Race swag report - London, must do better

I’ve been clearing up my London Marathon mess. In my case, this means putting away the extra gels I didn’t use on route, and going through my post race goody bag.

I think the term ‘goody bag’ is a bit of a stretch at the London Marathon. You get two, one at the expo pre race, and one after you finish and you’ve picked up the bag you put in storage at the start.

The pre race one is a jumble of cereal bars, nuts and leaflets for stuff you’re unlikely to use or need at any point in your life. This year, the only thing I kept for myself was a bag of nuts – the rest either went in the bin, the recycling or was donated to my Beloved (voucher for a free pint – well, he does deserve a treat for coming to watch me). But nothing that really captures the distance running market. I can’t believe that companies out there are not more interested to reach 35000 people with their fitness-related products.

The post race goody bag verges slightly on the insult, it’s such a diverse collection of items. There’s the random freebies - this year, a sachet for cheesy chicken and bacon pasta bake, a single prune (!?!) and some chewing gum. Then there are the useful ones - you get a bottle of Lucozade and of water, as well as sachets of Jointace and Biofreeze. These are incredibly successful, as since my free sachet of Jointace after last year’s marathon, I’ve become a regular customer. 10/10 for marketing there, chaps.

You also got an apple and another cereal bar, which I am sure are very welcome for a lot of people, but the last thing I want after 26.2 miles of sugary gels and over 4 hours of sweating is more sugar, so I tend to ignore or ditch these. After I ran scorching Berlin in 2011, I nearly cried when they gave me a bag of fruit after the race, when I would have gladly sold my medal for a bag of salty pretzels. I always pack myself a bag of ready salted crisps in my own bag, so I can get some salt back in my system quickly.

You do get a salty snack in the London goody bag – a packet of pistachios. With their shells on. Personally, I think anyone that can summon up the strength to shell pistachios after running 26.2 miles deserves an extra medal. Or a t-shirt that fits them.

Yes, the London marathon t-shirt. One size only, extra large, thick cotton – who exactly does this fit? Not that many of the runners on Sunday, that’s for sure. The organisation for London is so good at the start and the finish, I really don’t think it can be beyond their wit and their budget to print t-shirts in smaller sizes. The Great North Run manage it, although these are still not ideal, because again they are thick cotton and therefore not suitable for sport. I’d love a race t-shirt that I can wear for training or racing. Is it just a feature of major British races that we can’t make technical t-shirts for finishers, in a size that might actually fit them? As a size 10 woman (and I assume there are plenty of them and smaller who regularly run races in the UK), I have only ever got a technical race t-shirt that fits me from New York races, and I wear them loads.

But even something that fits me is better than nothing. I have had small cotton t-shirts from smaller British races and to be honest, Virgin, I think if St Albans Half marathon can give me a t-shirt that fits me for under £30 entry fee, I think you can too.

Maybe t-shirts aren’t the best memento. Medals are great, obviously (although I do also think Virgin & London cop out with this as they are essentially the same every year, only the year and the back of the medal change) but other useful and brilliant mementos that fit everybody are bags. I’ve had some great bags from cycling races and more recently the Maidenhead 10 mile race, and I use these all the time, therefore advertising the event to others. And of course, the best race memento ever is the commemorative beer glass (West4 Harriers, take a bow) but obviously this isn’t practical for the marathon.

Another disappointment was that Timex didn’t do the fridge magnet freebie this year (or at least I didn’t get one). This was a brilliant memento last year, and is definitely the best race freebie there is, so disappointing that a major race sponsor couldn’t stretch to this promotional tool again in 2013.

Price is a factor, I know. For a World Major, London is very cheap to enter in the ballot. But the vast majority of people pay a lot more for golden bond place and then raise a fortune for charity. They are not all men who wear extra large sizes. Wouldn’t it be nice to reward them with a race memento that they can sport with pride, all year round, rather than one that they can only wear to bed?

London Marathon 2013

I set out to finally hit sub 4:15 at London yesterday. I’ve had a good training regime, everything has gone to plan and I’ve really had some quality sessions. A sports massage last week seemed to have given me new legs too, so I felt confident. The weather was warm, but that’s way I like it so I was pretty happy overall with conditions and raring to go. I was worried that my ITB would let me down again, but there was only one way to find out – start running!

My pacing was spot on for the first two thirds of the race. I kept reminding myself to be disciplined and control my pace, and it really worked. I felt good, I felt strong, and keeping to my targets gave me incredible confidence. At mile 14 I was looking good for a 4:10 finish, and I was happy.

