Monday 28th October 2013
Dublin Marathon ( 26.2 Miles / 04:00:50 / 00:09:12 per mile / HRZ3)
Overall Position 5492
Category Position 1009
Heading
in to the Dublin Marathon I was probably feeling the most confident that I have
ever been before hitting a 26.2 mile course.
Previously
the curse of injuries has to a greater or lesser degree impacted on my ability
to get a consistent block of training together and this has ultimately made a
difference to my ability to deliver on the day.
I
have pretty much come away from every one of my previous 10 stand alone
Marathons with a feeling of “could have or should have done better.”
This
time I have been more or less injury free in the run up, apart from a slight
Achilles niggle last week which was over and done in a few days, and feeling in
decent shape.
I
have long harboured hopes of cracking the 4Hr mark but it has always seemed out
of reach for me, and taking that in to consideration I came in to Dublin with a
goal in mind of beating my previous Personal Best of 4Hr 21mins 34secs and the
hope to do a 4H15M time.
Training
had gone pretty well and in fact I had been knocking out long runs at a pace
which was better than that required for my 4:15. Optimism was abounding.
Fortunately
(for me) I “encouraged” my club mate Keith to enter the Dublin Marathon after
running with him at the Belfast Half Marathon and he expressed an interest in Dublin. Yeah sure – five
weeks training is enough!
I
love the Dublin Marathon and it’s always a great excuse for a couple of days
away with the family over the Half Term Break and this year was no exception.
Sunday
saw us drive down and hit the Expo, collect my pack, get a new pair of K Swiss
Trainers at a silly reduced price from my friend Michaels’ Pure Running stall.
€40 for a pair of K Swiss!! Bargain.
After
a bit of wandering round shops we adjourned back to the hotel, put the feet up
for an hour or two and then headed out for dinner.
Keara
struck lucky at the restaurant, being rewarded with a huge glass of wine for
free because they had been so slow in delivering our food. I was gutted
as I was off it ahead of the big race next day.
It’s
fair to note that this wasn’t her first glass either!
Back
to the hotel and asleep for about 11.30PM meant that I should hopefully get a
decent nights’ sleep and feel refreshed in the morning.
After
an early Breakfast I met up with Keith and Andy outside my hotel and we made
our way to the start area. This would be the last we saw of Andy as he
was aiming for about a 3.30 finish time, while Keith and I planned on something
a little more sedate than that.
Now
I don’t exactly know what got in to me but at the Expo I lifted a pacing
bracelet for a 4Hr finish time and decided that I was going to go for it.
I would aim to stick with the 4Hr pacers and hold on for as long as I
could with the view that if I slowed down I hopefully would hold on to get the
4.15 PB.
After
what seemed like an eternity of hanging around before the start, corralled in
the start pen trying to keep warm and looking like a plonker in my bin bag to
keep we eventually got off to the start line for our wave, which was the
3.50-4.15 estimated finish time. This time wasn’t entirely wasted as
unbelievably I was standing right behind another friend, David Patterson.
What were the odds of that among nearly 15000 people? We had a
quick catch up and chat before moving off.
Keith
was happy enough to go with my pacing plan as this was his first Marathon and he was hanging his hopes on my experience.
Mad fool that he is!
We
got the 4Hr pacer in our sights and as the gun went off we tried to keep them
in view through the crowds.
Within
about half a mile it became obvious to us that the 4Hr pacers had obviously
mistaken themselves as the 3.50 pacers and were racing ahead at a pace well in
excess of the 9.08 required for 4Hrs.
Undeterred
we pushed on to keep them within range and eventually by about 4 miles we
decided the more or less ignore them and stick to our own 9.08 per mile pace as
they were clearly going too fast. At one point they were only 150 metres
behind the 3H50 pacers.
At
this stage I made a decision in my head to adjust my plan as I was feeling
pretty comfortable at the pace we had been holding. I decided to hold a
steady pace at just around 9.00-9.10 per mile, keep relaxed and aim to stay
strong for the second half of the marathon and if possible move the pace along
a wee bit.
We
went through half way at around 2H01 and this was just about right and was OK
given the congestion in the earlier part of the race.
The
support along the route was the usual mix of enthusiasm and Dublin craic with a particular highlight
being a supporter holding a poster saying “Run like you left the immersion
heater on!”
