person has a back pocket full of change, SO glad to get past that runner).

Running mantra – A short line to say over and over again, it helps keep a rhythm going. Mine is “just keep swimming”. I know someone who has the mantra “nice cold beer”.

Walk breaks – I’m doing a walk/run strategy this time. 9 mins of running and 1 min of walking. I’m just going to concentrate on getting to the next walk break.

Working the crowd – Crowds can really help. Some of my best bits of the Brighton marathon include those where the crowd helped out, be it high fives, getting them to cheer, offering sweets/grapes, amazing race signs, yelling out my name. Honestly, get you name on your shirt. You will feel like a star. London should be great for this, there’s a lot of crowd.

End game – This is where I keep in mind the finish line and the feeling or getting up to it, crossing it and being handed the medal. This one may be hit and miss, depending on what you’re like, but it’s one that often helps me.

Story time, aka getting your mind off of what you’re doing – For long runs, I use the Zombies, Run app. It plays my music and every song or so there’s a snippet of story. It’s great for when there’s just me, but for races I tend to not have music on. I don’t want to miss the atmosphere! I always think I may throw my headphones in a pocket, just in case I really need a music boost, but I never have so far. For other times when it’s just me sans the music, I tell myself stories or I start listing stuff. I’ve been trying to write a novel for a bit, so trying to think up bits of the story is a good mental exercise and stops me thinking about my feet.

Chatting with similar paced runners – This one comes under the get your mind off of it thread as well, assuming you can still talk to a degree, depending on your effort level. One of my better ParkRuns was one where the 19 min pacer came to chat with me on my final lap. After my mind was taken off of my run, I ran much better.

Remember why you’re running – I’m going to look at sticking names of all the people SpecialEffect have helped in the past onto my pacer wristband if I get it. It might not make me faster, but will help with keeping the stubbornness.

If all else fails, the mental bitch slap – This is for when I’m really feeling it and feeling like giving up. This is when I call myself names and I’m really rather harsh at myself. Sometimes I need a good kick up the backside, and the only person around to give it to me is me. Again, this one may depend on what you’re like, but for me it works. The run is only short in comparison to the years of feel good “I did it, look at my shiny medal” feeling that you get when you finish.

Okay, that list was a little longer than I thought it might be. I might not use all of them during the race, but they are all there in my arsenal for the day if I need it. Do you have any mental tricks that you use for long runs and marathons?

Quest Log Updated

I had what would be my last long run before taper time on Easter Monday.

It was horrible. One of the worst runs I’d had in a long long time. It was like running through treacle. My legs were heavy, I had no energy, it was hard to keep going. “I should be like this at hour 4, not at hour 2” my head said. I persevered, if anything I can call myself stubborn.

There are 18 days till the London Marathon. I have 18 days to get my head and body back in the game. The plan is to be sensible about my taper, especially coming back after injury, but making sure that I feel as prepped as I can with a number of missed long runs. I’m re-evaluating my goals and it’s also time for the mental prep.

I often wax lyrical about running on my Twitter account. And I often chat with fellow runners on there as well.  On one of my random musings about mental prep, a fellow runner and gamer shared his post with me about Goal Targets. Tom gave his targets a twist though and based them on a video game quest. I’ve liked the idea so much, I’m going to use it myself to get started on said mental prep.

Quest Log Updated – New Quest added

Main Quest Objective (the important one)

Complete the 2015 London Marathon and enjoy it as much as I can while running a stupidly long distance.

Optional (Very hard)

Complete the quest in under 5.30:00

Optional  (Hard)

Complete the quest in under 5.48:58 (my current PB)

Optional (Rare – Random occurrence)

Get on TV and yell coherently about how awesome SpecialEffect are.

Quest Rewards

Shiny medal and smug satisfaction of completing my third marathon.

Look, even my t-shirt is done. It’s not like I can back out cos’ I don’t feel the training went perfectly. I don’t think any of us would run if that was the case.

Those are my quest objectives. I’ve just got to get the main one, the rest are awesome extras. What are yours?

Race Day Prep – Long Prep

This weekend I had one of what I would class as a long run. Two hours at an easy pace. I tend to get some thinking done on runs like these and my thoughts were wandering towards race day prep. This was partially as I took a couple of gels out with me on my run. So here’s a little list of things I was thinking about.

Where it is.

I’ve had two marathons where I’ve travelled down the night before and stayed in hotels near to the area and I’ve had one very early morning drive to a half. This time the event is in London. I live in a London borough, so I’m going to have to travel by train up to the start of the event. I don’t know which section I’m starting at, but I’ve already checked how early I can get into the centre of London, so I know I won’t have to rush too much to get to where I’m going. For those who have to travel, it’s a good idea to book your hotel early. That way you won’t be rushing to find somewhere to rest your head the night before.

The outfit.

I like to check all aspects of my kit for how it feels when I’m wearing it for long bouts of running. Whether it rubs, what parts rub if it does, what you’ll do with stuff if you need to take bits off, etc. I usually have two outfits planned, a warm weather set and a cold weather set, and I try wearing all the bits I plan to take. I’ve recently bought my new trainers and I’ll be working them into my training runs soon.

My SpecialEffect tee that I’ll be wearing. I’ve already gone on a number of runs in it.

