Training Log Archive: Whitesheep

Event: Seville marathon
 

Seville marathon
Really enjoyable race. Knew I wasn’t in perfect health (again!) but squeezed out all I could on the day. Can’t complain with 4 mins off the pb.

Longer version...

After holding off the girls’ nursery bugs all through training, I finally caught one early in the taper. I still thought I had plenty of time to recover but just plateaued in the last week. I got a bit down about this early in the week - shades of valencia a couple of years ago which was a bit frustrating - but after a couple of days enjoying the build up with the other six from our Thursday morning training group I was relaxed and ready to take it as it came.
We had a great house in the city and the one mile stroll to the start in the dark with the camaraderie was great. We then set off at seven different paces.
The early signs weren’t good for me. I couldn’t fill my lungs without triggering a cough and for some reason my quads were heavy from the get go. On the plus side I felt fit and could go along at a good pace without being right on the limit. There was one moment where I sped up to close a 10m gap to a group when we turned into the wind, where I felt really good and able to accelerate.
The blow-up I was half expecting just never really came and it gradually dawned on me that i wasn’t getting any worse. Paul motored past me on the way to a 2:48 at about 2/3 distance and around then I had to decide whether to stick or twist. I figured that trying to speed up was super risky and if I played it safe I would almost certainly manage 2:52. It wasn’t really a hard decision.
I did slow down a bit in the last quarter. Perhaps if 2:51 were my lifetime goal I could have eked out a bit more, but it isn’t and I didn’t. Then again perhaps it just got hotter: it was in the 20s when I finished and I was still overtaking people at the same rate.
Favourite bit by far was the plaza espanyol, the liveliest part of the course and also the bit where I realised I would get a pb. Loads of support there gave me a proper boost. It was also nice to finish close to five others who I’ve trained with over the winter - though equally sad that there were three more who should have been enjoying the moment too.
Also worth remembering that I think I got my nutrition bang on. Decent breakfast then I started the race with a 500ml throwaway bottle of beta fuel, took 3 normal and 2 caffeine gels before 35km, and took water at every station. I reasoned though that the water was mainly to sweat out and cool me down, so was less worried about drinking it and happy to throw most of it over me. Compared with previous marathons (where I’ve focused on actually drinking the water) this meant I faffed about less and made better use of the water stations. I seem to be blessed with a fairly tolerant stomach and made more use of that this time than I have done before.

5k splits: 20:30, 08, 15, 08, 20, 17, 43, 59. Halfway in 1:25.30, second half 1:27.
My pacing was pretty good really. From 4km to halfway, apart from one km where I pushed on to shelter in the group from the wind, all km splits were between 3:59 and 4:04. Even once I slowed down I had a stretch of 4:12, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11.

The main thing is though, I enjoyed this a lot and felt significantly more experienced doing this than last time out. I’ll definitely do another in the next year or so, and don’t think I’ve yet run my lifetime pb.

C • Nice! 4

C • Good luck Tom 1

easy yoga