Just
after half way Keith started to get a bit of a niggle in his knee, which had
been working on him over the last week or do. This injury led to one of
my most memorable Marathon moments ever.
Asking
for a drink of my water, Keith proceeded to pull out a Diclofenac anti
inflammatory tablet from his running pouch only to drop it.
In
his own words, he was like a Junkie from Trainspotting, on the ground on his
hands and knees trying to gather up the pill like it was his last few grams of
Heroin.
It
was bloody hilarious with all of these people almost trampling over him as he
frantically tried to gather it up. Priceless!
Shortly
after this the pain in his knee got quite a bit worse despite his best
“junkie-esque” efforts and he encouraged me to go on ahead.
I Managed to pick up my pace a little bit and set myself the goal of maintaining
a 9min mile for the remaining 10 miles.
I
surprised myself to see that by and large I maintained this and found myself at
the 20 mile mark in around 3H04mins. This meant I had around 56 Mins to
do a 10K. Ordinarily that would not be a problem but at the end of my
fastest marathon to date that might be a tough enough challenge but I was
determined to give it everything.
I
had a thought bouncing around my head from here on in which was saying, “ Don’t
be ‘That Guy’ who finishes just a few seconds over the 4Hr mark – don’t be 4H
and 1 second! Push on. Push on!”
I
pressed on with the aim of maintaining my 9 min mile pace.
One
thing I began to notice through the latter stages of the race was that my
Garmin watch was signalling my mile markers earlier than the official markers
on the course. As the miles progressed the difference grew. By the
24 mile mark on the course, my Garmin was reading 24.2 miles. Quite a bit
of a difference and one that would come back to haunt me very soon.
At
around 23 miles I felt a tap on the shoulder and it was another Facebook Friend
Iain O’Kane running up alongside me. He too was on for a 4Hr finish and
we ran together for another mile or so. Iain urged me to press on which I
did and he was following close behind.
Rather
unfortunately my hotel was around 24.5 miles in and it was tough to run past
this when it would have been very tempting to just pull in and hit the Bar, but
I kept pressing on and upping the pace as much as I could.
Tick
Tock – time was slipping away and I was getting closer to the finish and the 4
Hour mark. Keep going hard was my mantra and I did.
I
passed the 26 mile point (which was 26.2 on my Garmin) and rounded Trinity College on to the straight to the finish
line some 400 yards ahead.
Keara
and the Kids were on the side of the road cheering me on and this gave me just
another little boost for the final few hundred yards. I hit it as hard as
I could manage, but with about 150M to go I realised that my watch had just
tripped over the 4Hour mark and I had missed the goal. Apart from feeling
like I wanted to cry because I was going to be “That Guy,” I also thought I should
just slow down and ease the pain as I had missed it anyway. Then another
thought struck me that I should go even harder to the finish as sometimes funny
things happen with chip timing and maybe by some miracle my watch was out from
the chip and I would sneak under the 4Hr mark. Imagine if I slowed down
only to find that I had only missed it by a few seconds.
I
gave the last 100M everything I possibly could and crossed the line completely
empty from my efforts but feeling immensely pleased at my huge PB.
My
Garmin read 4H0M51secs and 26.45 Miles distance covered! Bloody
Hell, I am ‘That Guy.’
The
final chip time would tell me if I was ay closer to the 4hr mark, but in my
heart I knew it would never be more than 51 seconds of a difference.
As
it turned out, my actual official time was 4H and 50 secs.
On
reflection I am delighted with a 21 minute improvement on my previous best time
and I am no longer trying to figure out how the hell I could have dropped
another 51 secs to get me under the 4Hr mark.
On
review, Mile 26 was covered in 8min44secs and the last 0.45 mile was done at
7.45 pace. That would explain why I was done at the end of it!
I
absolutely loved the experience again and felt remarkably good after a few
minutes of finishing. I now have a very clear goal I mind and know beyond a
doubt that a true Sub 4 Marathon is within reach and perhaps I can take it even
lower if I can train consistently.
As
it turned out Andy and Keith had great debut Marathons with 3.48 and 4.28
respectively. Very impressive for first time out and a lot of experience
gained from this will lead to improvements next time I am sure.
I
will not do another Marathon now before
Ironman Zurich in July but this is the best possible lead in to my training
block which starts in two weeks time.
A
PB at marathon distance to add to my PB at the Half Marathon a month ago are
the best possible confidence boosters for the training to come.
