Virgin London Marathon a great race

It’s been a mad couple of weeks, the elation of passing my coaching exams last Saturday which was such hard work and a long day. It had a technical exam to start with and then into the practical assessments which takes up all day!

VLM Race report

The day started cloudy and we parted ways with Stuart and Dave as they headed off the to “Good for age” start. Both Chris’s were with me in pen two and as we crossed the line we were 40 seconds behind the elite men. The start was as predicted a mass of people entirely in the wrong pen meant doing my best to keep to the blue line and minimise weaving around (As it adds distance and increase the risk of calf strain, mile one thus resulted in a 7:46 and mile two 7:10 so was a minute off pace after the first two miles.

In marathon running being a bit slower at the start is not a bad thing as it generally warms you up for the torture that you will putting on your body over the next 26.2 miles.
So it is important not to rush to get the time back and eek your target pace back on at a small chunks and this will reduce the risk of blowing your race.

My left calf gave me grief from mile 3 and my heart sank, fortunately it eased off at mile 6 but kept me in a bit of discomfort through the rest of the race. The mile splits were roughly 6:50 for till mile 14 were I finally hit a 7:00 minute mile followed by another 7:01 at mile 15. This put me on a negative split overall which in normal racing terms is not ideal.

At mile 15 I caught up with Dave E and strode on, half a mile later he passed me and looked supreme as he run off into the distance and he finished with a 3:05:09 a super result.
I was caught by Nell McAndrew at around mile 17 and enjoyed a bit of a chat, aside from my beautiful wife Nell has to be one of the most gorgeous woman and a great runner. She is a superb ambassador for Cancer Research (UK) at mile 20 I remarked “I should change my name to Nell and get this great support you have” I am not sure if her laugh was to humour me or not!

Also at mile 20 is when the race turns on and your legs are really screaming at you and Nell just strode on as Dave E had some 4 miles before!

The last 6 miles were hard work and every muscle was cramping, scary but you just have to grit your teeth and use your “central governor” to override the pain. It is a wrench to see other runners however that have succumbed to the agony and put into wheelchairs or collapsing to the floor.

Turning onto the mall I had spasms in all the legs but tried my best to run tall and stick some pace in at the end, my time was a very rewarding 3:09:08

Split	time	diff	min/km	km/h
5K	00:22:34	22:34	04:31	13.29
10K	00:43:38	21:04	04:13	14.24
15K	01:04:58	21:20	04:16	14.07
20K	01:26:34	21:36	04:20	13.89
HALF	01:31:08	04:34	04:10	14.4
25K	01:48:25	17:17	04:26	13.56
30K	02:11:27	23:02	04:37	13.02
35K	02:34:45	23:18	04:40	12.88
40K	02:59:21	24:36:00	04:56	12.2
finish time	03:09:08	09:47	04:28	13.45

It has been a great climax to the end of three great weeks and now my legs are annoyed with me!

Have a great running week (I have a rest week planned.. oddly)

Mark K