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From what I hear there's more good stories than bad, looking forward to reading a few more of them.
Bad luck RWH, GAWD, well toughed out.
Isn't that a huge PB on a warm day at the age of 47, when 6 months ago you were heavy, hadn't been running and had just started a monster new job?
That's phenomenal in my book, well done sir. You should be thoroughly, thoroughly proud of yourself.
Dull – sorry to hear you had a hard time of it. I wasn’t sure what condition you were in going into the race, but it looks as if you’ve already made a realistic assessment (as always) of your performance. Possible good news on the freeze pack front.
RW-H – looks like you exercised spot on judgement in your race, recognising early on that you’re A target wasn’t there to be taken today. Virtually spot on for the B target, so you’ve every right to be pleased with yourself. Just read Andy Benfold’s comments, doubly so after the difficult couple of years you’ve been through
GAWD – not sure what you were targeting today, but am glad that you can take some satisfaction from going sub despite the stomach problems. Have you any idea what caused it.
Cheerful Dave – sub 6:00 pace , good running indeed. What were your HM splits?
Looking forward to more of the same…………………
Back now. Not at the Red Lion because someone took my bag by mistake, then rather than bring it back or at least inform the organisers, simply used my phone to leave a message with my wife telling me to go and pick it up at the Thistle Barbican. Quite how my wife was supposed to get that message to me I'm not sure - after a couple of hours of shivering misery I borrowed an organiser's phone and called her, otherwise I'd still be there now. I also had a £30 taxi ride to go and get it. Arse. It's tempting to name names but some of us have a bit more class.
I had a decent first half arriving in 1:30 exactly, but slowed right down as the legs just weren't moving - I never got close to being out of breath. Last 5 miles I treated as a gentle warm-down, although then dropped about 5 or 10 mins helping a bloke in terrible trouble on the Embankment, and then propping up a lady called Lucy on Birdcage Walk - there were serious casualties every hundred yards along Embankment at around the 3:15 pace. It was quite pleasant taking it nice and easy and I slapped a lot of kids' hands on the way round.
So key lessons learnt are that
- you lose a lot of fitness if you haven't done more than a 40-mile week since January
- while it may be possible to regain fitness 6 weeks after another marathon, it isn't if those 6 weeks include barely 100 miles and nearly 2 whole weeks off.
- an entirely meat-based Friday Sushi dinner is not ideal start to carb loading
- 14 hours on aeroplanes the day before isn't good preparation
- an 8-hour jet lag isn't helpful either
So some quite obvious points there, you could say.
On the organisation front, aside from losing my bag, I found the balls-up on the red start timing quite confusing, and I found once again that having the baloon mile-markers often 10 or 20 yards away from the actual blue mile mark on the road is poor, and importantly so.
2.48.04 and now officially retired.
I've joined the sub 3 club
Afternoon all.
I don't think I made a very good spectator: from the 3 and 3.15 threads I saw (in no particular order):Coro, Hilly, RJ, Mr. Boat, MTR, Drifter, Marders, MsE, XPS, Ant, CC2 (I think) and Minni.
Nice to meet some people at the pub, although I was pretty late as I was waiting for some 4hr people, too.
From the reports so far, big congratulations to RWH; sorry to hear things were so tough for you, Dull and GAWD; solid day for CD from the sound of things (well, I think you should be pleased!) and an extremely tough day for Tmap.
Looking forward to more race reports over the next 24-48 hours!
Good days running folks well done. RWH top performance from you. Sub three.... thats what it's all about. CD cracking effort to match your time from last year.
Nice to chat to a few of you before the start and Marigold after.
I had a great day at the races. Went out wanting to keep 2:30 in my sights and after 5 'did a Coro' and evaluated how it was going. Decided the pace was a bit too hot and backed it off. went through half way in 1:15:46 and second half 1:18:11 for 2:33:57 finish and 84th position. Well happy and really quite proud of myself at how I raced today.
Wel done all, hope youre enjoying the beers. Now relax.... Look forward to reading the reports. I'll post mine at some point in the next 48 hours.
If andy Warhol was right, that's 14 mins 57 secs of fame left.
I have never felt so rough after a marathon. and I was contemplating marathon retirement. It's a piss-poor return for the training I've invested this year.
5 hours, 2 pints,some food and a bath later and I am resolved to be back next year. But no autumn marathon - I'm spending the rest of the year running, biking and swimming and doing some short races. I am also 4kg lighter than I was this morning - I suspect I got quite dehydrated.
Some storming runs. -RWH, Marigold,LS21 and others. But most of all it was great to run with TR and Ode again - one year well stay together to the finish!
And on a final note - I was wrong. There is a flavour of Lucozade sport worse than orange - the cherry flavour they gave out at 15 miles and put in our Goody bag is truly rank!
