Post #AmsterdamMarathon I was bitterly disappointed with the mess that I made of the race. I was blaming pacers, my coach was blaming pacers, and while they are to blame for going off far too hard, I am the person who should take the blame for not trusting myself.
If you missed them:
Dam Buster (Part 1)
Dam Buster (Part 2) - The Bad
Lesson were learned and some valuable notes made for the next one. And, yes, definitely there will be a next one!
(At time of writing I had feelers out for Dublin Marathon and while I was offered numbers, nothing came of it on the day, coach was eager to have me run 3:20 with him as pacer.)
A week on now since I've been home and I've thought about it a bit. I don't dwell too much on negatives in any event and (almost) always look for a positive outcome from everything.
Nothing in the build up will be changed. My race day evolved as a response to my training which went 100% as planned. Yes, I skipped a couple of sessions, went too hard on others, and should really have stuck to the full taper plan but this had no bearing on my race.
Unless you are running +Dublin Marathon do not rely on the pacers*. Trust yourself, use the pacers as a guide to how you are going but do not depend on them. Don't be afraid to ask questions of them. I should have asked why are we running so fast early on. Pacers are human and make mistakes too.
I will definitely consider a waterbottle or small backpack in my next marathon. I trained pretty dry and empty for a lot of the recovery runs in training and only on the long runs would I set out a bottle of water and carry gels. Rehearse your race day preparations in your long runs. Congested water stations with flimsy cups don't work when you are on a goal. I'm not a pusher and shover so I'm better to be self sufficient entirely and run on the other side of the road, avoiding the scrum.
With no bearing on race day performance do not underestimate the usefulness of black bags. One over the shoulders will keep you surprisingly warm on the start line and one over your hips like a skirt makes for a useful personal urinal in a pinch (just don't do it on the track!)
Coach summed it up perfectly and put any doubts to rest in an email he sent me:
The plain and simple fact is the pacers screwed up your race.
I was watching the splits and knew straight away that up to 20k you were on 3:10-12 pace. Really poor by the pacers. Those few minutes may not seem like much but enough to be burning matches and leaving you with the difficult last 12k you suffered through.
3 positives to take are:
1)still a massive pb and something to build off next year
2)you suffered on when many others would have given up and
3) solid build and fitness established for XC and shorter races over Winter :)
He's right. A PB is a PB regardless of everything else and to grab a PB of 28 minutes is a great indicator of how I responded to the training. Maybe I have learned to suffer a bit, but there was no way I was stepping off for a DNF, no way!
The final few points are:
Dutch stairs are not too bad the day after a marathon, once you take them backwards.
Trappist beers are a little strong to be drinking as a 'recovery' drink.
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| The morning after, I think. |
That's it, that's a wrap!
See you next time, it's my time to start running again.
*Dublin pacers are awesome.
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