My first marathon

Written on July 5, 2010 by george

As those of you who follow me on twitter will have probably saw, I recently completed my first marathon. It was actually 6 weeks ago now but I’ve only just got round to writing the blog post but for once I can blame the British weather for this – it has been beautiful here lately and I’ve been enjoying it to the max. The post is quite long so for those wanting the short version, I couldn’t get to Vienna due to the ash cloud so had to readjust and run Edinburgh a month later. In a rather hot 25c I ran a very pleasing 3:03:01, came 142nd and got myself an automatic place for London next year. For those wanting the longer version of what happened, a series of training tips I picked up and the highs and lows of marathon training read on.

I’m not sure where the dream first came from but as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to run a marathon. I’m not sure what exactly appealed about it since I spent my time as a kid playing football and tennis, not running. In fact I only really got into running when I left school although arguably I was pretty good at it whilst forced to do it in PE. Fast forwarding a few (or rather quite a few) years I joined an excellent running club when I moved to London, and taking inspiration from the fellow runners who had just done Paris marathon, I decided this year was going to be the one to do it. Running sub 3 was something I’d always dreamed of too although I was unsure if that was a realistic target for my first marathon or not. Talking to friends in the club it seems quite a few had tried and failed at what is for most club runners the most symbolic of marathon times (it’s quite a nice round number ok?). Undaunted in late October I rocked up to a half marathon to get a gauge of how fit I was and whether this crazy sub 3 idea was going to be achievable. I finished the race in a surprising 1:27:02 and thoroughly enjoyed my first long race, getting lots of support from the locals, a few high 5s round the course and a top 50 finish. Not a bad gauge race and fast enough that I considered a 3 hour marathon a possibility.

Through November and December I concentrated on two main things: building my weekly milage trying to run upto 17 miles comfortably and improving my running technique. The first was quite simple in theory – run 13 miles one weekend, 15 the next, 17 the next and then repeat again. In reality the appalling winter weather, running considerably further than I’ve ever run before and the logistics of not getting lost around London made this somewhat more difficult than I imagined it first would be. These challenges were fairly insignificant compared to improving my running form though.

There was lots of talk on the running circuit about a book called Born to Run in which the story of an ultra-running tribe called the Tarahumara, the 30-100+ miles they compete in, and the benefits of running barefoot rather than in trainers are told. Although it was documented a lot of the fastest africans ran barefoot as children, nobody was really sure why it had such an effect on running speed. The fact the Tarahumara could run such long distances in flat sandals challenged the concept that buying the most expensive cushioned trainers possible was the best thing to do. In fact the reported injury rate in athletes was much lower before the cushioned trainer came along and the reason is somewhat obvious when all the facts become clear. Given the extra cushioning in modern trainers people start running in a style where they land on their heel rather than mid or forefoot. This is because the trainers heel cushioning encourages such a strike. Landing on your heel exerts much more force through your body though and thus increases the chances of injury. Hopping on your heel rather than forefoot, or trying to run down the street barefoot and landing on your heel, provide a great example of this.

I had spent the previous few years struggling with injuries and ended up buying more and more expensive trainers with additional cushioning to try and combat my injury woes. So reading the Born to Run book seemed like a revolution and convinced me of the need to alter my style. In the end I opted for the ChiRunning technique but the POSE method is fairly similar. Both teach you to run in a way much closer to how we run barefoot and land on either the mid or forefoot. Reducing impact force not only reduces injury risk but makes you more energy efficient over the course of a run and whilst I did spend some time injured adapting to the technique, I have been running much smoother since and spending much less time injured. In fact I’ve barely been injured at all since switching styles, I use cheaper less cushioned trainers and the trainers last a lot longer too.

By christmas my style was making big improvements and my fitness was starting to increase to the extent that going out for a 15 mile run seemed like no different than a 6 mile jog. Then somewhat inevitably, disaster struck. Over the christmas break I went for a 13 mile run whilst back visiting my parents and jogging along an old route that I used to cycle along, I faced an icy patch. I was only a few miles from home and the backtrack option was a good 6 miles, so I decided to run on with the hope the ice cleared. After a mile or so it eased and I managed to get home fairly unscathed, or so I thought. The next day the tendons in my left ankle were really sore and I was unable to run further than 2 miles. How could I have been so stupid? Right as the critical marathon training was about to kick off I was out injured. And not only that tendons are notoriously slow to heal.