But then at mile 15, it all went a bit wrong. I’d had a gel and some water somewhere between 13 and 14, and it did not sit right at all. I retched a couple of times, but managed to keep it down with some more water. Unfortunately, from that point on, I was racing with what felt like a massive Sunday roast sitting in my stomach. It alternated between a general dull feeling of nausea and a specific sharp pain underneath my race number. It was awful. But at least my legs didn’t hurt, eh!

My guts essentially turned the last 10 miles into a mental rather than physical feat of strength. My body was keeping going, slightly off goal pace unfortunately, but my mind was struggling. It couldn’t really deal with this new sensation, this unexpected problem, and it took all my mental focus to keep going. I toyed with stopping and puking, but there were no gaps in the spectators to do this and I was damned if I was going to spray some nice person who’d turned out to cheer us all on. So I just continued and hoped that somehow my stomach would absorb what it had inside. I suspect I had too much water on board, but was concerned about getting cramp, so continued to have the odd sip every 2-3 miles. The sunshine made it feel a lot warmer than it actually was but I was conscious that a lot of people around me were going down with cramp, and I didn’t need any more problems at that point!

At mile 24, I told myself I just had 2 miles to go until I could puke freely, and I tried to push on. My stomach pain ramped up massively, and I decided to save any surge for the last few metres instead. At 600m I pushed on again, but it wasn’t enough to get me there on time, and I hit a PB of 4:16:16 instead. I didn’t care at that point. A PB is a PB, and I didn’t puke on a stranger. All round, I think that was a win.

Split	Time Of Day	Time	Diff	min/km	km/h
5K	10:31:32	00:29:24	29:24	05:53	10.21
10K	11:01:18	00:59:10	29:46	05:58	10.08
15K	11:31:16	01:29:08	29:58	06:00	10.01
20K	12:01:25	01:59:17	30:09	06:02	9.95
HALF	12:07:53	02:05:45	06:28	05:55	10.17
25K	12:31:30	02:29:22	23:37	06:04	9.91
30K	13:02:16	03:00:08	30:46	06:10	9.75
35K	13:33:40	03:31:32	31:24	06:17	9.55
40K	14:04:36	04:02:28	30:56	06:12	9.70
Finish time	14:18:24	04:16:16	13:48	06:18	9.54

I’m not sure that London is the best course to aim for a time goal. It’s the most congested of the three Majors I’ve run – while it may be flatter than New York, at least you don’t have to zig zag your way through runners hitting the wall and walking in New York, because the streets are wider and there is more room for walkers to get out of the way. Berlin is also a pretty wide course. Admittedly, I don’t really remember many people walking in New York or Berlin – for me, it’s much more a feature of London than the other two cities.

And then there are those bloody bottles. Discarded water and Lucozade Sport everywhere, and it just becomes an obstacle course. I had to make a couple of jumps to hurdle over a speeding bottle and, at mile 24, one came at me from behind so I landed on it and twisted my left ankle. It wasn’t serious enough to stop me, but it hurt like hell at a point in the race where you really don’t need additional pain. Again, New York and Berlin both operate a plastic cup system, which is much safer for the runners. I appreciate this has logistical issues, but it’s something that really mars London as a race for me.

Yet London is brilliant in so many other ways. The support is immense. There isn’t really any point, except for the underpass in Canary Wharf and the tunnel at Blackfriars, where there is a gap in the cheering section. People even bring their sofa into the street to watch the race (I’ve seen these guys two years running now and it makes me smile each time). Cutty Sark and Tower Bridge are just walls of sound, which keeps you lifted for a while after.

Highlights of yesterday’s race were finishing (of course), seeing your loved ones and friends en route but also the support for others you can draw on. For me, it was at mile 13, where I saw a sign that featured a photo of Ryan Gosling, with the words ‘Kate, when you slow down, Ryan gets sad’. It made me laugh out loud at the time, when I was feeling strong, but then later on in the race when I started to struggle, I would tell myself that Ryan was getting sad so it would spur me on. I hope Ryan appreciates what he did for marathon runners yesterday.

I’m ultimately happy because since I turned 40 last August, I’ve PBed over 10k, 10 miles, half marathon and marathon distances. I can’t really grumble about that level of performance and I won’t. But I will get that sub 4:15 one day, I swear. 

Did you just sneeze?

With just over a week to go before London, the paranoia is starting to set in. It's that time in marathon training where the start line is so close, yet so far.

