MaraSam a MaraSham

For the last 12 weeks I have been training towards the Auckland Marathon. It’s not my first (I ran the Edinburgh Marathon back in 2005, and of course there was a marathon at the end of the NZ Ironman last year), so I was specifically targeting to run a quick time – sub 3hr15mins (that's very quick for a short stocky guy).

Of course, this was done with my typically minimalist training plan – with only four training runs a week, and delaying the sacrifice of not drinking until only the week before the event. Training progressed well though, as I got more and more comfortable with running what is a pretty quick pace – 4min30sec K’s. Though signs were there that perhaps I was just a little too relaxed, when only three days (or what turned out to be four days) before the race, I found out that it was on the Sunday and not the Saturday!

Fortunate, as I wouldn’t have been happy getting up at 4am on two mornings in a row. A damn early start, necessary to get the ferry over to Devonport for the 6:10am start. The pre-race routine was disrupted by my inability to get rid of my previous night’s dinner – something that was to cause problems later on.

Nevertheless the race started in the early phases of dawn, with the first 15km rolling up and down the slopes of the North Shore. Things started well, I felt strong and was setting a good pace. Perhaps too good, as I was consistent running K splits under the required pace. But I felt good, so I wasn’t concerned at the time. Conditions were good for the run over the Harbour Bridge as I ran past Anna on the other side, who also thought I looked really good. Arriving at the half way mark, I had run a 1hr34min Half Marathon, still feeling really good and with plenty of time to spare.

However, it was from here that things started to go wrong. The next 10kms involved the run out to the turnaround point at St Helliers. It was over this 10kms that some of my splits just started to creep up and I felt I was losing my ability to manage this. Also, last night’s dinner was also beginning to make me a little uncomfortable. Perhaps I should have stopped earlier, but focusing on the time, I didn’t want a toilet break to cost me. Coming up to the turnaround, I knew something was seriously not right – both my energy and strength levels were plummeting – as I struggled to even keep my pace within 5min K’s and I was increasingly being overtaken by other runners. Even the usual secret weapon - flat Coke - wasn't helping. So this is what hitting the wall means!

The last 10km suddenly became less a run and more a shuffle – as 5min30sec K’s suddenly became the best I could manage. I worked out that going under 3hr15min was quickly disappearing, but was feeling powerless to do anything about it. In fact, I was feeling so bad, just finishing was looking like it was going to be challenge enough. It was also the realisation that I was probably not even going to beat my Edinburgh time of 3hr23mins that I finally took that toilet break with 5km to go – costing me three or four minutes but taking a weight of my shoulders (or more accurately, off my bowels).

A little lighter, but no happier, I slogged out the last 5km to a disappointing time of 3hr27mins. I know, I know – still a very good time, but when you are targeting a sub 3hr15min and your second half of the marathon is nearly half an hour slower than the first – it is somewhat disappointing. So here is me giving it the big thumbs down coming up to the finish.
My demise is pretty evident from the chart of my K split times.
The suddenness from which I went from feeling great to terrible is still what surprises me. Ultimately, I think the time I was targeting required a bit more commitment to training than I was prepared to give. I still had 3 or 4 kg on me than was ideal, and I probably should have been doing at least one more run each week. It wasn’t lost on me that all the runners going past me over the last 10km were a fair bit leaner than I am.

So that might be the end of my marathon career, I think I might just run half marathons from now on. Next up is the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge in four weeks, followed by the Tauranga Half Ironman in January. And then I don’t have to feel bad about drinking and eating my way through the rest of summer…