Today marks the start of my three week training taper – the marathon is only THREE weeks away now! Today also marked my final LONG run. Although ironically I won’t be stopping my training altogether, which means I will probably do a 10 miler next week, which was the distance of one of my first long runs back in February which just about polished me off. This time I expect to just saunter it.
After my disastrous 16 miler ten days ago, where I made every mistake going including overheating, running out of water, and ended up stopping for a break at ten miles and reverting to run/walk after 13 miles, I knew I had to make up for that somehow. I had done a 16 miler before, back in late February, but again I walked at 13 miles as I couldn’t go a step further even if I did restart running half a mile later – I still ended up walking a further 3/4 mile at mile 14 before running the rest.
From the forums I frequent it became clear that an 18 miler was the bare minimum at this stage to be in with a chance of finishing in a reasonable time (aka not doing a Jordan). Given I’ve run 13 miles FOUR times before (including my very successful Silverstone half marathon) but never gone any further running continuously, this was clearly a duck to break. So I set myself the target of running for 16 miles continuously, and would allow myself to run/walk for a further two miles to make it 18 miles as a WORST CASE SCENARIO. Best case scenario – running 20 miles without stopping. Heh.
Unlike with many of my other long runs I took this one a little more seriously and decided to try carb loading a bit – i.e. eat lots of carbs in the few days before, and rest a bit. I didn’t exactly rest on Good Friday, in fact I did some interval training whilst out for a walk with the family – sprinting ahead and then back again for 2-3 minutes at a time to get my heart rate up. I did 2.6 miles of sprinting broken up over an hour so not too bad.
Onto today. The weather was looking ominously sunny so this time I didn’t make the classic mistake I made last time – I didn’t wear my tracksuit. However I knew from experience that if I ended up run/walking, I get FREEZING on the walk bits, so I decided to tie it around my waist. The pockets doubled up as more storage for things like my Oyster card and debit card which I didn’t take last time and bitterly regretted when it all went to pieces. I also wore my shorts instead of my lycra tights for the first time in forever.. much better pockets and a lot less revealing.
Alas I still had to carry my Camelbak Flashflo, which is a great device that holds 1.4 litres of water, but when it’s full it is so horrible to run with as it bounces a ton. I think it is designed for dudes with thicker waists rather than women because it doesn’t tighten up enough to stop the bouncing. For the first 7 or 8 miles I had to physically hold the thing. Yeah, I’m sure that helped a bunch with my times and general achiness. This time I put some magic tablets into it which contain essential salts/minerals etc that help with rehydration, which means basically I absorb the water quicker which leads to less sloshing in the stomach.
And of course I carried some gels. Three this time – I decided on one on the hour, every hour. And if that wasn’t enough, I stashed away some sports beans and some “power shots” which are basically chewy sweets formulated to give energy quickly.. probably not a huge improvement on jelly babies but whatever!
And finally, my iPhone and headphones. A long run is pretty darned tedious. And my Garmin, naturally.
It wasn’t until 3:30pm that I headed out the door after getting that lot ready and covering myself in Body Glide. This was going to be the long run to end all long runs, quite literally! I was going for a personal best no matter what. Even though my knees twinged a little.
So off I went. Last time I went out too fast (10:30 minute miles) and I read on a forum that apparently 30 seconds per mile in the early stages of a marathon translates to losing 3 MINUTES per mile later on. This time I was going to take it super slow.
It’s not easy to do. One of the funny things about long runs is that when you start out you can’t imagine running any slower and imagine it must be super uncomfortable. Then later on when you can’t put one leg in front the other you wonder how on earth you ever managed those faster times. Heh. So my first mile was a little fast despite my best attempts, coming in at 10:57. My aim was to do between 11:00-11:30 minute miles as that would get me through the marathon for around 5 hours.
The next mile I worked out how to go slower, and succeeded in 11:04. My back was taking a serious pummelling from the Camelbak and I was having to run with my arms at my sides, pulling the darned thing into my back – but I was still in pain. Not good.
Mile three and four were 11:31 and 11:36.. a little bit over the time I was aiming for. No matter. I imagined all the time I had saved up! The fifth mile was 11:37 – getting better at accurate pacing it seems. For one brief moment I actually thought “this is quite enjoyable” but the moment passed five seconds later. Perhaps that is my one and only runner’s high. Ha.
At mile five near to Erith I turned around shortly after passing a grown woman in a tutu out for a walk(!) My plan was basically to run 5 miles out in one direction (because I didn’t fancy trying to run on Erith marshes again.. those winds were HORRIBLE and it was scarily desolate), return to near the start, and then see how I felt about four or five miles out in the other direction and back again. It was then that I discovered why the run had seemed quite pleasant.. the wind had been behind me. Curses.