Fueling strategy.

I’ve used two different fueling strategies in the past. The first I drank the water and energy drinks that the marathon were giving out and I had jelly beans in my pack. While training I used the same energy drinks and jelly beans. The second time around, I used High5 gels that I took with me (and of course the water on the course). I didn’t use any of the energy drinks or blocks they were handing out that year, but that was due to them being different to the previous time and I’d not trained with them. This year I’ll again be using High5 gels that I’ll take with me. So I’ve started training with them again.

How early do you start your race day plans? Do you already have your kit picked out?

The new trainers, being checked out by Tilly.

Back with a vengeance.

Since the knee was being a pain (ha), I was wonderfully sensible and took a week off running. I then did a recovery week, which again had no running, only cross training. This week I’ve had a short recovery run and a wonderful threshold session, as well as 30 mins on the cross trainer yesterday.

My calf muscles are complaining, the rungry is back and fierce, but I’m seeing some amazing results. I’ve had no knee pain, the muscles are needing some work (really must book in a sports massage) however I feel like I’m fitter than ever. Yesterday I wasn’t trying to go fast on the cross trainer, but I went the furthest distance I’ve ever gone in 30 mins.

I’m hoping this isn’t just a one off, that I am getting better and fitter. The next couple of weeks are going to be hard. Mid week runs are going up to an hour and over. Threshold sessions are getting longer. I’m not going to be getting home till some crazy hour and I have the GameBlast15 24 gaming marathon to prepare for as well.

Marathons are hard, the training is harder, recovering from injury is tough, but I’m not about to give up.

The game face is on.

Back to it

We’re heading into week 5 of marathon training now and after having a week off due to a harsh pain in my knee, I’m looking forward to getting back to training.

I’ve also managed to come in on a “recovery” week, which is actually really good. My RunLounge plan has a week every few weeks that has less time on feet. this is so the body can recover while still turning over your legs. Your less likely to get fatigued this way and less likely to get injured.

For me this is good as where I had the week off due to my knee being a pain, it means I can go back gently into my training, rather than going in too hard and making my knee worse. So this week will consist of cross training and generally being sensible.

How’s your training going?

Dear right knee. You suck.

Injury, it’s not a case of if, it’s a case of when.

I was halfway through my Saturday hill training session, when a pain behind my right kneecap stopped me. This wasn’t the usual sort of niggle, this was a sharp pain. I stopped running, cursed a few times, and then walked back home. This didn’t feel like a pain I could just brush off.

I was supposed to run for 1hr 30 on Sunday. I cancelled that and went for a swim instead.

Today is my rest day, however there may have been some light running for the train this morning. That told me my knee is still not happy.

Tomorrow I will be sensible. I will take an extra rest day. May take the rest of the week off if I need to. It’s better to rest now and let my knee heal than try to run on it and totally muck it up. One week off at the start of training is much better than a month or two off due to major injury.

So instead I’ll sit and not work out and be jealous off all of those people that run past me as I walk home. Especially as I bought my new trainers this weekend.

How do you deal with injury?

My new trainers! So pretty!

Pacing over pace.

Week 2 of the marathon training is now complete! I’m already thinking about my pace for the marathon.

My first marathon I had a rough idea as to what sort of time I’d get over the line. After the sort of pace I was setting for training, I guessed about 6 hours. As it was my first and whatever I got would have been a PB, I didn’t push myself as hard as I possibly could have. I wanted to enjoy the day. I came in at 6:05:25. For my second marathon I wanted to beat my PB. With some hard work and a push (especially as I had been injured in the autumn), I managed to knock a good 16 minutes off my PB and came in at 5:48:58.

My LSR summary from Sunday.

So this time? I’m going to aim for 5:30. That’s nearly 19 minutes off of my current PB. I went ahead and checked my current pace against a marathon pacing chart. Mostly the 12 – 12:30 minute section. My last LSR showed me at just over a 12 minute mile pace. If I can keep that up for the whole 26.2 miles, I’d finish at around the 5:20 mark. That’s if don’t include any possible bathroom breaks. The whole 12 min mile pace has been something of a shock to me to be honest. A nice shock, but I’m not entirely sure where they came from.

I don’t know if I’ll get round in 5;30. I hope that I do. If my training keeps going the way it is, I might just do it.

Do you know your marathon pace yet?

Week one of my 2015 VLM training done!

Week one training is officially complete! I’ve done every bit of training I set out to do last week, although some of it wasn’t completed as fully as I would have liked, I still put all of my effort into it.

The things I didn’t do as well with this week was my hills session and the amount of core training that I did.  My hill session called for (5 min effort, 2 min jog) x 4. I managed 2 lots of the 5 mins before I overworked and ran out of energy. I still continued with the hill running, there was still lots of effort, but it wasn’t quite the same as the beginning half.

The core workout. Ack, I always seem to have an issue with core workouts. I only managed to one plank (20 secs) this week. I’m going to blame the trains being lame and getting me to the gym 20 mins later then I normally get there. Okay, that’s a terrible excuse, but it has mucked up my timing. Will try to do better this week and I must remember that I can do core workouts at home. You don’t need a gym to do core!

Bring on week two!

How’s your training going?