Anything could still go wrong. Although we're unlikely to suffer a hurricane that causes significant damage to Greenwich Park and forces the organisers to cancel the race next Friday (see my November 2012 posts for reports on that unlikely outcome), there are still so many things that can keep me from my marathon goal. Bacteria, and millions of them.

I am now officially crazy. This is the part of the marathon training period that is most likely to provoke arguments in my house. My beloved never complains about the early mornings at weekends, the long hours spent out training, the random pasta meals and the anti-social Saturday nights in. But he gets seriously exasperated by the mildly hysterical germ phobia I start to exhibit during taper time. As well as trying to monitor his handwashing activities (tricky), I have been known to check the health status of everyone in his office during the final weeks of marathon training. To him, it's the sign of insanity. To me, it's last minute self-preservation.

In an ideal world, marathon runners would be able go into quarantine properly before a marathon, sealing themselves off from commuters, small children and unexpected pavement obstacles. But runners have lives to lead, jobs to go to and journeys to make, so we have to take all sorts of lovely precautions to avoid the sneezes and diseases.

My close friends know not to even attempt to try and see me if they have the slightest sniffle and by now usually just resort to email communication even if they feel fine, as they are used to being treated as potential disease carriers. Those with small children, a.k.a. incubators, usually just say 'see ya!' about 4 weeks beforehand, and we try and get a date in the diary after the race for a proper catch up. More casual acquaintances are indirectly interrogated by phone, email or text before meetings to check their health status. All unnecessary journeys are ruled out, and meeting travel is planned so it doesn't require too much rush hour travel, where you're most exposed to people's nasties at close quarters.

But then there is the impromptu encounter, like yesterday's visit from someone who casually mentioned they're getting over shingles. What kind of contagion are you trying to bring into my cocoon the week before a marathon, for God's sake? Have you no compassion? Is it any wonder I am slightly hysterical?

Before the marathon, I've got two long distance train journeys, six tube journeys, one family lunch and two large meetings to get through unscathed. These are dangerous levels of human contact, so I've stocked up on the Carex and Echinacea, and am prepared to refuse to kiss any member of my family. Harsh, but necessary. Wish me luck!

To stop or not to stop?: running etiquette question #361

You run a lot of miles in marathon training programmes. You're out on the streets for a lot of hours over the course of several weeks. You have a lot of time to ponder issues such as the meaning of life, how long does it take for a child to learn how to ride a bike in a straight line, what to have for lunch, what to have for dinner, why do Councils insist on planting trees with roots that split the pavements, what to have for dinner and... seriously, Hounslow Council, sort it out...

Recently, I've been witnessing a new trend which has given me lots of food for thought: is it rude not to stop for someone in the street who asks you to stop for a moment?

It's a fact of life running in London that you will occasionally get asked for directions - people naturally assume that you know where you are. This is not always the case. Once, on one of my many 'getting lost in south London long runs', a guy asked me where Clapham Junction station was. He was annoyed when I replied I didn't even know what bit of London I was in but I knew the river was that way, pointing helpfully (for the record, I would have guessed Battersea, judging by the value of the buggies being pushed...) . He clearly thought I was lying and being deliberately rude & unhelpful, but obviously he's unaware of my stunning track record at getting lost in south London.

But in the last few weeks, I've been asked for directions at least 3 times a week. Again, on longer runs, it's a 50/50 shot at best that I will know the place they are looking for - I am miles away from home. Do they not realise it's marathon season? On shorter runs, it's a real dilemma. Do I stop my Garmin and help a fellow human? Or do I maintain my pace and say 'sorry, can't stop'?. I always feel obliged to stop, even if my answer is usually 'er, sorry, no idea' (I really need to work on learning some street names, instead of navigating by Powerade-selling newsagents and public toilets).

A couple of days ago, two women stopped me and asked me where a particular road was. I was jubilant...I knew exactly where it was! I helpfully pointed it out, they looked really grateful, said 'thanks' and promptly walked off in the opposite direction! I felt quite resentful, to be honest. I mean, why stop me and ask me IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LISTEN!

One instance where I always refuse to stop is the religious canvasser. I am at a loss to understand the logic of the person that thinks this sweaty, purple-faced, banshee-haired woman bearing down on them has a) time to stop and b) wants to carry a pamphlet round with her for the rest of that run. Let's face it, if you give me a piece of paper about Jesus, redemption, abortion or the like, it's going to be sweaty mush in a few seconds. So it's a bit of a waste of your printed materials budget, to be honest. There's a recession on, think about your market and you'll reduce your costs.

