Gold Coast Marathon - 3:00:55

After another busy week at work I headed up to the gold coast on saturday morning with Rod, walshy and Craig. It had been another really busy week at work with many late nights. Not great preparation for a marathon however I was still confident of a sub 3.

I managed to snag Rod a late entry and so we were all running. A relaxing afternoon and an early night was nice.

Lined up at the front next to walshy and we were away. I was surprisingly very relaxed. The 1st 5k was very precise knocking out k splits of between 4:11 and 4:15 going through 5k in 21:16. I missed the 5k mat and had to turn around which cost me 5-10 secs. The running was nice. The weather was cool and the roads were in the shade of some of the unit blocks etc. The 3 hour pacing group was a bit annoying as they tended to surge and when there were 100 in the group passing you and then slowing doen it was a little frustrating.

The next 2 5k spilts down to the turnaround were done in just under 21 mins each. Walshy and I were feeling great, sharing drinks and having a chat - we were in a good place. We turned around and headed North again with the next 5k done in 21:03. The pacing was simply perfect reaching half way in 1:28:44 - 16 secs up on schedule. The 3 hour pacing group were long gone going through half way in 1:27:35 (crazy).

Walshy and I continued on to the 30k mark in splits of 21:10 and 21:15. This was under the 4:15 barrier and still putting time into the bank ever so slightly. I was over the moon and feeling great.

The course then came over 2 slight hills over the bridge and then just near the finish line. These hills seemed to knock me around a little and I started to struggle a little. This was a little startling however I was moving pretty well and had a minute or so in the bank. Waslhy looked like he was wanting to take off but held back until I insisted he move away from me. It was a little disappointing, but I was churning out 4:15 - 4:20 and I was not going any faster. The next 5k split was done in 21:28.

I was starting to really struggle and was doing a lot of self talk to keep me concentrating on maintaing the speed. I calculated that I could still average 4:25k's for the last 7k and just make it. The problem was that we turned around back into the wind. I was trying my guts out and I was moving right on 4:25's. The 5k split to 40k was done in 22:21. I could have broken 3 hours with a couple of 4:15 splits but it wasn't going to happen. I was doing everything I could to maintain 4:40 pace. The last k was extremely painful and a little disappointing knowing I had come so close.

5KM 0:21:16 0:21:24 (4:15)
10KM 0:20:50 0:42:14 (4:10)
15KM 0:20:57 1:03:12 (4:11)
20KM 0:21:03 1:24:16 (4:12)
25KM 0:21:10 1:45:27 (4:14)
30KM 0:21:15 2:06:43 (4:15)
35KM 0:21:28 2:28:11 (4:17)
40KM 0:22:21 2:50:33 (4:28)
Finish 0:10:30 3:01:03 (4:46)

Half Way 1:28:44 (4:12)
Finish 1:32:10 (4:22)

Interesting to look at the splits compared to walshy. In the end he beat me by 2 mins exactly - 16 secs from 30-35, 42 secs from 35-40 and 62 secs in the last 2.2. When I look at the pace graph in sportstracks however, it shows I was in trouble from 30k onwards - the graph shows the enevitable slowdown.

Very happy for walshy who really reaped the rewards for some consisntent hard training. Rod also had a PB of no training and qualified for Boston.

Lessons learnt: I was actually really happy with the way I approached the race. In retrospect the two things that let me down were 1) not enough k's - I tried to bluff my way through by only doing an average of 60k per week. I did enough long runs and speed work, just not enough volume 2) A really busy 3 weeks of work leading into the marathon - stressful, tiring etc. I think I have the approach right for next time. Just need to do 1-2 extra runs per week and make sure I get some rest before racing next time.

Until next time...