In one way it was the perfect weekend: City on Saturday, marathon on Sunday. In another way it wasn’t entirely ideal: with the race
number pickup early on Saturday and the match moved to an evening kick-off it
meant a lot of hours in Manchester when ideally I would have been resting with
my feet up. Some things just can’t be helped and logistics for a race away from
home sometimes do come with less than optimal conditions attached.
Never mind, as I lined up for the start of the Manchester
marathon I was reasonably hopeful of a good race. I knew from my training that
a sub-3 marathon was a possibility but only on a good day. It certainly
required a lot of things to go right. Since there was a 3-hour pacer it meant I
would invariably be running in a group, want it or not. I have never run with a
pacer so wasn’t entirely sure how it would work out but it did make for a very
simple race strategy: run with the pacer. If at halfway I would feel good I
could try and push ahead. If I felt bad I would try to hang on for dear life as
long as I could. Simples.
The start area was suspiciously empty 10 minutes before the
start but then filled up very quickly. I tried to line up where I thought the
pacer would be and got it almost right – when he finally turned up I was just slightly
ahead of him. Ideally I would have been just behind him but it had gotten so
crowded that I decided against shuffling back. When the start gun went off very
loudly (“we don’t start races like that in L.A. for a good reason!”) I got up to
pace quickly but took it just a tad easy until I spotted the pacer beside me,
maybe half a mile into it. It also meant my friend Marty, who I was staying
with and who had to skip the race due to injury and decided to be a
photographer for the day instead, missed me as he could not identify anyone in
the sea on humanity streaming by.
The early miles passed quickly and the pace felt easy enough
but running in such a packed group wasn’t particularly comfortable. In most
marathons there are only a handful of runners in the sub-3 group and marathons
like Dublin have 3 pacers per time band which helps to spread out the group. In Manchester
they can have up to 500 runners under 3 hours and only one single pacer, which
meant it was a very big group in a very small space. Invariably people would
touch legs and at one point a runner tripped and I think he fell, and
I had a few close calls as well, both for being tripped and accidentally almost
tripping others. When we passed Old Trafford a bit after 4 miles I somehow got
to the front of the group (I think I took a very slight uphill section a bit
faster than the others) and decided to skip ahead a bit, not to build
up a cushion, just to give myself some space. The difference was huge, just
being able to stride out without fear of tripping someone made things so much
easier and at that point I actually started to enjoy the race. It’s a bit
strange that I very much enjoy running as a pacer but not at all with a pacer
but that’s how it worked out.
There was still a group of us and I quickly started to focus
on 3 or 4 other runners that seemed to be running well and at just the right
pace. At times one of us would be ahead, at other times we would drop back a
bit but in general we were running together. The pace felt doable but it was
still very early.
The crowd support over those miles was brilliant and half of
Manchester seemed to be out and about to lend their support to the runners. The
best area was Brooklands where they were on the left, on the right and even on the
middle of the road, and they made plenty of noise. Having the name printed on
the bibs also meant that people would shout out your name for support, which
was even better, even coming from total strangers.
I had expected Marty to be here but could not see him and
wondered if I had missed him but what else was there to do than to keep
running. The legs started to feel the first bit of strain as we closed in on 10
miles but I knew I would still be able to hold the pace for a lot longer, even
if it wasn’t as comfortable any more.
The course is very flat, which is of course the main draw
for this race. You do have to go over a few overpasses/bridges but the
grade is always very gentle and none of them are very high. The weather was a
bit cold with not much wind, though that was supposed to pick up later. All in
all it is a great, fast course and we had excellent conditions and no excuses.
Just before the halfway point we got to Altrincham and the
only bridge that resembled a hill, and the loop through Altrincham itself was a
bit hilly as well, but it probably only stood out because the rest of the
course was so flat; on most other marathons I’ve done that would have counted as
one of the flat parts. Marty was here with his camera, so I gave him a
short wave. I didn’t look at the watch
but since I was still ahead of the 3-hour pacer I figured I must have run the
first half just a bit under 90 minutes. I had no idea how far ahead of the pace
group I was but it could never have been very far. I never once checked the watch
for pace, just paced myself off the runners surrounding me, and I’m sure they
did the same.
On the back out from Altrincham we saw the slower runners
coming the other way, just like we had seen the elites and the wheelchair
athletes speeding by shortly before. I noticed all the pace groups from 3:15 to
4:45 but it always seemed to be very, very busy even between pacers.
According to MC, 15 miles is the point where you should have
expended a third of your mental energy, though I suspected I had spent more
than that, though that has been the case in a lot of my marathons, even the
good ones. I was definitely starting to feel tired and that would only get
worse. Soon after we had passed the 16 mile marker the runner beside me
muttered a slightly exasperated “10 miles left”, though to me that seemed
challenging but doable at the time.
