Chester Marathon

The marathon can be won or lost on the smallest of margins. Go out too fast and you pay a heavy price towards the end. Get your fueling strategy wrong and you hit the wall later on. No other race poses these sort of problems. How fast should you go? How many gels or sports drinks should you take per hour? These aren't issues you face running a 10k or half marathon. Both of which can be run without fuel or water. The only problem then could be a build up of lactic acid but that isn't going to halt you as if you've slammed into a brick wall.

The day of the Chester marathon couldn't have been more perfect. Clear skies, hardly any wind and temperatures in that Goldilocks zone of neither too hot nor too cold. We lined up at 9am, the town crier of Chester shouted a few words of encouragement and we were away!

Me looking forward to the start! Cheesy grin is author's own.

My plan was to stick near the 3:30 pace runners and hope to last out until the last couple of miles where I imagined myself running clear and smashing the 3:30 barrier.

That was my plan. What actually happened was that I went off at a decent pace that was probably a few seconds too fast. For a 3:30 marathon you need to run at 4:59 per km. After the first few miles I noticed I was running at 4:52 per km. Too fast. As much as I tried to slow down I somehow couldn't. I think my legs just carried on running at a speed they were comfortable with. And it was a comfortable pace. The miles went by and before I knew it I had hit 10k in under 50 minutes. Fame and glory was going to be all mine.

The route so far was familiar to me. It was the Chester half marathon route and one I had run on many a training run. At about 9 miles it turned into new territory. We crossed the border into Wales where the next 8 miles would be run. I went through the halfway stage in under 1:45, still on track, still too fast. Looking over my shoulder I could no longer see the 3:30 pace runners. No problem I thought, I've got that time in the bank and should be able to stay ahead even if my pace slows in the second half.

What I didn't foresee was that the course would get hillier and undulating and the temperature would rise as the morning started to turn into afternoon. I took sports drinks at fuel stations when offered every 6 miles. I also took a gel every 4 miles from mile 9 onward. This I thought was the perfect fuel strategy.

After halfway I sped up a little, 4:51 per km. I imagined that this would be fine. I felt great, I started overtaking people and everything was rosy. This was until mile 17.

I don't know why but I started to get doubts. Whereas the miles had previously flown by it now felt like each mile was a chore. I still managed to hit my pace. I slowed a little but nothing major. Between mile 17 and 21 it felt like an eternity. I would seek shade where I could; it was getting hotter. Inclines became more pronounced and felt harder to climb. And my stomach felt like it was full of sugar.

At mile 21 I stopped. Barely. Just for a second or two but it was enough. Starting again felt difficult, but I got my pace back up to what I needed it to be. I took a gel at mile 22 when offered by the fuel station and opted for water rather than a sports drink. I could no longer face the sweetness combination. The gel seemed to work wonders. I felt good. I thought I had got my second wind. It turned out to be a false dawn. I got to mile 23 which was on the road in to Chester that I was familiar with. I had run it the previous day on a four mile loop. Not long now I thought. And then the worst thing happened. My pace had gradually slowed but not too much I thought. "Three thirty" I heard someone call behind me. I looked and saw the 3:30 pace runners about 10 meters behind. Psychologically this was a disaster. I tried to stay with them and did so for about half a mile but I had no more energy in my legs. With the 3:30 pacer pack merrily running off into the distance without me I could see my hope of hitting my A goal fading with them. I had 2.5 miles left and a 15 minute buffer to get it in order to hit my B goal and beat my previous PB. Mentally I was telling myself that a miss was as good as a mile and I could afford more walking stops. Each time I stopped it became harder and harder to start again. The crowds along the road would try and get me running again and as much I wanted to I found it incredibly difficult to get my legs going. I had gone out too fast too soon and was now paying the price. The final two miles took about 10 minutes each. In the last mile I could feel my hamstring and groin start to complain. I stopped again and again. Finally I reached the race course. I could see the finish line but it felt like it was miles away. It was only about 400 meters but it might as well have been 400 miles. I stopped one final time and then made my away along the longest 400 meters in history. No sprint finish. No punching the air in celebration. Even though I had beaten my PB by 7 minutes I felt a bit low. I picked up my medal and then saw my wife and mother-in-law shouting my name in the finishing chute. A kiss, bottle of water, goody bag and technical top later and I was lying on the grass trying to get some energy back in my limbs.

Now the dust has settled I'm actually more upbeat about the whole thing. After all, I had run my fastest marathon ever and in trying to get under 3:30 I had learnt a lot of valuable lessons.

1. Do not. Do not. DO NOT go out too fast. Know your limits. Know what you trained for and stick to it. If anything, go a bit slower than necessary to start with.
2. Look for alternative methods of fueling. Maybe try jelly beans or jelly babies instead.
3. Always examine the course map beforehand so you know what to expect and hills do not come as any surprise.

Looking at my running data I can see that even with two miles to go I could still have theoretically finished in under 3:30 if I ran at 5 min per km. It's easy to see in hindsight and at the time there was no way I could have got my legs going at that pace.

So, what next? Well, I will spend the next 6 weeks doing recovery runs. Then it's planning for the next race. I'm thinking of running the Edinburgh marathon at the end of May. Do I use the P&D schedule again? I'm not sure. I enjoyed the training plan but I wasn't convinced that there were enough long runs. The Runner's World schedule has four twenty mile runs and one twenty-two mile run. P&D only has three twenty mile runs. I am going to investigate the Jack Daniels running schedule. His plan has been around since 1978 and is tried and tested. It is a 24 week schedule so will start in mid-December for a May marathon! That is a long time to be training. I'll look into it a bit further before I commit though.

Here's my Garmin data from the marathon, see if you can spot where the wheels came off!