My Debut Marathon - La Rochelle

The big day has arrived! Up at 6.15am and feeling nervous and excited. Looked out the window and it looked like it was snowing but actually it was sleeting and thankfully no snow on the ground!

7.45 and an easy jog - felt slightly milder out than yesterday so changed my mind on wearing a t.shirt under my vest top.

5 mins before the race start and I'm at the start line - I'm in the elite women's start! Now feeling really happy and looking forward to running!

9am and the gun goes! I'm near the front and count 6 girls and 1 man in front of me (our start was all women and men over 50 with elite women and a few men at the front - there was a separate start line for all men under 50). I'm running alongside another girl and it feels like I'm jogging. After 1k I look at my watch - a touch quicker than I planned - oops! I keep at this pace with the other girl and at 2k look again - still too quick so I back off a bit. Any faster at this point will mean a lot of pain later! The other girl encourages me to stay with her but for all I know she might be aiming for around 2hrs 30 so I back off.

After 3 or 4k we join up with the men from the other start and I get into a nice group of about 15 men and this really helps to pull me along. My splits are still looking quicker than I planned by around 10-15s per km but it feels so easy! Around 10k it starts to rain a bit and the course took us down a road with quite a lot of puddles. About 1k later my thighs started to feel really cold. Just before halfway my thighs started to hurt. I've done a few half marathons before and never had this pain. I just decided that I can't expect to run a marathon and not feel any pain so I tried my best to ignore it. I went through half marathon in 1hr 20.30. This is around my half marathon pb! It felt so easy. My legs were hurting but everything else was feeling great. I wasn't tired, my breathing wasn't heavy and I was enjoying myself!!

Just after 21k the group of men sped up and I decided to run my own race and stay at the pace I was at which was still much faster than I'd planned.

At 28k my legs were killing me and I was aware that my splits were getting slower. I just kept pushing 1k at a time. I really badly wanted to stop and massage my legs to warm them up but knew that if I did this there was a good chance I might not be able to start running again.

For the last few kms quite a few men came past me - all with encouragement. I tried so hard to pick up the pace for the last km and was so relieved to finally see the towers and then the finish line. I was so happy to get there and really surprised as I looked up at the clock as I crossed the line and saw my time - 2 hrs 51.30. I really thought I'd faded to about 2hrs 58! As soon as I stopped my legs wanted to give way and 2 officials had to hold me up! I was looking everywhere for Dan, Dave and Cathy and finally saw them. I was so happy and by the looks of it so were they!

Later today as I write this blog so many thoughts are going through my head. I am really pleased with how I did today. My aim was for a sub 3hr and I have easily achieved this. My training has indicated that I would run just under 2hr 50 and if you look at my splits it will look like I started off too fast and died. I honestly think that if I had started of at 4mins per km pace as planned that I still would have lost 10 mins in the 2nd half due to cold legs cramping up and probably would have finished with a time just under 3hrs or even just over so I don't think I started off too fast. But I am now thinking that if I hadn't been so cold on my thighs I could have gone under 2hrs 45 which would have been amazing.

At the start of the race a girl went ahead of me wearing 3/4 length tights and I thought that was a bit silly but I now think that that is exactly what I should have been wearing! I'm sure my legs wouldn't have cramped up if I had been. Its all a learning experience and next time I will know to plan for all weather conditions!

Marathon de La Rochelle was a fantastic event - well organised, lots of support and flat!

10 days to go!

The good news is I've so far managed to avoid Dan's illness and now he has gone away with work for a few days and hopefully he will be completely over it by the time he gets back!

The bad news is a funny tummy since the weekend and was actually sick yesterday! I'm thinking its either a dodgy Nandos that I ate on Saturday night or possibly too much vit C! I have overdone the vit C a bit in my paranoia to not catch Dan's flu. Anyway, after being sick I now feel a lot better. A few days training missed but doesn't matter now as all my hard work is done and I've started tapering now.

My training has all gone to plan and gone really well. Everything is on course and I should be able to achieve my goal of sub 3 hours. My training has been indicating that I can get under 2hrs 50 but I think with this being my first attempt I shouldn't get too carried away as there will be other races in the future to do this!

3 weeks to go!

I have less than 3 weeks to go and Dan is now ill with serious man flu. I keep thinking if I get a cold now I can probably get rid of it in time but then how much will it take out of me for running a marathon? I could maybe get away with it for a 10k but not so sure about 26 miles! I'm dosing up on lots of vit C and echinacea. He has also been banished to the front room!