Anger quickly turns to practicality and once back in London I went to see both a Physiotherapist and a Sports Massage person. In the end I found the sports massage to be much better as they actually worked on the problem, forcing blood to the area via massage, ultrasound and acupuncture, which inturn speeds up the healing. Phyios on the other hand spend a lot of time diagnosing the problem and then offering advice on strengthening weak muscles – useful, but not much help for overcoming your current injury. Of course this was my experience and your milage may vary (no pun intended).

In times of injury it’s important to readjust your training schedule and try to keep fitness levels high by cross-training. I found swimming and cycling to be best for this although as your heart works at a lower level you need to spend more time doing these activities than you would running – eg 2 hours on the bike is equivalent to 1-1:30 of running. 2 hours on a bike in a gym, if the mental image hasn’t already flashed across your mind, is boring as hell and motivating yourself to get to the session can be quite hard. Some intelligent scheduling can normally find a big sporting event on at the same time which helps speed away the time. This year I watched a lot of the Australian Open and really got into F1 – not bad things to do whilst cycling for 2 hours by any stretch of the imagination.

Luckily I had planned some time in to my training schedule to be lost to injury and/or illness (I highly recommend doing this), and as I got back running in early February my dreams of a 3 hour marathon were just about still alive. As the month progressed we moved on to doing a 20 miler every other weekend and a 13-15 miler on the other weekend. This was in addition to 1 interval, 1 medium (8-10 miles) and a couple of recovery runs. In a few weeks I topped over 50 miles per week although my milage was low compared to many (more on this later). I was also learning to pace myself well – or more accurately I bought a Garmin Forerunner 305 which has a GPS built in so you can see how far/fast you’re running. It’s extremely useful information to know if you’re not racing as getting the pace wrong in a 20 mile run is not nice. I remember one training session with a few club mates where 2 of us ended up out front. At 18 miles my friend Dave was struggling and our pace was slipping back to 7:30s, so I agreed to meet him at the end and picked up the pace. I banged out a 6:30 mile and then starting struggling fast. Moving my legs was becoming difficult and as I crossed the finish line going slower than 8 minute miles, Dave shouted my name finishing less than 10s behind me. He was looking fresh and ready for a cool down, I was lying on the floor barely able to move! The lesson had been learnt – 26 miles is a long way and pacing it correctly is critical.

I also learnt the perils of stopping. Trying to even walk after 20 miles feels like somebody is stabbing you with a knife in the back of the hamstrings every step you take. To combat this I settled into a fairly nice routine after long runs. Firstly 5 minutes stretch off and put on compression tights. 2XU are the favourites among my club mates and my experience with them has been nothing sort of fantastic. They work by pumping blood into your muscles helping to clear out the lactic acid and consequently reduce soreness the next day. They also keep you nice and warm which becomes a big issue 10 minutes after finishing. As your body has been hot for so long stopping quickly results in a loss of body temperature, so this was something else that had to be dealt with. I’d put on compression gear, joggers, clean t-shirt, jumper and get somewhere warm if I wasn’t finishing at home.

Next most important is to get some kind of fuel back into your body. Running 20 miles burns around 2000 calories depleting your glucose stores and ripping thousands of your muscles fibres to bits. There’s a 20 minute window after exercise in which your body repsonds extremely well to any kind of nutrition you give it. The optimum blend (for running) is a 4-1 carb to protein formula. Although best to have this as proper solid food in reality it’s not normally possible and a recovery drink is the best option. Also as your stomach shrinks the longer you exercise, it’s unlikely you’re going to want to drink it. It took me a few weeks to adapt to this but eventually my body caved and started taking it down. Finally you can then get home, shower and crash. And you will need to do crash – some prefer to go to bed for a few hours, personally I struggle to sleep after the post run high so just lied on the sofa for 3 hours under a blanket to keep warm. After that my body started to come round and I could eat and go do stuff. To be honest, the days I did a long run I didn’t really do much else although as I adapted over the months it become easier. Oh and one more thing your immune system is weakened for a few days after such a long run so if there’s a bug going round expect to get it :( That time crashed out on the sofa helps combat the start of this.