Race Jase, you and your ridiculously luminous vest were a tantalising 50-100m ahead of me for an awfully long way. You were obviously going well because we were both passing loads, but you obviously paced it a little better than I did, nice one.
Tom, it was 1:16 & a bit and a bit inside 1:20, so not ideal but not a disaster either.
I PB'ed by 4 minutes. Not as quick as I was hoping to go, but I found the heat hard. Went through half way in 1:19 and finished in 2:43.56. Chuffed to bits to have got my PB which has been 3 years in waiting but secretly hoping to break 2:40.
Ran one 80m week the rest were 50-55mpw so I am happy and I'm very confident if I put in the work I'll get my rewards. Am going to go for an Autumn mara too this year!
Well done to all.
CD, RWH, GAWD (must have been very close to you over the last few!) ,RJ, MTR, LD, DN, Tmap
Sorry if I missed anyone
Oh yeah, and had 3 runners barging past me in their determination to stay on the blue line (all at points in the race where I was keeping up with the general pace) and making stroppy comments.
This was capped by an Aussie runner telling me, when the barely-conscious guy I was trying to rescue fell and banged his head, that I should try and get him out of the way of the blue line. On Embankment, which is, what, 20 yards wide. In fact, I think he takes the prize of tosser of the day, even beating the "sorry I couldn't be arsed to bring your bag back" guy.
This blue line thing is getting bad.
Yes, well done to all who approached/hit targets, and commisserations for those who didn't have a great day. It was good to meet a few of you at the Red Lion (MtR, didn't realize it was you lying down on the road!). I was also quite amused to see that piscator and I not only had the same shoes, but the same compression socks as well.
Unfortunately it was a bad day at the office for me as well. I felt great in the first 6 miles, and fine at halfway (1:24:30), but around mile 15/16 the bottom totally dropped out. By mile 20 I seriously considered a DNF, especially when somebody literally collapsed to the pavement in front of me (I worried that might be me at mile 23 or so). But I allowed myself to walk through the water stops every 2 miles and then slogged along. It was very very tough mentally. I think the worst moment was when I got passed by the guy dressed as a carrot! Finally ugly tally was 3:07:48, which is a personal worst by nearly 16 minutes.
So I'm not sure exactly what went wrong. Maybe I wasn't totally recovered from my illness last week (on Monday I felt awful), maybe missing a bunch of training with my calf injury didn't help, maybe the weather wasn't ideal.
The main positives I'm taking out of this is actually finishing despite wanting to quit for the last 8 miles, and the fact that my calf didn't bother me at all, so when I get back to training I should be injury free. Plus if they don't change the rules, at least I'll get another shot next year via the GFA.
I've also decided to skip a fall marathon this year to focus on gunning for a sub 1:20 half and sub hour 10-mile. Then I'll try to build my mileage to the 70-80 range before I try another marathon. For now it's 3 weeks with no running, and I can console myself with the fact that I'm going to Italy for 10 days on Saturday.
Well done to all the PBers today, in tough conditions. New pb for me also with 2.55.00. Slightly disappointed not to get closer to the 2.50 I was aimin (and trained!) for, but reasonably pleased given the heat (and an unsheduled loo stop just before 10 miles which cost me 1.5 mins!)
If its any consolation MtR, I was also very rough afterwards - nearly passed out trying to get my bag and spent over an hour in the medical tent trying to get the tingling and pins and needles to go from fingers and lips as well as very painful cramps. Judging from the huge numbers in there, there was many in the same boat.
OK now though and drinking beer, though a bit sunburnt with a nice vest line!
Conditions were tough today and casualties were strewn across the course at both ends of the field. Enjoyed marshalling and seeing the race from a different perspective - saw most on here at 13/22.5.
Certainly saw some sights, including first t-shirt (not CRAB) over long sleeve top in low 2.20's. First Superman going about 2.25 pace.
Lots of carnage too. Had to stretcher off some poor girl who was unconscious; hope she recovered OK, but wasn't pretty. The situation, not her.
Sorry for not picking out individuals, but special mention for Coro who was running superbly and high-5'd me on the Highway; and of course Xempo sponsored Marigold who kindly ensured I don't need to reprint my flyers or change my website by running a top class time. Legend. Reeling in someone as good as Phil Wicks is no mean feat.
Oh, and I backed Mutai to win at a tasty 16/1!!!!!
Just got in, will read back later....
the quads never really showed up but I was holding 6:30s and it was an aerobic doddle (10 in 65:15), told myself to keep following ode and MTR for as long as I could, quads were hurting a bit but I deceided that they had to just suck it up. I also started getting hammy twinges from about 16M, 2nd 10 in 65:20. Took a split time, and it was head down for the finish, 6:38 (oops more power required)....... 6:30........thats more like it "come on".....6:30.........ARRGH ! hammy cramp stopped me instantly, hobbled a bit til I could run and then got running again, tyring to avoid more spasms. Scraped myself home in 2:53:05 (my watch)...........pretty happy with another solid sub3 on a tough day, but I was on for a very even paced 2:50/51 until the cramp set in................never seen so much carnage out there.................and I still havnt beaten 2:52 !
