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Virgin London Marathon 2:28:03. 17th Brit, 33rd overall

Blog post as on Google+ and elsewhere.

Finally getting around to writing up a blog about London Marathon 2013. The purpose is mainly to maintain a record to refer to for next time and hopefully provide something of interest to other marathoners. Sorry it's turned out be a bit lengthy, but I don't do many of these.

The build-up
After a poor 2012 which included marathons of 2:31:52 (London) and 2:32:42 (Frankfurt), I was wondering whether the slow decline of age was setting in. But mainly I knew that a lack of motivation that led to below-ideal mileage and volume of speedwork, together with being above my ideal weight, was a big problem.

However, my build-up for VLM 2013 was affected by the same problems. Despite some big training weeks (including two week over 140 - one of those involving around 32 miles at marathon pace!), my average mileage before the final taper week was in the high-90s because of some weeks when I couldn't be bothered. Some would thrive of that kind of average, but I know I can and should be training at least 120 miles most weeks to get the best out of myself. In addition, my weight at times was up and down and had drifted up to higher than 54kg (PB shape was 47.3kg).

I had concluded that I simply did not want badly enough to improve in my running and led me to mentally throwing in the towel with a view to London. It was a vicious cycle in that while I was in such low states I didn’t see the point in training.

My interval times all year had given no indication of the time that was to come in London. At one stage I was even struggling to get below 7:30 pace on my recovery runs as opposed to the usual 7:00. There were only a handful of sessions which remotely approached times I had done in previous years.

Two things that were positive, though, were the only two serious races I did. I went into the Inter-Counties cross-country at a low, feeling like a fat jogger and believing I didn’t deserve to wear the Cambridgeshire vest and ended up gliding (relatively speaking) across the mud and feeling like an athlete for the first time in ages. In 134th place, it suggested 32:30 10km shape even though I didn’t really believe that because of my training.

At the beginning of April I decided that I could at least be disciplined for three weeks leading up to London, even though I assumed it was too late to get down to a reasonable weight. So no alcohol and just the occasional bar of chocolate to help prevent ridiculous daily calorie deficits.

The Prague Half-marathon on April 7 would give me a pretty good idea of my potential in London, given that I had also done a half a fortnight before the Frankfurt Marathon last autumn. The 72:32 was a nice surprise as I thought outside 75 minutes could be the result and suggested to me that I could at least get close to 2:30:00, though a PB (2:28:32) was probably out of the question.

Another two weeks of living like a monk followed and I was at times losing inadvisable amounts of weight each day albeit with sudden increases now and again. Saying that, daily weight fluctuations and scales can’t always be totally relied upon so I try not to read too much into it.

The final week: carb-depletion/loading, etc
After some terrible sessions/runs in the penultimate week (which I put down to lack of recovery from the half), final preparations began on Sunday April 14 with my last drop of caffeine and the first of my daily Beet-It beetroot juice shots.

On Monday I started carb-depletion. I knew that many considered it risky and some said it doesn’t work anyway, but I gave it a shot. I had done it half-heartedly going into Frankfurt and a protein-only diet was something I had followed one day a week quite a few times.

For reference, my weight in the final week was: Mo 50.3kg, Tu 49.8, W 49.2, Th 49.0, F 49.5, Sa 49.3, Su 49.3
After three days of carb-depletion, my pre-breakfast run on Thursday was not as bad as I expected it would feel so I worried whether I had depleted myself enough. The theory, of course, is that in a depleted state, your body will better absorb the carbs when you start loading.

I have never been the type to gulp down loads and loads of pasta when carb-loading, instead being paranoid about putting on too much weight. I should have been taking in 350g of carbs per day but I was probably only just making it and overall calories was probably 2000 or less.

Race-day fuelling
Coupling this with the fact that I only gained 0.3kg during the carb-load I was worried after getting on the scales on race day that I hadn’t taken carb-loaded properly.

In the past, I’ve usually hit what I would call a “mini-wall” in the last few miles, just starting to feel like my legs are running out of glycogen, so I thought it could end up happening again.

Worrying about this, unusually for me I took on a Lucozade gel 15mins before the start. My plan then was similar as for every other marathon I have done - around 1.6litres of fluid in total and about 50g carb/hr - so taking in almost half the bottle at every Lucozade station (5M, 10M, 15M, 19M and 23M) and almost half the bottle at one water station in between.

