M7 Cities Marathon

25 July 2010

The harebrained scheme was hatched a few months ago.

I had so much fun pacing the Sydney marathon last year that I wanted to do some more pacing this year, but having decided to race Sydney, I needed another marathon. The M7 Cities Marathon appeared to be perfect, it was at a good time of year (July) when I'd be ramping up my marathon training but with still plenty of time to recover from Sydney, and I wouldn't have to travel for it.

I applied for a pacer job a couple of weeks before the run, but Brick told me that all the spots had been filled except for the 3 hour pacer. Never having come close to running 3 hours this was never going to be an option, but as he had trouble finding anyone to do the job, he later suggested I run a 90 minute half and he'd find another runner to do the same, we could hand over the pacer flag at halfway.
Top idea and I was in. I asked to run the first half so that I could keep going and make a long run out of the day. So on the appointed Sunday I turned up to the start on an unseasonably warm July morning and was pleasantly surprised by all the people I knew doing the race. Hamburglar was pacing 3.15, Nicholas I think 4 hours, and Walshy was to be my partner in crime for the 3 hour job.

I felt a bit of a fraud walking around with the 3 hour flag, and was quick to point out to anyone who asked that I had absolutely no credentials to pace a 3 hour marathon, but with a half PB in the 83 minute range I felt comfortable pacing 90minutes. It was an incredibly small field for a well organised Sydney based marathon, we lined up at the start and off I went, attempting to hold about 4:10-4:15min/kms. Thankfully I had the recently bought Garmin to keep me honest, as the pace band I printed out I had forgotten to put stickytape on, so it crumpled and fell into tatters within a couple of kms.

The going was not easy. For some reason the pace felt a little hard, I was constantly pushing myself, while trying to maintain a cool calm exterior, and battling with the damn belt which kept riding up and the flag which kept flying off to one side or smacking me in the head! We had a small group with us to start with, a couple of guys felt they wanted to stay ahead of the pacer so ran up ahead, but I had 4 or 5 with me and managed to maintain fairly even splits as the km markers ticked over. The inclines weren't easy, but what we lost on them we made back quickly down the other sides.

15 or 16 km in I was slightly concerned that I'd have the legs to keep running even kms and get the guys to halfway on time. I was still constantly pushing just a little bit out of my comfort zone. Maybe it was expectation-based and I'd expected it to be easier than it was. Either way, we cruised along, people dropping back on the hills and then picking us up again, until soon we hit 20 and a bit kms and there was Walshy was on the side of the path to run alongside me and pick up the pacing flag, which I was more than happy to be finally rid of, as it had been a pain in the ass.

Tremendous relief. Now the pressure was off. Although feeling fairly rubbish the last few kms had meant that I was questioning my strategy of completing the run. I had been thinking about ditching at halfway, but now without the mental burden of pacing I thought I'll just go a bit further and can pull out at anytime.

I wasn't comfortable at my pace, so immediately dropped back to 4.30 pace and let the group take off. Soon I was running solo. Such a small field, I thought I'd be passed immediately by a number of people but even though my pace went down to 4.45 and at one point 5minute/kms, it took a long time of running all by myself with no spectators down some fairly uninspiring bike paths for anyone to go by me.

Every km I thought, ok I'll just go a little further. You actually run right past the finish area at something like 24 or 25 km and then out and back another way, so I knew that I could just dip out at any time and that every further km out was another km I'd have to run back in. But I cruised along at an easier pace and it wasn't feeling too bad so I continued. About this time I thought I should probably eat something. I reached for my dates in my back pocket (the pacer top was a cycling shirt), but sadly they had fallen out somewhere along the road. This was a bit of a concern, I had grave doubts that I'd be able to run the full marathon without some sort of nutrition. I realised then that the fatigue and thoughts of quitting that I'd been experiencing were probably very much related to a sugar low and that without fuel soon, I would bonk.

No worries, I thought, the website had mentioned gels at aid stations. So I got to the next aid station and... no gels. Then the following one... hmmm I don't see any gels. Somewhat concerned I asked the boys volunteering, "Are there any gels?" More of a concern was the response of looking at me like I was crazy and one guy saying to the other as I passed "What's a gel?". This wasn't looking good. I decided then and there that if there was no nutrition at the next aid station (I think this was around 30km or so) I would have to pull out and go back, anything else would be just silliness.

Thankfully there they were, I downed one and grabbed another for the road and pressed on, feeling a psychological boost which I was hoping would shortly be followed by a carbohydrate boost. It did kick in around this time, and it all got a lot easier. The sun broke through the clouds too and the day began heating up. The km markers ticked by a little more easily, but suddenly I had some urgent gut cramping issues and had an uncomfortable few minutes searching for a portaloo, which magically appeared on the side of the path like a mirage, at around 33km. A couple of minutes lost in there, but I felt a million times better rejoining the race. Shortly afterwards (and not long before the turnaround) I was picked up by Hamburglar and the 3:15 group. Had a chat and upped my pace a little to hang on for a couple of kms, but a few minutes after the turnaround it all seemed a bit quick and I let them go and went back to doing my own thing.

Not much to say about the rest of the race, by this time my blood sugar was back up, I was feeling good and although my legs weren't going very fast, I was able to cruise along at a comfortable pace. I tried to put on a spurt to lead Sharpie up the final freeway exit hill, then off he went with a surge of speed on the final flat into the oval. It was a three quarter lap around the running track to the finish and I was happy to be done in 3:17:52

Amazingly, Walshy and I had run exactly evenly paced halves at 1:29:27 apiece!
I wasn't listed on the full marathon results, as I was registered for the half, but would have come 45th out of 220 finishers. Legs were sore for days, but I managed to get back to the Tuesday HuRTS session, and a fairly solid 19km run on Wednesday. Legs were shattered come the end of the week, but a hard massage from Ross on Friday sorted me out to be back on for my Sunday Striders long run.