Well done bus boy.
Sorry to hear you had such a battle, kinaseboy.
TR: really pleased for you. I know it wasn't the sub 2.52 you wanted, but it was well under the 3 hour mark and after all the heavy leg palaver in the build up, great news. Sorry I didn't make it to the Red Lion quickly enough to congratulate you in person!
I'd eased of at 10 because I was ahead of plan and feared the 2nd half sun. I hit HW at 1.36 up for a GFA, but at that point things got gradually worse and by 16 I was walking though the water stations. Shortly after that I was counting down the lamposts and was worried I might collapse. From HW to 20 took me over an hour.
The whole day was a disaster. Trying to meet folks from the thread I talked to someone who I thought was Clearly who wasn't and someone with a Barca shirt with Messi one the back who wasn't Messi However I did have a short chat with Drifer one of the few successes of the day.
The low point though was when my kids told me that I'd been beaten by a two bottles of beer, a carrot, and a fairy.
RWH Stonking stuff. Never thought you'd ever make it, but it seems that I'm the one with the sub3 problem not you.
Tmap an interesting day for you too. I wouldn't read too much about the runners behaving badly. Not really an excuse but when you're in the zone the only thing you care about is yourself.
Not happy with the Virgin results. You cannot search by clubname. I hope they change it.
Dull
Dull,
Good on you mate and kudos on your statements and sentiment.
CD,
Cracking run. 2:35 in warm conditions is superb running. Congrats.
Tmap,
Good on you for making such a positive day of it.
Nightmare on the bag mix-up. Willing to "flame" the offender on Facebook if you give us his details
LD,
Wow!! Corker. Brilliant day out mate. What a way to mark your retirement. Just re-watched the start, sure enough, no mistaking the "daft lanky bloke waving his arms like a reet geeky kid".
RJ,
Saw you cross the line on the box and your exuberence put a big smile on my face. Really, really great run.
AC,
Congrats on clocking a PB on a less-than-ideal day. Impressive.
KB,
Crikey, sounds like a toughie. Well done for getting it done.
TR,
Pure guts mate. Good on you, reckon Cracknell should be looking to you for inspiration.
Hi there,
As a mostly silent, regular reader on this thread, congrats to all the VLM runners who achieved (and tried to achieve) what they were wanting today. From here in Edinburgh, it looked like bloody hard work so well done to all of you.
As a recent convert to wearing racing flats after 10 years of racing in my training shoes, I'm reaping the benefits. Just lowered my half marathon PB to 1:17:03 on 20 March and am gunning for sub 2:40 in the Edinburgh Marathon in 5 weeks. Marigold, your spiels on your interweb page has played a big role in my success, so thanks.
Can I ask advice from you guys on how many miles/races I can get out of a pair of racing flats before I need to change them? I am using Brooks Racer 4s and have done 2 halfs, 1 10 mile race and a couple of long runs - all in, equating to around 50 miles. Should I think about buying and breaking in a new pair for the marathon? At present, the ones I have feel great but I would welcome some sage advice.
Thanks!
Tmap - I admire your “cool” attitude, well apart from the twat who couldn’t be arsed to get your bag to you – did you end up with his bag or no bag at all?
Dids – well run you crafty old bugger! Perhaps you can be coaxed out of retirement “to do one more job”………perhaps redon the hanky together with the full Gumby look. Seriously, you must be pretty chuffed with your performance….trouble is you’ll only encourage Pug to greater excesses.
Joolz – looks like you were dashing around like a little pixie?
Race Jase – saw your result and new you would be chuffed, exemplorary performance.
Matt – sorry to read of your tribulations, though you seem to have borne them with fortitude. I guess it’s impossible to plan for unexpected cramps – possible dehydration and loss of body salts? The problem with the marathon is that you invest so much in it with no guarantee of return – however the experienced runner, like yourself, knows that there will be another day and another marathon.
Kinaseboy – similar sentiments as those expressed to Tmap and Matt. Was it dehydration that did for you. I’m also sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience with the root vegetable. I assume that the runner beans were long gone by that stage. I’d agree that some effort in improving over 10M/Hm will pay real dividends going forward.
TR – you ought to be pretty pleased with today’s effort. Pretty even (6:30s) up to 20 miles and you always knew you it was going to be Nads out over the last 6 miles. “........and I still havn’t beaten 2:52 !”. I hope you don’t mind the next observation, but don’t think you’ll make much of a dent in 2:52 until you drop the bike/swim and run more miles. On the other hand that’s probably not what what you want to do…so just ignore me!
Hope that the rehydration is going to plan.
Edited to counteract a dyslexic tendancy