Race report: Seville Marathon 2016

The target was 03:59:59 and it was going to be a stretch.  For that time, I'd have to do 26.2 miles at only a few seconds per mile slower than my half marathon PB from September.  On average only 17s/mile slower including any congestion, water and/or wee stops.  Quite a big mental stretch especially given what happened at the Lee Valley Marathon in October (I stopped at 1/2 way as I simply couldn't keep any kind of pace (and my shoes were hurting)).  That and the last time I actually finished a marathon, I was 3kg lighter.

One of the streets on the route - I don't remember it at all, I saw a lot of yellow balloon...

Seville is also quite pretty.  I'd been there very many years ago with a university friend of mine and we mooched around the old part of the city but this trip wouldn't have much sightseeing really.  Arriving late on Friday, Saturday a lie-in and a trip to pick up race numbers etc. from the (not that exciting) expo - the expo at Rotterdam was muuuch better.  And then up early on Sunday to go run.

And that's what we did - via meeting some of @abradypus'  running club mates as well as some of the Centurion running team (including @jameselsons, my coach :o) ) at the expo and then for dinner.

Cutting a 4ish hour race story short - I set my watch for a target pace that would get me 03:59:xx and stood in the start pen right behind the 4 hour pacer with his enormous yellow balloon.  And I stayed mostly behind him for the first 30km (EU race, everything is in km), getting banged on the head every now and then by the balloon bouncing around and thinking "03:59:59" as a mantra.  Every time I started to doubt, thinking "03:59:59".

Ignore the total time - I stopped my watch oddly.

The pacer didn't slow through the water stations; someone else got a bottle and brought it to him.  So, as I slowed to take water every other aid station after the first 10km as the temperature rose, I had to catch back up to the pacer with a bit of extra effort.  Which got pretty tricky after a while.

I got to 18km and was really happy that I felt pretty OK - having had the wheels fall off at Rotterdam at 18km, I was worried that setting off at a spicy pace again this time could end the same way.  20km came and still good, 25km... 28km and a bit of grit started to be needed.  I was a bit fed up with having a balloon hit me quite so much, and some annoying short guy in a green vest cut me up every few km but was hanging on to the 4 hour bus still thinking "03:59:59".  There wasn't any shade from the sun any more and I was starting to get too hot.  30km... and I don't remember much until 34km when I was so hot I had to dump cup after cup of water over me, drenching me completely - at which point I peed myself quite thoroughly, which was a surprise.  At least it meant I was drinking plenty enough :o)  I had a massive maths fail though (unsurprisingly for while running), 8km to go... that's about 75 mins to the finish and looking at the time, I worked out that'd mean I'd finish around 04:12.  Not happy with that, I lost heart for a little while, but persuaded myself to try to get as close to 4 hours as I could.  Yeah.  Running maths.  Gotta love it.

I just about caught the 4 hour pacer up again after that extended, slow walk through the water station but at the next one I had to do the same again and totally lost the pacer.  Never saw him again after that.  As I'd thought I was looking at a best case of 04:08 (more fabulous maths) I walked a little up one of the alleyways shortly before the 40km mark, saw that marker and then made a deal with myself to run to the finish from there as it was only 2ish km.  My watch said 03:51:xx.  That perked me up a hell of a lot!  I still wouldn't make sub-4, but I'd still get close to 4.

26.2 miles on the watch, I hit the lap button so I could have a "technical" marathon time vs the race route time.  When I set up my watch for pacing, I set a pace range "until lap button press" but no cool down section.  I thought I'd hit the lap button and get a 26.2 Garmin split and then hit stop at the finish line itself.  What I totally forgot was that if you don't set a segment after the lap button press to end the main workout segment... IT STOPS THE TIMER COMPLETELY!  And I didn't notice that happen when I hit the lap button.  So when I rounded the running track, leap-frogging the walkers who were on the inside lane, and finally crossed the line I hit the stop button.

Weaving through the other finishers, I cursed a lot like I did at Rotterdam.  Though there were easily accessibly plastic blankets to keep us warm, the folks giving out medals were hard to find and there was no bloody water!  Why do race organisers do this!?  OK so there was a water station at 40km but I didn't bother with that one thinking I'd get water at the end.  Hah!

Weirdly, cadence dropped off more than pace. But you can clearly see where I slowed right down at the later water stations to cool down.

I needed to find MrTOTKat and wasn't sure where he might wait for me.  After wandering with other finishers for a little while, I decided to look at my watch to see what time I might have got.  It was still running!  Gah!  So I hit stop, not realising what had happened earlier.  It said 04:02:51.  Cor!

Little bit bloody - lottle bit stinking of piss at the end.

 I found MrTOTKat; he was quite light headed and both of us needed to get out of the stadium to somewhere less echoey and loud.  Grabbing a couple of finishers' goody bags (can of Coke, bottle of water, an orange and a chocolate wafer) we got out and sat down for a little while.  I even drank the whole can of Coke, which at the time was glorious!

