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.