Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter and the Northampton Marathon


Apologies for no posts for a while but the terrible weather we've been having resulted in some races I planned to do being cancelled and generally not having much of interest to report!

Finally I managed to get some good stuff done over the Easter weekend as the temperature had increased to a balmy 4C. I'd entered the Northampton Marathon on Easter Sunday, but was just using it for Ironman training so did just over 4 hours on the bike on Good Friday and about 2.5 hours on the bike on Saturday. My legs were feeling pretty dead after that so I wasn't expecting much!

The race was 12 (yes, twelve!) laps of 3.5km each, all off-road in the grounds of Delapre Abbey in Northampton. I didn't know what to expect in terms of terrain, but given they had to change the course during the week because of flooding, I assumed it would be a bit muddy. So I went with trail shoes, which definitely turned out to be the best option (even though mine are starting to fall apart!).

I actually enjoyed the fact that it was lots of laps (I find it mentally easier) and the route was very nice - half through woods on trails and half on grass through fields. There were some muddy sections, but nothing too severe, and the large number of sharp corners was probably more of an issue.
It was a bit chilly but sunny at least!
A 10km race started 10 mins before the marathon and a half marathon 5 mins before the marathon, so there was quite a bit of traffic on the course for a while. But there were only a few hundred runners overall, so not too bad.

My plan was to try to run around 15 mins per lap (3 hour pace) - the winner last year did 3:01 so I thought that would be near the front, and hopefully not a full-on race effort. We set off and 3 of us pulled away from the rest of the field - I just tucked in and let them lead. However, I was quite alarmed when we finished the first lap in 14:10. But I'd rather run in a group than on my own so I decided to stick with it.

The lead group on the field section (1st lap I think)
One of the other two dropped away on the second lap I think, and I just followed the other guy for a while. Laps 2-4 were:
14:00
14:16
14:25
At this point it felt like I was working harder than I should be at that point in a marathon. The other slight issue was that I hadn't taken on any calories, as I thought they would be handing out gels, but you needed to stop to pick them up so I didn't bother!

Negotiating one of the bumpier sections

Following my 'pacemaker'!

And again!
I think it was on lap 5 when I accidentally passed the leader when we went a different way around a muddy bit. Suddenly he fell behind a bit, so I decided just to run my own pace and see what happened.

Accidentally taking the lead!

Next few laps were:
14:01
14:00 - halfway in 1:24:52 i.e. 5 mins too fast!
13:55

Weirdly it felt like I was working quite hard, but I wasn't feeling any more tired than after 3 laps. So I just kept ticking off the laps and saying hello to Alex and Jake every few minutes.
14:02
14:20 - included a 15s stop behind a bush!
14:09
14:01

With one lap to go I needed about 14:40 to get under 2:50 and still felt strong, so pushed on a bit and actually ended up coming in comfortably under with a 13:47 lap. So final result was 2:49:06.


I was at the finish for a bit afterwards, but we headed off pretty quickly so I didn't see anyone else finish, but I think I must have won by about 10 mins. The guy who led for a while was hoping for 3 hours as a London Marathon training run, so hopefully he made it.

I think Jake was more tired than me after his walk and 7k run (he is 70+ years old effectively!)
I've really no idea where that came from considering the previous two days' cycling and not a huge amount of running training, but I guess my endurance is good from the ultra in January, and the bike training is hopefully building some strength.

Overall a great morning out - Jake seemed to enjoy going somewhere new, although I think Alex got a bit bored given the number of times she asked me how many laps I had to go! And my legs felt much better at the finish than after any other marathon I've done - I guess the soft ground helps to reduce the damage.

Nothing major going on in April, just hoping to get some good long rides in before heading to Majorca for a short training trip in May!