What is the etiquette on this for urban runners? Do we stop to give directions? Or should people realise we're in a hurry and ask someone else instead? I'd love to know what other city runners think about this.

Maidenhead Easter 10 review, human shields and the last long run

Heading into the last week of high mileage before London, my niggles were still worrying me but not as much as the fact I couldn't fit in a trip to the physio before my Good Friday 10 mile race. We'd discussed K-taping some dodgy bits but a job interview and another unexpected commitment put paid to that, so it was left to me to carry out homestyle massage and trigger point release to try and get me through the last few days.

My main concern was that I planned to do a race on Good Friday. The training plan said 10 miles at race pace, then 20 miles long slow run the day after, so I'd signed up for the Maidenhead Easter 10. I spent most of the week deliberating whether I was mad to race 10 miles with a dodgy knee and an explosive left calf, but then the weather was lovely and I needed to run, so I found myself parked in an office park in Maidenhead at 8.30am on Good Friday, ready to race.

It's a lovely race and I'm glad I did it again for a second year. It's extremely well organised, they have nice toilets at the start (if not enough of them) and you are very handy for your car when you finish and want to sit down! I decided I was going to test out the Virtual Partner function on my Garmin, to see whether it was something I wanted to use on marathon day. I set my VP pace at 9:30, which is what I'm aiming for in London, and headed over the start line. 

At first, you run a lap round the office park before heading out into the Berkshire countryside. This is quite good, because I find it helps you gauge much better what effort you need for the finishing strait. Once you're out into the countryside, it's a really nice route. There's one bit where you have to run on a narrow pavement near traffic and it's unfortunately the bit where I was starting to accelerate and pick a few people off, but otherwise it's a nice course and very flat.

The wind was quite evil in places, and I did have to employ sneaky cycling tactics at one point, tucking in behind a giant of a guy as we ran into a headwind, then whipping past him once we'd turned off to head for home away from the wind. Well, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do!

I noticed that as the race progressed I was increasing the margin at which I beating my virtual partner. I couldn't decide whether this was good, as essentially I was running about 50 seconds per minute faster than I should in the marathon, but I felt great and was loving it (with no niggles!) so I just thought 'sod it'. I did restrain myself a bit, conscious I had 20 miles ahead of me in 24 hours time, but overall I just really loved racing on the day. I kept pushing to the end, cheered on by an Ealing Eagles club mate in the last 200m, and knew I had definitely PBed my 10 mile time. At the end of the day, when the results were up, I realised I knocked 6 minutes off my time in the same race the previous year to hit 1:28:02, so I really hope this bodes well for London in just under 3 weeks.

I could feel the effort I'd made in my legs when I woke up on Saturday morning, so I felt a bit nervous about the final 20 mile run. Still, it was dress rehearsal time, so I had my race breakfast at the time I would have on marathon day and planned to start running at 10am, as per 21 April.

It didn't get off to a good start as my Garmin pointedly refused to detect any satellite so I just decided to run blind and not worry about pace etc. I knew my route and didn't need to measure the mileage, so I would just go off the total time taken. However, about 2.5 miles in, my left valf had a tantrum and refused to go any further unless it was stretched, so I took the stretch time to faff around with Garmin and get it going for the rest of the run.

I won't lie, the 20 miles were hard. Miles 8-14 in particular were vicious. Richmond Park was dark, windy, empty and far too undulating for my liking, so I found myself having a serious moment of doubt in my ability to run home about halfway in. I recognised that the pain I was feeling wasn't bad pain, it was just fatigue, so I had to give myself a stern lecture about being a quitter. If the back to back 10 then 20 mile runs are designed to fatigue your body, then I can testify they work a treat! I was exhausted for the rest of the day and spent most of it lying down, either in a bath, on a sofa, on a floor or on a bed. But I did it, and I did it at a reasonable pace too - about a minute longer than my goal race pace, which is as it should be.

Best of all, the niggles did not get worse. If anything, the extra TLC I lavished on them seem to cheer them up slightly. So I think I might be ready for London now!

For now, it's taper time, which means eating as many good foods as I possibly can, staying off booze and spending a lot of time on the massage and stretching side of things. I'm still aiming for 5 runs a week, with a couple more intensive sessions to go, but I won't push it if I feel the niggles are getting worse. My goal now is to make it to the start (and finish) line intact.