Canberra Marathon recap

Okay so sometimes I can get a little negative when self reflecting on these sorts of things so this time I am going to try and keep it positive, realistic but definitely more positive.

So post my first every marathon in Munich I was pretty disappointed with my performance, things just didn’t come together as I would have liked but looking back at it I figure I probably got the time that I deserved given what I put into it. When I look back at Canberra I kind of have the same feeling, I probably got the time I deserved.

In the end my time was 3 hours and 59 minutes, I cracked the 4 hour mark which is a positive. I remember being on struggle street in Munich towards the end and the 4 hour pacers went by and I felt a bit disappointed that I missed that milestone. This time they passed me with about 700m to go and so I pushed hard to stay infant of them till the line. The pacer assured me he had about 3 minutes up his sleeve but I pushed on through the cramp anyway, I’m glad I did because old mates timing was out.

Leading into the event I had been running pretty good, I had some good leg speed and I had done a few longish sessions that I thought put me in a better place than previously, while I hadn’t been injured I had been experiencing some tightness in my ITB which was giving me some knee grief, I’d tried to lay off it for a while but it kind of just niggled away.

Race day: Race start was 6:15am which is bloody early for an event. I had a pretty ordinary sleep so was already up at the time I’d set my alarm for which was around 4:15am. I had wanted to give myself time to eat some food, get ready and then be able to drive closer to the start, walk to the start and then do a brief warm up. Needless to say this was easily done, I think for breakfast I had some porridge and berries and an energy bar, on reflection this was probably insufficient.

Sebastian and I made our way to the start, it was a bit of a walk to get there but that was probably a good thing, we had plenty of time and managed to do some stretching and warming up, I’m not normally one to do this but I was a bit skeptical about knee issues. I lined up at the start with plenty of time to go and was feeling somewhat anxious but I also had some optimism as I was more prepared this time than I was last time, I had also done a marathon now and knew that I had to have a level of patience to get through it.

The race started and I worked hard to stay at 5min/km as that’s a relatively comfortable pace but in an event it’s easy to get caught up with those around you and run a little faster. Things started off well, I was a little surprised at the changes in elevation which every now and then knocked you about a bit but everything felt pretty fine and I managed to get through the first 10km in 49:25 (including a pit stop). It felt good, maybe it was a little fast. At this stage I was pretty happy so worked well to maintain this pace.

The next 10km weren’t too bad, at around the 13km mark there was a long rise and I felt my pace drop and my legs just soften a bit, at this point I decided to try and maintain my 5min/km and make sure I didn’t go any faster. I had one punter pull up next to me trying to chat but I had to set him free as not to disturb my pace, towards the end there was a bit of a head doer of an out and back that had some rolling up and down but it also had some narrow single lane type stuff. In the end I hit the 20km mark in 1:40:03, so almost exactly on plan although mentally at this stage I probably started to think I should back it off a bit because I may have pushed the pace a bit much.

The pace chart shows the progress decline after the 30km mark

Now is probably a good time to reflect on nutrition, to this point I had popped 2 gels and a few electrolyte fast chews, I had taken on a bit of water but on reflection I probably should have consumed a fair bit more and definitely taken in some more electrolyte drink, I would say max I had taken in 3 cups of fluid by this stage. I’m pretty sure this would come back to bite me.

The third 10km stretch was hard and just a grind, I had decided to back it off because things just weren’t feeling great, mentally I think I was also softening up a bit as well but I figured if I slowed it down and ensured I was running then things would be alright. I got through this 10km in just over 54 minutes so I’d dropped from just over 5min/km pace to around 5:25 which was alright, I had 20 in the bag and so average pace with still around the 5:10 mark. Something that did do my head in a bit here was the wide open road for an out and back, it just felt hot and slow and I remember wanting a drink stop but not finding one, I think this was mentally the undoing of me.

Just beyond 30km (around 32km) is when things went downhill pretty quick, I remember getting my first cramp which inhibited my technique and then that eventually lead me to starting the long process of getting to the finish with the run walk approach, it was going to be a long 10km.

I did think of pulling the pin but opted against it, and just made sure I started to take in a shitload of fluids which I think may have started to help. The other thing I tried to do was run walk with more frequency, unlike previously I never really got bogged down in long periods of walking and the cramps never got to bad that I couldn’t really move but it was frustrating.

Towards the end I knew I was a chance of maintaining under 4 hours so pushed to ensure that happened, I had kind of blown out to 7min/km pace but the last 1.5 was around 6min, in the end I managed to get there the race photos of the finish line paint a good picture of this, some whacky running technique and a grimace on the face, it might not have been to my expectations but it was still a good improvement on my previous effort.

So overall reflections? Well I probably got the time I deserved. I hadn’t been doing enough km’s in training and in particular not a lot of long runs, its no surprise I imploded at the mark I did and that’s because my longest long run had only been 27km or something. Pace? yeah maybe I had pushed the pace a bit too much at the start, I’ll never know if I had started off with 5:15 pace whether I could have sustained that longer, maybe but I doubt I would have held it to the end. The only regret I have is nutrition. In a half ironman triathlon off the back of a 90km bike I can run a 5min/km half marathon but I think he part I neglect is how easy it is to take in energy when you are on a bike for 3 hours, you have fluid whenever you want it and an abundance of gels, I also prefer flat coke on the run because I’m a bit fussy with electrolyte flavours, I think one of my biggest improvements can come in this area.

In the end you take your medicine, learn and move on, I think sometimes it is actually the learning process along the way that makes the journey just as enjoyable as the final result.

Michael