Why now? He never gets ill.

5 weeks to go!

Most people can probably think of better ways to spend their birthday but for me doing my longest run ever so far this morning was a great start to my birthday! The weather was crap though but once I'd gone past 10 mins of running it didn't bother me.

So far my training is going well and I'm loving my long Saturday morning runs. I really thought that running for over 2 hours I would be bored and clock watching but I'm not finding that at all. I've found some nice places to run away from traffic with gravelly ground which is perfect for running on.

An afternoon sleep now and hopefully Dan is taking me somewhere nice tonight!!

Peterborough Half

Rubbish run today! I did the Peterborough Half Marathon and really can't believe how rubbish I ran! When the race started my legs felt like they were burning for the first 1km. They settled down but just felt tired for the whole race. I finished 10th in a time of 81 mins!

When I entered this race about a month ago I decided on this one because it was flat and I thought I would be tapering for it and going for a time. In hindsight I should have entered one that was nearer to home on the same weekend but undulating. With only 8 weeks to go until my marathon my coach said it was more important to get my training in and not worry how I do here. So I didn't even ease back slightly in my training load and no rest days!

10 weeks

OK tri season is now over and after 1 week of no training I am about to start my 10 week training plan to take me to my first ever marathon! I'm really excited but also feeling nervous that 10 weeks really isn't going to be enough time to achieve the goal I am aiming for (sub 3 hours)! My coach thinks otherwise as I have the run fitness and a reasonable amount of running miles already in place and its just about making it marathon specific. I'm still keeping up with swimming and cycling training - especially my swimming! Apart from needing to keep this up as I have big plans for tri next year I think the cross training will hopefully help to stay injury free.

We shall see. Watch this space.........

Little Woody 2010

I completed my first middle distance tri yesterday.

The swim venue got changed at the last minute due to blue/green algae in the original lake. I think this ended up for the better as it was now in a diving quarry with crystal clear water.

I started off really well. Had a really good swim - 28.30 (possibly slightly short)! Long, long run up a big hill to T1. Off on the bike and feeling really good. Minor incident with my chain coming off before the long 2 mile drag up hill but easily sorted! Went past lots of people on the hills and by the time I had done the 12 miles which took us to where T2 was situated and the start of the big lap I was apparently in 1st! I was having such a good ride and feeling really good but in hindsight I had definitely overcooked it!

My HR was higher than the zone I planned to keep it in but because I was feeling good I ignored this. So first lesson learned - even when feeling good keep to the plan!

Next lesson to be learned was how to eat on the bike. I found it so hard to eat anything. I had pieces of fruit bread, cereal bars and raisins to eat but really couldn't get them down. All I managed for the whole very hilly 98k was 1 tiny piece of fruit bread, a few raisins and 3 gels. So with about 40k to go I started to go through a bad patch. This was quite worrying as I still had the 2 hills in English Bickner about 9k from the end to contend with yet.

It was during my bad patch that I dropped into 2nd place. I persevered and somehow got to the end of the bike.

When I got to T2 I saw Dan who was very encouraging and said I was now 10 mins behind 1st place and just to keep the run steady.

This time I did stick to my HR zone and after about 5 mins I got into my running. I saw Dan again around 6k and he said I was now 7 mins behind and if I kept this pace I would get her. I just kept it steady and didn't let myself get carried away. I then saw Dan again at the halfway point and I was now 5.15 behind. The only problem was there was a girl not far behind tracking me and most likely biding her time!

Next time check and the gap was down to 2.45 with about 6.5k to go, then down to 1.45 with about 3.5k go go. It was just after this point that my body had enough! My hips got tight and my legs started to go. Around 3k to go the girl behind caught me and I was so frustrated as there was nothing I could do. I was light headed and wobbly! I've never felt so bad. I was really starting to wonder if I would make it to the finish line. I just had to break the rest of the run down into small chunks. When I saw the road I knew I probably had less than 1k to go and I just kept thinking when I get to the finish line then I can collapse - just keep going. The main thing that kept me going was that if I stopped and walked I might lose my 3rd spot as I really had no idea where 4th place was!

I somehow made it to the finish line in 3rd and was only 40s behind 2nd. Then I did collapse!!

Really pleased with my result but several lessons learned! I really was frustrated at how close I came to winning - if only I hadn't started off like an idiot on the bike, if only I had got my nutrition right, if only....... We can all say if only when we don't win though!!

A really friendly, well organised event. I will definitely consider this one again in the future.