However, in the first half I started to feel ever so slightly bloated and as if my bladder was a bit too full so I eased back, especially given that the conditions were not warm.

Something else that influenced my fuel plan was the major problem during the race - stomach problems. Without being too graphic, I feared I would be “doing a Paula” and, together with the fact that Lucozade tastes worse and worse as the race goes on anyway, I don’t think I took on any more after 15 miles. I may have had a sip of water at 17 miles but that was it. I knew this was a risk given my history of dying slightly at the end,

Race pace
Many people compliment me on my race pacing, particularly when it comes to marathons. I’m not sure that my success in this regard so far isn’t due in at least some part to luck. However, I like to think I just know when I start off running what sort of pace I’m going to be able to maintain for 26 miles. Certainly it should feel “comfortable” for the first half and you should be hoping to be able to pick up the pace in the second half, I believe.

It was looking good early on but I knew the first 5km was slightly downhill and that the halfway mark would be the first important marker.

This was 1:14:10 - pretty much exactly on PB schedule, although at this point I wasn’t entirely confident of the prospect of maintaining the 5:40 pace that would be needed, especially as the net elevation for the next 13 miles would be roughly zero and there would be no benefit of the drop from the first 5km.

Here are my splits, incidentally. A little too sporadic for my liking.
5K 10:17:32 00:17:32 17:32 03:31 17.12
10K 10:35:00 00:35:00 17:28 03:30 17.18
15K 10:52:43 00:52:43 17:43 03:33 16.94
20K 11:10:24 01:10:23 17:40 03:33 16.98
HALF 11:14:11 01:14:10 03:47 03:28 17.36
25K 11:27:42 01:27:42 13:32 03:28 17.32
30K 11:45:00 01:44:59 17:17 03:28 17.35
35K 12:02:34 02:02:33 17:34 03:31 17.07
40K 12:20:19 02:20:18 17:45 03:34 16.90
Finish time 12:28:04 02:28:03 07:45 03:32 16.99

From about 10 miles out I knew I was going to be close to sub-2:28 if all went well. At the same time, I feared I could hit the wall at any point and wanted to make sure of the PB so, along with the stomach problems, I tried to consolidate the 5:40s rather than speed up. I'm sure if I hadn't had the stomach worry I'd have gone for it over the last one to three miles and made sure I got under 2:28.

Coming into The Mall, I instantly recognised the wearer of the Blackheath & Bromley vest in front of me as Mike Skinner. I don't delight in a top athlete like that having a bad day, but I will admit that it was a lot easier working to overtake him than if it were someone I didn't recognise.

Seeing the clock moving towards 2:28, I gave it everything and even dipped for the line hoping that my chip time would turn out to be 2:27-something. As someone pointed out, dipping for the line was pretty pointless anyway because the chip was on my my foot! It seems my chip time was the same as my gun time, which surprises me. I'm not saying I should have been under 2:28, but it must have taken at last the best part of a second to get through the start line.

All in all, apart from the stomach problems (in other words, my lungs and my legs), I had never felt this comfortable at the end of a marathon.

Where did this time come from? I'm not sure. I've long said I'm capable of 2:26 if I showed 100% commitment and got the weight right, but I didn't think my preparation was much better this time around than for either of last year's two marathons.

Lessons learned
I always say you learn something from every marathon and that you probably can't run enough of them to know everything there is to know about the event. This time I took on a lot less carbs than usual yet didn't slow at the end as I'm inclined to. Was it because of the carb depletion? Maybe. I would certainly do that again. But did this ensure I didn't hit the wall? I wouldn't be so sure.

The goals
I reckon I'll have a week or two easy (even though three days later I feel fresh and ready to get going again) and then get back to hitting some short, sharp reps with a view to getting in some fast 5000s on the track. I know it's going to be tougher setting PBs for the shorter stuff, but I feel it's possible.

Then mid-summer I'll introduce some marathon-specific stuff again with a view to an autumn marathon. At the moment, it's looking like either Budapest or Frankurt. I'll be an M40 by then - the leading UK time in the age group is 2:27:29 so that's a goal and hopefully that'll give me the motivation that I've been lacking recently. I think I can run sub-2:26 if I train properly and keep the weight down. Similarly, being top M40 in London next year would be fantastic, although I realise there are plenty who could show up and run a lot quicker than I could dream of.