I recently saw a flashback photo that was 4 years old, it was from the Paris Marathon, my PB is from Berlin in 2016, bloody hell that is ages ago! As you can see from my last few posts, things have been going well, my training has been more relaxed, I haven’t lost much weight, but I don’t feel overtrained and I feel ready.
That was until Tuesday, when I started feeling a bit ill. I went to the Roche run and had shortness of breath, not too bad but noticeable. I did my 5x1min intervals but they felt hard. On Wednesday it was a bit better and better again on Thursday, not great but ok. On Friday I had an easy 35 min run with 5 mins faster and I was flying! A slow jog was 4:20/km, so I was healthy again, all good!
I got the train to Zurich, checked into my hotel and went straight to get my start number, there were loads left to be picked up considering there was little time left. I brought food from home but probably overate a little.
The race starts at 8:15, really early, so I had alarms set for 5am, I was awake at 4:30 anyway! I ate my peanut butter and honey on baguette and sat, stood and walked around the room until just before 7am when I was ready to go to the start.
It’s 3.5km from the hotel to the finishing area, where you can hand over clothes bags, then it’s another 1.5km to the start. I felt that would be too much for before the race, so took an e-bike to the finish area. It was really cold, and that was with extra clothes on, that I would have to take off.
After the bag was gone, I was in arm warmers, a hat, gloves, a buff around the neck and my normal shorts with TCEC vest. It was pretty damn cold, but I still decided to bin the arm warmers just before the start. At 8:05 I had my last pee and went to the start block, but it was really full so I had to push forward. I could see the 3h pace group way ahead, so I wanted to start a good bit before that.
The race started and I found my stride pretty quickly, the first km was 4:05, which had me a little worried, but I was soon ticking off 3:55ish kilometres. I was noticing that I was constantly slightly faster than my goal 4:00/km pace, I didn’t want to do too much too soon, but it felt fairly comfortable so I continued on, passing 10km in about 39:20.
I found a great group for the long out and back into a very slight headwind. People kept shouting for someone called Nicola, including a “You’re a legend, Nicola” shout. There was a women running next to me, so I said, “wow, you must be famous”, she didn’t reply.
I soon thought, famous, Swiss Nicola who is running at sub 4 mins per km pace…. Nicola Spirig the Olympic Gold winner in the triathlon? Oh, yes, that was her, but it wasn’t the woman I had spoken to before! We even had a TV camera with us for quite a while.
The group paced perfectly for me, it was 3:55 per km and we passed the 21.1km half marathon in 1:23:30. I shook my head, that is so far to fast it is unbelievable, I was working on an optimistic goal of 2:50, but here I am running 2:47 pace, this could end badly.
But the kilometres kept coming and going, every peep of the garmin started with a 3 and I felt fine. Spirig kicked on ahead and after the turn around our group disintegrated, which was a shame. I had the feeling that I was usually running downhill, though obviously I wasn’t as it was pretty much flat. With 27km done, I had more than 1h02 to run the last 15km, looking good!
I started to feel like I might need to stop for the toilet after about 28km. It wasn’t too bad, but I felt like I could go when I see a toilet, or I might be forced into the bushes later. I knew there was a drinks station at 36km, and they are about every 4-5km, so I was looking for one from 30km onwards. I eventually found it at 32km, it felt like it took ages (strava suggests 30 seconds) but I was done and good to go to the end.
I was playing everything very conservatively, I had about 2 minutes in hand and felt fine, but I took a planned little walk break at 36km to take my last gel and drink some water. I was off again and going to the finish line. After 37km, I had 23 mins to beat my goal time and I still felt fine. I couldn’t really judge my pace anymore, but the old garmin kept saying 3:57 or so, sometimes 4:02 or so, but that’s a rounding error at this stage.
My mental maths was going into overdrive, if I don’t blow up, and I don’t feel like I’m going to, then with 2.2km to go, I’ll be able to average slower than 5:00/km and still do it… this is in the bag! I was overtaking more people than were passing me, which I don’t think had been the case for the last 10km. In the town the course is a bit more twisty, but there are more people cheering.
After about 41.5km, I could see the finish on the otherside and I knew I had done it. I was grinning but could feel the emotion coming too. It was a little further to the finish than I thought, and I realised that sub 2:48 was still on, so I kicked a little and finished in 2:47:56 – a dream!
I couldn’t/can’t believe it! This is the time I wanted and deserved in 2016, I have been working for ages for this and it has finally happened. I cried a bit at the end, as I am prone to do. I was just so happy that I got the result that I think I deserve.
So, it’s over. I actually feel pretty much okay 1 day after the race. My feet are a bit of a mess, but I’m not destroyed. So where does that leave me now? Well I’m not going to do an Autumn marathon, too much stress. I do want to do the Raffeisen Oberland Challege series, which is a load of different races throughout the year. I have the feeling that I could maybe beat my best 10k time on a good day. My 5k time of 17:31 or whatever it is should be a sitting duck on a fast course, who knows, maybe my HM time could go too!
I would like to try another marathon some time. I weigh about 80kg now. I can get to 75kg, but I don’t think hard training and weight loss works for me. I need to start my training cycle at 75kg or less, then I think I can start to look towards 2:40 as a crazy goal time. I may well never beat my time from yesterday, but that wouldn’t be too bad. It fits with my other PBs well, it always annoyed me that I’d never run a good marathon before, but now I have 😀