To my genuine surprise, despite the harsh wind I managed an 11:43 and an 11:47 for the next two miles. I also took my first gel, managing to tear the packet in half and spilling some of it and making everything sticky. Whoops. Mile 8 was not so good at 12:06. Something I’ve noticed about all my runs is that I do tend to start flagging at mile 8. Maybe it’s all the training I did last year where I rarely ran over 8 miles but often did around that or something, who knows. Anyway, things weren’t good, and mile 9 was 11:50, slightly faster mainly because I was sheltered from the wind a bit as there were more trees.
At 9.5 miles I hit the point where I would normally leave the river and return home, but today, for the first time, I wasn’t even potentially halfway through my run.. I had to set off in the other direction towards the Millenium Dome (or O2 as it’s known these days) I noticed I was struggling quite badly, trying hard to get past a small child on a tricycle. Not promising. Nevertheless I did the next two miles at 11:48 and 11:55, so just under the magic 12 minute mile which is a barrier I try very hard not to slip under. I wondered if the gel was wearing off, so I ate one of my fancy sports sweets at 1 hour 45 minutes, 15 minutes before the next gel was due. It seemed to help a little.
I took another gel around 11 miles but the effects didn’t kick in for quite some time. I saw another female runner run past quite quickly in the other direction and tried to pretend she was probably doing a fast run but the reality is she was probably doing her final long run in preparation for her sub 4 hour marathon. WAIL. These two miles were the hardest – a 12:28 (and I don’t even think the wind was bothering me that much) and a 12:04. Coming up to half marathon distance and it was shocking – 2 hours 33 or something dreadful. Hardly the 2 hours 20 of Silverstone, but then I was pacing myself for a much longer run and had that stupid Camelbak smashing the heck out of my back which I didn’t have at Silverstone!
Then something odd happened. Shortly after I passed 13.5 miles I got a second wind. I have no idea where it came from, but when I did those two other 16 milers I seemed to get energy again at this point too.. I always thought it was down to the walking, but maybe my body was waking up to the idea that this running thing wasn’t going to stop. So I decided to be utterly reckless and turn around at 14.5 miles on the clock, meaning I’d complete a 20 miler. Unbelievably, mile 15 was 11:27. The sun was out but not too hot, the wind was behind me and things just seemed nice. I had two sports sweets this time – one at half hour post-gel and the other at 45 minutes. I think this probably helped. The turnaround point was just past the Dome.. not bad.
Mile 16 involved taking another gel, my last one. Again, there was the energy, and I ran it in 11:40, much as I’d run mile 3. What is this?! Maybe it’s true about that whole not going out fast thing. Apparently 85-90% of marathoners no matter how hard they try go out too fast and pay for it in the later stages. I made a huge mark in my brain to try to keep the speed slooooow at the start.
The second wind didn’t last forever of course. I’d completed 16 miles – the furthest I’d ever been before, and three miles further than I’d ever run (the final 3 miles had been run/walked on previous 16 milers) and I think my body was starting to spot that. As with all personal bests, as soon as I hit the furthest I’ve been my body just goes “um, no” and starts really getting sore. Whereas my earlier slowness was down to lack of energy, the slowness now was due to PAIN. The right hand side of my right foot was really sore, it felt bruised. My left knee was playing up. My back had never really got happy from the Camelbak slapping into it earlier, although now there was a lot less water so it was less painful at least.. however the damage was done.
So mile 17 was 11:58. Then I started feeling new pains. Pain in my hip – never felt that before. Pain related to my SPD (I suffer badly from it in pregnancy) in my pelvis which has always become excrutiating in the latter half of a long run.. this one was no different. And worryingly, pain in my right ankle. This one was new – long term readers may remember I had a sore ankle right back when I first started running but it was fixed by getting the right shoes. Alas I definitely have the right shoes now, so this pain was quite simply.. overuse.
Nevertheless, I gritted my teeth and kept going. If I could crack 18 miles of running, I could say I had run 18 miles.. the magic distance that you’re expected to have done before a marathon. I could do this! It was particularly hard with a few very steep slopes and a run along the main road and at times I was limping, especially when the camber of the pavement meant my right foot was taking more weight. I had to cross a road at one point and wow, it hurt doing sharp turns.. my body was seriously unhappy.
So I cracked the 18 miles – mile 18 turned out to be a quite surprising 12:18 considering I thought my body was falling apart. Interestingly I felt about as bad as I had ten days earlier at this point, when I’d only done 14 miles and had been walking for quite some time. Circumstances were definitely different this time!
Part of me really, really wanted to stop and walk at this point.. in fact if I’d set out to do 18 miles there was no way I’d run off and do another two miles for a laugh – if the front door had been right in front of me I’d have taken it. But there were still two miles to go. 24 minutes. I started feeling the effects of sugar crashes but this time I had been sensible and had a good stock of sports sweets. I ate one at 25 minutes post gel, and another at 37 minutes post gel. I am thinking I may need 45 minutes between gels, not an hour, although the supplementing with sports sweets does seem to work well.
