Race day morning, it's a 04:45 wake up. The race doesn't start until 07:30 but I have a pathological need to be early. So early it was. Actually by the time you wait in line for the toilets being early is a necessity. I get to Milsons Point (start line) at 06:25 and warm up a bit. Yes I know that by the time I actually start running that there is negligible benefit. But it's my process of getting ready and knowing that I am feeling good on the day.
How did I go? My marathon time was 3:34, not quite what I would have liked but still a reasonable time. But this doesn't tell the whole story. Going in to the race I didn't know what time I was going to run. I had decided that 3:00 was too quick since my half marathon PB was only 1:28. It is also a PB in the sense that that I have only raced a half marathon once. And about 3:30 was what I thought would be a reasonable time to run.
Something that I seem to always do in a race is go out too hard. In fact I can't remember I ran a negative split. I know I have this problem and I know I need to fix it because invariably I spend a fair portion of the race struggling to stand up let alone run. This time I had a plan, I had a set of paces that I would attempt to hold in certain parts of the race. Well it was a plan for the first half of the race. Run the first 10 km at 4:25-4:30 pace and then the next 10 km at 4:20-4:25 pace and then hopefully finish faster than that. Problem was I was feeling too good at the start my running was effortless, relaxed, smooth and quick. So quick in fact that I was particularly greedy in thinking that I could finish the marathon in under 3 hours. The 3:00 pacer was just too tempting a target to catch. It sat just 100m in front of me for the first 26 km of the race. I ran through the half marathon point at just over 1 min off my best time. Yes this was a recipe for disaster.
26km came and went and then my groin decided that it wasn't going to play nice. No not one of the main running muscles, but a stabilising one. This was really problematic and probably highly amusing as I was trying to run in a straight line but one leg was going kinda crazy. This wasn't a massive problem to begin with but as a marathon can only do it brings out the worst in you. The bit that is giving you a reason that this is all too hard and that it is perfectly fine to give up.
Running is just as much a mental battle as a physical one, especially at these distances and beyond. Those moments when rolling down the hill seems like a much better alternative to running (I didn't actually try this but was very nearly tempted) or you are too exhausted to have a mental breakdown. At the end of the day the most important thing is finishing the race, finishing what I start is something that I hold in high regard (the definition of start may be a little loose though) and really if I was silly enough to enter and to put myself in this position then well I have to be silly enough to finish :P.
Will I run another marathon? At the moment all the muscles in my body are saying no. But I know that I can do better and I want to do better so chances are I will be running another marathon in the not too distant future.
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