Manchester Marathon

Doing a marathon as part of your training for a marathon may seem a little odd, but my goal at London is not mere completion, it is a fast time I am after. During the week I was offered a free place at the Manchester marathon and seeing as I had scheduled to do my longest “long run” of 22/23 miles, probably alone around Market Bosworth, I looked at the viability. Matt had previously suggested the idea of using another marathon as a training run and he was already running there so could give me a lift. I asked Karen (Thompson – club chairperson and legend) if she would like me to pace her as I knew she was in the form of her life and liable to achieve her goal of a sub 3:45 to enable her to gain a qualifying time for London 2018, which would be very special for her. She ran in February in Malta and was two minutes shy but with all other things being equal, there was every chance that deficit could be shaved off at Manchester given the course and conditions and hopefully a bit of encouragement towards the end when it starts to get tough. She jumped at the opportunity so my decision was made.

I felt particularly strong in training and managed to get out a couple of times in the week but the battle to remain fit and get my mileage up to the requisite 60 for the week was a difficult act to balance and ultimately, I fell short on the week but I didn’t think it mattered hugely so refused to let it bother me. My calf area was still sore and I began to wonder whether a marathon would be a good idea. I hate letting people down and figured I could always bail if it got worse but a couple of easy days helped the healing process and with the weather set fair for Sunday we were good to go.

One of the benefits of doing the race was that as well as having some company on my long run I would be able to take in the experience of a marathon and all of its idiosyncracies. I’d done plenty of other races but a marathon is different and it was good to observe how other runners behaved, prepared, felt, ran and how the whole mechanics of the process panned out.

The flip side was it would mean an incredibly early start (4:30am) and a bit of fear of “could I do it” and “could I pace someone” given I’d never done it before. I was confident of my abilities in this field, being highly numerate I’m sure helps with the maths and was quite looking forward to it with just the right amount of nerves. It helped that Karen does marathons regularly so it wasn’t as though her whole life had been building up to this moment after a dedicated six month training schedule. There were plenty of others from the club in attendance too, almost all of which we bumped into despite the size of the race with its 9000 or so entrants.

The race itself went brilliantly, Matt was after a good time and banked a new club record in 2:55. Keir Hardy made gutsy attempt on his first crack at the distance finishing in 3:52 and Yvonne Faulkner too made her debut in 4:30, amongst a host of others. I let Karen do her own thing and we agreed not to talk time on the way round. Having a job to do was good for me as I only once thought about myself and how I was feeling, at about 21 miles, just making sure I was ok as I was focussing on Karen. I quickly concluded I was fine. Running at 8:20/8:30 pace helped me greatly too as I was spending plenty of time on my feet but not stretching myself athletically – I was being slowed down which was a particularly good thing but not slow to the point where running becomes uncomfortable.

We wanted to run even splits but probably went off a bit quicker than ideal therefore banking quite a bit of time. She felt good and wasn’t being stupidly ahead of schedule. At the halfway point, she had taken over two minutes off her half marathon best which was pretty impressive, although the form she is now in, I suspect all of her old records will soon go once the distances are tackled again. I was just hoping she didn’t hit a wall or fade at the end. We were on track but would we pay a high price in the last few miles.

I think it was 18 miles when I asked how she was feeling and the reply came back “talk to me” which was a concern because up to that point she felt good. Obviously, she was going full pelt and it was only natural to start to feel tired at some point. I didn’t want her to talk too much as I worried it might affect her breathing and concentration so tried to do more of it myself and just engage her mind rather than demand dialogue from a fatigued runner. We dropped the pace down a touch but with a good cushion already banked, she would have to really experience the wheels falling off in the final hour to fail. We were still moving well however, overtaking plenty of people and seldom being passed ourselves. I helped with a bit of water carrying and we passed Keir at 21 miles offering some encouragement as we overtook.

I was desperately itching to run faster but it would have achieved nothing other than offering me some short term satisfaction. I worked out the pace per mile required for each of the last five miles and realised we could afford a lot of slippage and still get the time, although I was conscious not to communicate this back for fear of encouraging complacency. Positive mental thoughts were required and encouragement for doing so well. At mile 24 we clocked Adie Kirkham ahead – he had gone and we would catch him towards the very end. Whilst not good for Adie, it gave us a second target to aim for although it was important to stick to the task in hand and not run a different race to the one we set out to at the start.

Karen was fantastic. A model of complete determination, racing intelligently and with a very clear focus. I was learning all the time. Towards the end she was dropping off a bit but never looked like stopping and was still moving forwards in relation to those around her which psychologically is a massive boost. I wanted to run behind her for a while to check her form but it appeared I was more use positioned just ahead of her so I had to look over my shoulder to see how she was running. Again, her form was excellent, no slouching, picking her feet up nicely – there was nothing to say to help her run better. I concluded that this is HOW I had to run at London, only at MY marathon pace and not someone else’s.

We crossed the line in 3:40:51 so ended up over four minutes inside the target time and Karen helped herself to a PB by seven minutes. Perhaps even more impressive was that her time was over an hour quicker than her first attempt in 2012 when she was five years younger too! I was thrilled to bits she had done it – I struggle to think of many others who deserve success more. She was pretty overwhelmed by what she had just achieved and seemed a bit spaced out by it all which is understandable given the range of emotions you feel after such an epic distance. More than anything, I felt proud of her, but it wasn’t my achievement at the end of the day – hopefully mine would be in three weeks time. I wondered whether this was my best chance of a good marathon time given the perfect nature of the course and weather. John Morgan had blitzed his marathon best and Matt also recorded a fabulous time despite a horrific looking blister atop his toe. It surely couldn’t be any better than this at London, but again, there is no point worrying about it. I have trained for London, I will hopefully have tapered my training into it so I approach the start in the best possible shape and this for me was just a long run with an added bonus. And a big medal.

This was also the last week of high mileage and we were officially on the wind down now. I felt the best I had ever felt after a marathon. I made sure I rested the following day despite the severe temptation to get back out there. It was my ninth marathon and while I may have been pacing, I have run that time or slower on four of my nine attempts, which gives me great confidence seeing how much I must have improved.