So, two miles to go. It seemed to last forever, even though it is the route I used to take every day a few years ago pushing my eldest back from nursery in her pushchair, and latterly jogging back with her. There were lots of people out and about, and whenever I had to turn a sharp corner I couldn’t help but gasp out loud in pain – I got some funny looks and was probably a prime target for a mugger given it was clear I wouldn’t be able to get away, let alone raise my legs to kick them in the privates. Fortunately the sheer volume of people meant nobody gave me any trouble, not even an insult although I tried hard not to listen when people stared at me and talked – the iPhone helps with that.
Mile 19 – 12:14. Not that shabby, considering the rest of me was. A mile to go, and wow, I felt every step. They say 20 miles in the marathon is the halfway point and I can believe it – the miles start stretching into infinity at this point. I had fists much of the time even though it was a waste of energy just because I was wincing so much with every step. But I was nearly there, and crucially, I hadn’t walked a step, except a couple of times to dodge around the anti-motorbike fences.
I reached the point where I had been ten miles earlier – the head off home from the river point.. just half a mile to go. This is always the hardest part – there’s a road to cross, dodgy folk to avoid, sharp corners to take and a few little hills and kerbs (kerbs are excrutiating at this point). I decided to see if I could pick up the pace a little for the last bit.. and you know what? I managed it. It wouldn’t be much use in the marathon as it would probably slaughter me afterwards but given I knew I was nearly home, I could afford to use that last little bit of energy.
Home was in sight, and 20 miles and 3 hours 56 minutes and 58 seconds after leaving home, I reached that front door – the final mile 12:20. So not only had I run the whole darned twenty miles without stopping (four miles further than I’d gone before, and amazingly SEVEN miles further than I’d ever run in one go before) but I’d managed to do it without dropping my pace too horribly – my pace varied by 1 minute 40 altogether, more like 1 minute on average if you take away the extreme data points. My average pace was 11:50.. compared to the 9:25 I’ve done for 5Ks before it’s shocking, but this was 32K so yeah.
Here’s the pace chart (click for full size):
Pace chart
Curiously my Garmin only recorded 19.3 miles of GPS/heart rate data.. later investigation reveals I had it on a setting that only recorded 3.5 hours of data, so I’ve set it to a different setting so it will record more – it still confirmed I’d run 20 miles though. Wish I had known that, oh well. Still, it behaved better than my stupid Nike+, which despite playing music and appearing to be working actually recorded no data at all for the first 5.5 miles, until I decided to get it out and check why and restart the stupid thing. So it claims I only did 14.5 miles. Bah.
Assuming I kept going at a similar pace of 12:30 for the final six miles (eek – I can’t imagine another hour in that pain with it getting worse), I would finish the marathon in 5 hours and 12 minutes or thereabouts. Given on the day I won’t have that stupid Camelbak, I will be properly rested and carb loaded and I’ll have the crowd cheering me on.. who knows? Although by all accounts most marathon runners do 26.6 miles or even more due to weaving and not taking the fastest line, so add another 4 minutes onto that.
That gives me a goal – sub 5 hours – best possible result, would be astonished and amazed! I will set it as my target though. 5:15 – would be very happy with that. Ideally I want to finish before 5:30 which would be great.
So I am very happy – not only did I break my 16 mile duck (finally) but I actually RAN 20 miles! Amazingly, for the first time since I started training, I actually did what the Runner’s World recommended run was, ha ha. Took most of my training to catch up, but I did it. Shame I don’t do more midweek runs like they recommend but I don’t think my knee would love me for it. Now I have that 20 mile RUN under my belt, I can be very confident of finishing the marathon.. heck, if I’m really, really lucky I might even run the lot although I do suspect I might end up walking. We shall see.
One of the things that inspired me most about the marathon was many years ago watching people run along Embankment. I had never seen such determination and agony in the flesh (i.e. outside of films!) before. It was astonishing – people pushing through despite the absolute agony. Most were running, but those that walked got such loud cheers.. they’d try to run again, some would manage it, but most would manage fifty yards and then stop again, destroyed. The sadistic part of my brain wanted to know what that felt like and thus the idea of running a marathon was born. Well, I have a fair idea as I hit it at around 18 miles today – I did two miles of it but in three weeks I’m going to have to do eight miles of it. Erk. Still, at least people will be cheering me on rather than looking at me funny!
Right, I’ve written far too much here so I will leave you all in peace and get some rest myself. I’ve had my “ice” bath (OW) which has helped considerably so now I just need a good night’s sleep. I did burn off nearly 2,400 calories (that’s like 24 packets of Wotsits, people!) in under four hours so I deserve a break for now.
GOODBYE LONG RUNS! I won’t miss you!