The official finishing time being released revealed what happened with my watch at the end of the race.  I'd actually ended up stopping it when it thought I'd done 26.2 miles, it didn't record the next bit until I hit stop(start) at the finish line, so it then recorded while I was wandering around after the finish line until I saw that the timer was running and stopped it.

This race was much nicer than Rotterdam - staying near the start/finish was a great idea.  There were plentiful pacers, water every 2.5km-ish and no worry about running out of water or having to wait long between stations.  Road surfaces were a bit rough in places and sticky in the latter stages going through and after water/fuel stations but I'd be very happy to go back and have another go.  Sub-4 is definitely possible!

Race Report - Virgin Active London Triathlon 2013, Saturday surprise sprint relay

What a weekend!

I'd always intended to race the Virgin Active London Triathlon this year and had entered previously, but since then I won the Virgin Active competition to become the 12th member of Team Freespeed Virgin Active and that meant it was more than just the Sunday Olympic race on the cards.

Saturday was now a day that I was now going to be taking part in team duties; helping out on the Virgin Active stand at the expo and perhaps filling in on a relay team for the VIPs if there were problems for any of the teams with people unable to race.

Saturday morning, Mr TOTKat headed off to parkrun at Wansted Flats while I went to the expo to register, find the stand, meet the team and some of the sponsors.  The guys at Skechers were brilliant; knowledgeable, enthusiastic about the new range of Performance shoes and really helpful with sizing.  I've been running in the GoRun Ride for a couple of weeks now and I think Mr TOTKat is going to kill me if I mention how incredibly light they are one more time!  Looking forward to trying more of the range soon.  I bumped into Stuart and Richard Hobson at the Skechers stand, closely followed by Dec, Cat, Dion, Ali, Matt, Charlie, Jamie, Jenny and Richard Melik.  Tim arrived later and Sam was racing in IM Switzerland (and a great result he had there too in hot conditions with a no-wetsuit swim too).

We all headed upstairs to split into groups to help with the VIPs and Virgin staff competing in the race - offering tips, advice and making people feel comfortable about their first race as there were quite a few. Jenny,  Jamie and Matt headed into the VIP area to help with a couple of the celebrity relay teams who had missing members for various reasons and I helped in the staff room.  Shortly after that, there was a problem with one of the Cosmopolitan magazine relay teams who had lost their swimmer and cyclist both.  Richard Hobson was going to step up and take on the job but had no idea where his bike was, so I volunteered and then had to trot back to the hotel (about 10 minutes jog) to get bike, helmet, wetsuit and bike shoes.  So exciting!

Poor Holly having been dumped by the rest of her team had me come to the rescue :o)  Not quite the same standard as the rest of the Freespeed team, but not too shabby in the end nonetheless.  I wasn't expecting to race, so putting in a bit of an effort and coming out 57th (overall - mixed age & gender) in the swim and 57th (overall - mixed age & gender) on the bike of all the sprint teams (253 teams in total) I felt pretty good about thatand it put Holly in a good place to have a nice run and finish well before a lot of the other teams.

The swim was a nice surprise and I got on someone's feet and drafted pretty much the whole way around for the first time ever - I was trying to take it easy but put in a decentish time for sprint relay team.  I had a bit of fun on the bike, though the sprint course was very short at the first turn end so there wasn't much chance to get any speed up but the other end was quite fun and the promised rain didn't come.  Richard Melik took a cracking shot of me on the bike in the sunshine in my borrowed race top (thanks Matt!).  I also ended up borrowing swimming goggles (thanks Jamie!) and snaffling a race number belt as I really wasn't prepared for racing that day.

Holly (from Cosmo) was ready and waiting in transition for me when I came in off the bike and she had a lovely run out in the sun and seemed to really enjoy the whole experience.  Shame I didn't get a photo taken with her really.

I can happily say that the sprint was great fun and I was very pleased to have been able to help out someone who might have missed out on the experience of being part of a relay team otherwise.

But Sunday... I had an Olympic distance race to do!  (To Be Continued...)

Warmer and much less stressy

As I said, we stayed in a hotel last night. So I got a lovely hot bath before bed and was actually too warm in the night. When the power finally came back on properly at around 10am today my stress levels dropped quite significantly.

Gymmage today was quite good; I did try JAG's suggestion of negative movement practice for pull ups but was too weak to do anything other than drop quite quickly, so I went back to using the machine assistance but concentrated on making the lowering movement very slow. I think it might be time to get a trainer at this gym. I've got about 2 weeks left before I need to change my weights routine, so now would be a good time to have a chat and see what are the options.

Protein count for today is pretty high, probably due to the cooked brekkie at the hotel :oD

Exercise - 51 minutes weights (HRmax 178, HRavg 158)

B - bacon, scrambled egg, baked beans, mushrooms and grilled tomatoes
*gym*
S - 1 scoop whey in 200ml water
L - tomato and pancetta soup with mascarpone and 1 scoop whey
S - carrot and houmous
S - tangerines
S - banana
D - beef chilli with couscous, peas and sweetcorn

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1806 2199]
Protein (g)	138.1 (31.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	158.2 (33.6%)
Fat (g)	68.0 (34.6%)
Fruit & Veg	12.0