As I trained through February, perfected the recovery strategy and adapted to the increased milage recovering became easier, but the legs were always sore and I was always laid out for a few hours post training. As March rolled round, training was going well and I nailed a 21.5 mile run with an average pace of 6:42 a mile, exactly 10s faster than I’d need to do for the marathon. Surely that made me on target? Indeed it did, the excellent McMillan Running Calculator providing the calculations.

Training was also taking its toll on me though and I spent a lot of February and March really quite tired. Luckily the sports massage guy I went to see noticed I was looking slightly anemic. Training hard puts extra demands on your iron stores as your body increases the amount of red blood cells it needs. It’s a fairly well documented phenomena in people training for long distances and its important to get lots of iron in your diet. Once I became aware of this I altered my diet to include more read meat and spinach and took a few teaspoons of Blackstrap Molasses each day. Blackstrap Molasses is produced from the left overs of sugar cane boiled up three times. It sounds, looks and tastes fairly disgusting but it’s great for you, containing large amounts of iron, zinc, magnesium and even something that helps your body break down sugar and deal with it more effectively (needless to say they refine this out in for sugar you buy in supermarkets). After just 1 week I was amazed how much difference this made and to this day I still take Blackstrap Molasses a few times a week.

As race day dawned my thoughts turned to race strategy. The usual rules apply here – get there early, drop off your bags, go to the toilet, find your starting area, warm up and go to the toilet again. All the big marathons have “starting pens” which essentially put people of a similar pace together. It’s not worth lying on your entry form here as you’ll find yourself frustrated by slower runners in front of you or getting knocked over by faster ones coming from behind. If you think you’re going to be on a nice boundary though (eg 4 hours) it’s worth writing 3:59 as your predicted time. This will ensure you’re in the 3:45-3:59 pace group rather than the 4:00 – 4:15 pace group. When there’s 30,000 people crossing the starting line, that makes a lot of difference.

Once the race has started I like to make friends with people around me, it’s much easier to run with people at the same pace as you. Throughout any race you’ll hit highs and lows and running with other people means you drag them along when they’re struggling and you get dragged along when you’re struggling. My better than expected performance in the forementioned 21.5 miler was because I was running with 2 club mates at the same speed (sadly they both got injured before the marathon so I was running the main event alone). If you’re pacing yourself correctly then you shouldn’t be out of breath for the first half of the race so don’t worry about any performance implications of talking. The other reason it’s good to talk to the other runners is it’s great for finding out information about the course – runners who have done it before and will point out hard miles, runners who drove the course the day before, or runners who know where there are lots of supporters. It’s all great information to know and makes the earlier miles much more fun.

Water and energy strategy is really important. When training I carried a half litre bottle of water for 20 miles. This taught me to operate on less water than I’d get in a race whilst giving me enough to stop dehydration effecting my performance. Energy gels are important for giving your body instantly usable energy too as there isn’t enough glucose stores in most people to run 26 miles. They taste pretty rubbish so experiment and find your favourite but I quite liked the Torq ones with Guarana. Some require you to have them with water whereas others don’t. The Torq ones definitely require water but I favoured having the water about 4-5 mins after the gel or it made me feel sick. Experiment during training not the actual race!

I mentioned earlier that I did less miles than most other runners my speed. The reason was I took a less is more approach and ran all my long runs (except 1) at or within 15s per mile of marathon pace. On the downside this meant it took longer to recover and I couldn’t train very well the following week. On the up side as it was my first marathon it meant I was fairly confident of finishing in the time I expected, knew my pacings well and knew how my body would react. It isn’t the most efficient way to train but it gave me a lot of confidence and that was extremely valuable. Consequently going into the race I was confident but not arrogant.

