The Double-trouble

 

The Dublin Marathon.

 

My original intent was to treat this race as part of my preparation to the Donostia Marathon where I wanted to break 2h50m (My PB was 2:52). Plan was to race for 30kms and then jog the rest… …but the closer I got to the race, the more my Trim AC colleagues kept telling me “yeah right! You won’t stop at the 30th km”.

 

I remember being at the start line feeling quite nervous … which was a good sign that I cared enough for what laid ahead of me. Race started and I ran by feel without worrying about my pace.

I found a small group of 2 girls & 4 lads and I got stuck behind them all the way to the top of the Phoenix park to avoid the headwind. They were running at a much faster pace that I had intended to but I knew that I could always stop at km 30 (as per my original but long-forgotten plan).

I decided to take the challenge and keep with them for as long as I could sustain and it turned out that I was able to run with them until the 25th km. … After that I was left on my own. Mentally it was tough but I had already practiced this a few weeks before at the ¾ marathon where I ran on my own the entire race.

 

Although I had slowed down my pace slightly, I set myself the challenge to keep running each km below 4min (but only checking my watch AFTER each Km). Km 30 came by and at that point I thought “feck it! Go for it!”

 

The next 12kms weren’t easy and I went through the usual Ups & Downs that everyone suffers when running a marathon at a pace that is edging our limits. I had to exercise my usual “3-Question assessment” every time I was feeling low:

1. Are your legs hurting anywhere? No.
2. Is your breathing going too fast? No.
3. Are you hungry? No.

• Then it’s your mind playing tricks! Change it! Take a bit of sugar and you’ll feel better in 1k. It works every time.

 

As I approached the 39th km, my legs suddenly started to hurt a good bit and I felt small cramps pinching my calves. I also sensed a stitch on my left side so I had no other option but to ease into a slower pace and try to take deeper breaths to disseminate more oxygen to my suffering muscles. Additionally, I began to face the headwind again but this time and there was no one around me to draft behind…. Negative thoughts quickly sprinted through my mind, but no sugar or any type of auto-convincing was going to change my attitude this time. I was in a total mess… All I could do was to hang on to the fact that we were almost finishing and simply embrace the suck.

 

At the time, I knew that I had the sub 2h50m under control as I thought I was in around the 2h48m, so I was confident that I all had to do was to manage my cramping and stich to avoid having to come to a complete stop.

 

As I reached the 40.2k mark, I checked my overall time to avoid any last-minute disappointment (once I crossed the finish line in 3:00:03).  It took me a while to get my head around the fact that I was actually going to break the 2:45 mark but when I did, all my cramps disappeared, legs seemed to hurt no-more and the stitch & headwind simply vanished… I was so happy!! … I’m 100% sure all those pains were still there; but my mind was simply ignoring them… which goes to show how controlling our minds are the toughest part of an endurance race.

I crossed the finish line in total disbelief. I had to check my watch and the clock at the finish about 10 times!!

The Donostia / San Sebastian Marathon:

 

I got a lot of advice about approaching this 2nd marathon… most people said to not run it at all or to simply run it slowly & enjoy the atmosphere…  … which, in fairness, is the right approach if you don’t want to increase the risk of injury… but equally, everybody knows how boring are those never-ending long runs can be at an easy pace.

 

Some thoughts going through my mind: “Was Dublin a fluke?” “is this my new standard?” “was that really my limit?” …. Well, the only way to find out is to go out there and do it all over again.

 

Weather was pretty miserable at the start but nothing compared to the previous day, so we were incredibly blessed as the rain stopped after 500m and the winds became quite manageable.

 

This time, I embraced the 2:45 challenge from the start line… I knew that I could do it as I had just done it… but this marathon proved to be a complete struggle from a very early stage.  I had to work hard each km from pretty much the 4th km as my legs were not only really tired from visiting the city the previous days but also my mind was incredibly tired from all the racing done this year.

 

I kept the average pace 3sec below my Dublin pace to have some sort of a motivation to keep me going but unfortunately, I couldn’t hold onto it and eventually I lost a couple of seconds.

As my Garmin got to the 42.2k mark, I stopped my watch and realised that I had run the Donostia Marathon 18s faster than Dublin… super delighted!!! … but that happiness lasted only a few seconds as the Basque course was much longer.

 

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I always stop my watch at the exact 42.2k point on my Garmin. I do this so that I don’t depend on organisers measuring the course right (marathons like Belfast & Manchester being the latest messed-ups examples) but most importantly, I can therefore able to compare all my races “like for like”.  I still count the official time and my official PB, so no cheating there.

 

Although, I had run this race almost one sec faster per km (3:52 vs 3:53 in Dublin), my official time was a lot slower as they added about 700m extra. It was quite disappointing to see great races like this one messing up on something so easy for them to measure…. But such is life!

 

Overall super happy with my Double-trouble marathon calendar and I look forward to my next challenge.

 

Dublin: Garmin time: 2:43:46 // Chip Time:  2:44:31

Donostia: Garmin time: 2:43:28 // Chip Time:  2:45:59

 

Special thanks for my running partner & Trim AC colleague Quinton… without his constant running advice and hard sessions that we do together and with the Club, I would definitely not been able to come close to any of my recent achievements.

 

Thank you all for taking your time to read this. Happy miles!