At that point, as we headed towards Carrington, the crowds
thinned out considerably as we basically left the urban area and headed into
the countryside. Fatigue started to play an ever bigger factor and I had to
increase the effort just to remain on pace, though I was still holding steady. I
started to calculate what my finishing time would be if I slowed down now,
which is probably not particularly helpful but something I tend to do a lot. As
we got further ahead, to 19, 20, 21 miles, gradually the runners in the group
seemed to drift back one by one and I was left focusing on just one runner in a
yellow singlet just ahead of me who seemed to be able to hold the pace. It did
not help that, as we turned right, we were now heading into the wind for the
final miles. There was not much wind but it was definitely noticeable and it
definitely became a factor. With about 5 miles left I wasn’t sure how much
longer I would be able to hang on and gradually I became aware that runners were passing me. At one point one runner from Galloway told me he was a fan
of my blog, which was a nice surprise as I felt a long way from home, but
obviously I do know that I do have readers from across the Irish Sea as well.
Anyway, I appreciated the shout-out and tried to hang on to him but didn’t
manage it for long because around mile 22 the first spasm hit me.
In Tralee it had been the left calf. This time it was the
right one. I have no idea why.
The first thought was that at least the cramps had stayed
off for longer than in Tralee but I knew this was only going to get worse, and
since I knew that I could not have much of a cushion this really was bad news.
I tried to look behind me once or twice and once thought I saw the pacer’s flag
but wasn’t sure. Anyway, all I could do was to keep running, try to relax just
a little to stop the calf from going into full cramping mode which would have
made running virtually impossible, and just hope those isolated spasms would
somehow remain manageable. But the pace slowed invariably and seeing the
runner in the yellow singlet almost pull up with his own cramping problems was
unlikely to help.
I kept it going as fast as I dared for as long as I could
but inevitably shortly after 23 miles the 3-hour pacer caught up with me. The
group had thinned out significantly, so at least the confined space and danger
of being tripped was no longer a factor. I wasn’t going to give up without a
fight so I increased the effort, trying to hang on to the group, just as plan B
had been before the race. The effort level required seemed to increase
exponentially. Again and again I fell a few steps behind and had to put in a
big effort to catch up again, constantly on the verge of cramping and by now in
serious pain. My breathing had become very ragged and I knew this would not be
sustainable for long.
Earlier at the race I had once noticed the heart rate at
165, which seemed just a bit high, but it went down to 163 and then 161, which
seemed just about right and on the very few occasions when I checked the watch,
that’s where it always was (I was not pacing myself by HR, though). Now it
just went through the roof, well past 170. I was surprised that I was able to lift
the effort to that level so late in a marathon but with a couple of miles still
to go and cramping legs it really was the equivalent of barely hanging on by
your fingertips.
From mile 24 on the crowds gradually increased again,
finally! I really needed the support right now. Since this marathon was a goal
race, but only a B-goal, I had wondered if I would have the gumption to really
go into the pain cave when things got bad but I think I can honestly say that I
made myself hurt as much as I have ever done in a marathon. Lack of effort was
not the problem today.
Something seemed strange about the pacer late on, all the runners in
the group seemed to fall back as we neared the finish while he sped ahead. Try
as I might I was no longer able to completely hold on but the gap was still very small
until we came to a final overpass. It was so gradual that I might not even have
noticed it earlier in the race but at that stage even a tiny gradient was
enough to send the calf cramping and I had no choice but to ease up and
struggle to the top, at which point the pacer was gone. I chased with all I had
left, though that was very little. The finish banner just seemed stuck in the
distance for ages but eventually got closer.
All hope was not lost. When I pace a marathon I try to come
home about 15-30 seconds ahead of target and that was roughly the distance
between me and the pacer, so maybe I could just sneak in just under 3 hours.
However, when I finally saw the timer it had already gone well past 3 hours and I was still
about half a minute away, so a sub-3 was not going to happen today. I think the
pacer crossed the line as the timer said 3:01, and I was a bit further back,
too demoralised for a finishing sprint, though with my cramping calf that might
have ended badly anyway.
My watch said 3:01:03, the official chip time was 3:01:02,
and that was that. My first words after crossing the line were unprintable but
thankfully I have broken 3 hours before so it was never going to be a major disaster.
The margins between success and failure were tiny, just 2 seconds per mile and a finishing sprint.
Maybe if I had spent less time on my legs on Saturday; maybe
if I had not gotten sick in January; maybe if I had not have to deal with all
that stress of the last few months; maybe if I had not run Tralee 4 weeks before
(no regrets about that one, though), maybe, maybe , maybe. Ah well.
Funnily enough, when I uploaded the data onto
strava it gave
me a sub-3 marathon because the watch said 26.37 at the end, but marathons are
run on the road and not on virtual GPS tracks. My mile splits were (according
to GPS, so add about 3 seconds for “real” miles):
6:59, 6:43, 6:51, 6:50, 6:45, 6:49, 6:45, 6:49, 6:42, 6:48
6:54, 6:45, 6:48, 6:44, 6:50, 6:48, 6:55, 6:46, 6:50, 6:55,
6:54, 7:04, 7:12, 7:09, 6:57, 6:55 (6:50 for rest)
which looks like a well paced race to me. I did
falter after 21 miles but managed to pick it up again when the pacer caught me
(btw, the pacer must have run the last mile in 6:20 or 6:30).
It is what it is. I gave it a good go but missed out on another
sub-3. I still very much enjoyed the race, can recommend it and may well be
back another year.
- 10 Apr
- Manchester Marathon
- 3:01:02, 6:54 pace, HR 165, (6:51 pace on the watch)
- 420th place, 49th M45