As the last 3 weeks before the main event rolled round I started tapering. Tapering is a period where you reduce your weekly milage by 30%, 50% and then 70% in the final week. This lets your body recover from all your training whilst not losing too much fitness, leaving you in optimum shape for the big day. It’s also important to adjust your diet to reflect the reduced amount of training or you will feel stuffed. This can be quite hard to do as pounding out so many miles increases your daily calorie intake by anything from 20-50%. At times during my training I would find myself eating a huge meal and then becoming hungry again 2 hours later, so in the tapering period it’s important not to eat for the sake of it or rapid weight gain will ensue! In the final few days you need to build up the carb stores in your body and the best way to do this is to eat lots of slow release carbohydrates. Like many my favourite source become pasta and I’d make pasta bake for the few nights before the race. If you’re travelling to the race becareful on where you eat out – anything to creamy or spicy is a bad idea. I had a spicy sausage pasta before my race and very nearly regretted it on race day.

As I mentioned we were due to run in Vienna but unfortunately that was the same time the Icelandic Volcano decided to erupt, grounding all european air traffic. This was gutting, 4 months training and I couldn’t get to the start line. Luckily the club is well connected and after a few hours of panic, we managed to get offers of places at both Brighton and Sussex marathons although both had officially closed many weeks earlier. I opted for the Sussex one along with the rest of the club as it provided a half marathon option (which Vienna also did and some had signed up to, whereas Brighton didn’t). As the gun went and I raced off I knew something wasn’t right. At 3 miles I was struggling to hold pace and by 7 I was stupidly out of breath. I realised something was wrong and there was no point continuing so pulled out. Obviously this was hugely gutting and a massive disappointment after so much training but the next day I came down ill for a few days so I guess I was just unlucky. Thinking back there were a few warning signs the day before but I just put these down to pre-race nerves.

The next week I faced a choice – carry on moping and call it quits till the Autumn marathons or try and get a place in Edinburgh 4 weeks away. I refocused and opted for the later, got a quick weeks worth of training in and started the taper period again. Clearly this wasn’t ideal as I had just spent 3 weeks resting so loss of fitness would become an issue. But if anything my pre-marathon races had suggested I’ll be a few minutes under 3 hours, so I figured it was still on.

I arrived in Edinburgh the day before the big race to a rather hot 21c. I bought a running cap and prayed for much cooler weather the next day. On waking the sky had clouded over and it was cool walking to the start. Perfect conditions for marathon running in fact. As I entered the starting pen though the sun creaped out from behind a cloud – damn, but not to worry still plenty of cloud cover. By the time the gun went I noticed the cloud cover clearing but I wasn’t paying too much attention, the crowds were cheering, the adrenaline was flowing, I started my watch and my second marathon began. Hopefully I’d finish this one.

In the first few miles you have to be really disaplined not to go too fast and keep on target pace. In Edinburgh this is especially true as the first few miles are down hill. I stuck to my race plan and didn’t let myself exceed 6:40s. After the first 4 or 5 miles the sky was completely clear and it was clear this whole race would be in the sun. The race start at 10am was less than ideal too and it meant the later parts of the race would be in the midday sun. Bugger. Finally the course in Edinburgh wasn’t helping either – it was basically a 3 mile run out the city and then a 13 miles out and 10 miles back to a finish (down the same sparsely populated road). By the time we got on the road at mile 3 it became clear there was going to be absolutely no shade. None of this had to matter though, I could let it matter but I wasn’t going to, it was just things to be dealt with.

At mile 6 I started to feel a slight niggle in my left hamstring. Pounding out so many miles in training puts a big stress on your body as you adapt to the increased milage and the rather excellent Trigger Point Therapy Workbook had saved me many times through the months of training. In a race there’s nothing you can do though – well actually you can stop but that’s not ideal. At this point it was just a niggle so I switched my focus to something else, in this case the other hamstring. This one was fine and by thinking about that I was able to shift the doubts about my left one. It worked well and a mile later I heard no more from my left hamstring all race.

As I came through half way things were going really well. I ran through in 1:28:30, not out of breath and exactly where I wanted to be time wise. Within a few miles though things started to get difficult though. Through the water stations I was grabbing 2 bottles, one to drink and one to pour over myself. This has kept me good to 17 miles but now the sun was really intense. There were more warning signs too – the guy I passed collapsed under a tree, the guy dressed as a superhero stopped and the amount of people I was overtaking who were struggling was rapidly increasing.

Around 20 miles you normally evaluate how you’re feeling and if good, pick up speed a bit for the last few miles. This time I knew how I was feeling and it wasn’t good. My pace was slowing, I was dehydrating and, as I’d later find out, it was 25c. I knew at this point I had to refocus and look to finish the marathon not get a good time. I’d lost count of the amount of people I’d seen being sick or dropped out, hell even the eventual winner stopped for a short while to cool down. Although I was struggling I was overtaking lots of people who were struggling more and I had to use this to my advantage. This is the best thing about pacing yourself right from the beginning – not only is it a more efficient way to run but in the last quarter of the race it catches up with the runners who started too fast and you can pull them back in. This is motivating at the best of times. This is really motivating when you’re running in 25c and your throat feels like you’ve just woken up after a stag night. At this point in the race it becomes as much a mind game as a physical one – keep going is hard physically, convincing yourself you can keep going is much harder.

The last 4 miles hurt a lot. From 18 to 22 I’d managed to keep running at 7:10, meaning from the dodgy calculations I was attempting to do whilst running, that I would have been within a minute of a 3 hours finish time. Very impressive given the conditions. But then my pace started to slip – 7:30, 7:40, 8:00, 8:20. Dehydration had caught up with me, my body could no longer cool itself and even the hose pipe of a local resident who sprayed me wasn’t helping. At this point it’s all about taking it one mile at a time. Thinking you’ve got 4 more left is enough to make you stop. Thinking you’ve got 1 mile and doing it 4 times is much more manageable. I first heard of this strategy watching the fantastic film Touching the Void and use it a lot in races.

By 24 I was starting to get a little worried. My legs and breathing were fine but my body was getting really hot. I made the decision to keep going although I knew I might not be too far off doing myself some serious damage. If I’d felt like this 4 miles from the end I would have stopped. As you exercise a lot you learn when you can push yourself and when something isn’t right. I was definitely moved from the former to the later and I didn’t want to take any silly risks. In the last two miles I become the person being overtaken but my focus was just on finishing and making sure I didn’t deteriorate anymore. As I finally crossed the line I was apparently looking very pale.

As I collected my medal I turned to see some shade and a large collection of runners downing water looking very un-well. By the time I hydrated and cooled down I was fine but sadly many weren’t. 1 in 40 runners needed medical attention and 1 person sadly died. I even heard (unverified) rumours they ran out of ambulances. It was pretty mean out there.

Finishing a marathon is a feeling that’s very hard to describe. As I collapsed on the shady grass, medal in hand it was hard not to get emotional about the journey to this point. 5 months of training, countless early mornings, several major social events sacrificed for sunday races and endless training miles run, made finishing the race a relief comparable with finishing your finals at university. The cocktail of emotions pumping round my body were like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Once I rehydrated and the reality sunk in, I picked myself up and headed to try and see my friend finish. She should have been 30 minutes behind me but I was in such a bad way 40 minutes had passed by the time I got back to the start. I cut my losses and heading to the baggage collection area a hobbling mess. To be honest the ending to Edinburgh marathon was a joke, a 10 minute walk to pickup your bag and a further 15 minute walk to the bus (after running a f**king marathon). It didn’t really matter though – I was just happy to have finished.

So bad race conditions aside, would I do one again? Yes I’d like to. The challenge of the learning about when to push your body and when to hold back, the nutrition and the discipline of training have all been worthwhile things to experience and practice. Above everything else the atmosphere of the race is unrivaled though – the spirit of the other racers, the people calling out your name and the cheer as you cross the line are really like nothing else. It’s very easy to see why people get addicted to marathon running. I took a few weeks off running after the event to let my body recover but it wasn’t long before I was craving the open road again. And it wasn’t long before there was talk of another marathon. In October I’ll be doing Amsterdam – I won’t train hard like I did last time as I still feel a little tired from the long miles – but I will keep my long run fitness ticking over and hopefully go sub 3.

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