This weekend I ran the Paris marathon with Sammi, Ash and Balmer. It was a great experience and one I feel I need to write about as haven't blogged in a while and would like to look back and read this back, one day.
We entered the Paris marathon back in September. I was after a flat marathon in spring which I hadn't run before - Paris looked ideal and managed to get a few others involved. We got a great deal on flights and hotel organised by Sammi- I think all in it was £150 each for flights from City airport and 2 nights in a hotel, so would recommend to book early to get great rates.
Paris was a sub 3 target for me after two attempts before- Brighton mara 2014 - 3.12 and London 2015 - 3.08. I decided to take it a bit more seriously this time with a coach who I met at a wedding back in November.
My year started off with the Country to Capital ultra 45 mile race in early January, which I have run 3 times before and I managed a pb dipping under the 6 hour 30 min mark. After that my coaching started and a few things Steve (coach) introduced into my weekly training regime was one interval session, one threshold session and a long run including miles at marathon pace which worked really well- all the other runs around this were recovery runs.
In my 6-7 years of running I had never really done any speed work sessions or different types of training- it was always just miles and miles or 'time on feet' as we like to call it. So this was great to mix things up and also learn off a
coach who has a marathon time of 2.36!
My first couple of weeks of training after the C2C 45 miler were recovery trying to get my legs back to normal. I had a 11 week training period with Steve which was broken out into recovery, introducing speed into the routine, going hard and taper then race. I really enjoyed the sessions, at some points they were really hard when felt like I pushed myself to the max. The great thing about having a coach makes you do the sessions to your best. As you're paying for it, you want to get the best out of the sessions and you're reporting into a coach daily/weekly etc so you feel like you have take on every session to your full capacity. I pretty much made every session apart from a couple due to illness. I also limited other things like alcohol consumption (I still drank but tried to keep to moderation) and tried to eat healthily.
I ran the Brentwood half marathon 2 weeks pre Paris to see where I was and managed a 1.24 which put me in a good position for the sub 3 I wanted - I then tapered pretty well post Paris.
We flew out on Saturday morning, landed and went straight to the expo to pick up our numbers and then Saturday involved hanging around eating lots and trying to get an early night.
Race day- I was sharing a room with my mate Ash and Sam sharing with Balmer. Ash and I decided we wanted to go the race a bit earlier than Sam and Balmer so we set off at 6.45 with a race start of 8.45 to allow plenty of time. We got the tube and arrived at the Arc de Triomphe at 7.20 and then had a 10 min walk to the bag drop on Avenue Forc which is where the finish was. After dropping the bags off Ash and I made our way to the start line which had various different pens depending on your time. As we were walking down the Champs Elysee there was music playing and the atmosphere was epic. I must admit at points I felt goose pimples and my eyes nearly watered but they didn't! I dropped Ash off in his 3h 30 min pen and we said our goodbyes. I walked a bit further down to the 3h pen and then made my way in with about 20 mins to spare. I just stood there soaking it all in thinking about the race, the last 3 months of training and various things. There were different starts for each times for each time section with the first start for the elites at 8.45 to the 4h 30s starting at 10.15. I started at 8.47 - my aim for the first half of the marathon was to come into halfway as near to 1.30 as possible and run the 2nd half quicker as a negative split- this is what Steve wanted and I was willing to give this a go as I have blown up a few times in marathons at the end hitting the wall. I had 5 splits written on my hand- photo below and the aim was to stick to them and keep to 6.50 minute miles as much as possible.
We kicked off at 8.47am and it was amazing running down the Champs Elyesee. The first couple of miles felt easy - I had to duck out for a wee at around mile 3 but easily caught up on my pace. By around 10k I was spot on and then half way I came through just over 1.30.
On my watch I was under 1.30 but with the course my gps was ahead so had to play catch up. It was also starting to heat up and the forecast was 21 degrees - not sure what temp it reached but it felt hot.
For this marathon I was aiming to take 8 gels - one every 20 mins to really fuel up which I had never done before and a couple of electrolytes - I managed to stick to this. Getting back to it- so between mile 13-21 I felt ok, a few ups and downs but all good- I was still concentrating on the green line in the middle of the course and the minute mile pace. I did fall slightly behind but not too far.
When I hit mile 22 I hit a massive low and probably walked for 30 secs then picked up again slowly. I knew now that sub 3 was out of reach and just wanted to get to the finish and was thinking I'm still on for a pb here so carried on - for people who haven't done a marathon the worst bit is the last bit- if you have pushed yourself you pretty much have nothing left just trying to get to the finish. I came in with 3.05.45 and 26.4 miles on the clock.
Bit gutting as London good for age is sub 3.05 but I sat down and was happy as my pb before was 3.08- I've had a day to reflect on this and I've got to think I've achieved a 3 min pb and I'm moving in the right direction. I then waited for the others who all achieved what they wanted - we had great support from Sam's parents and Claire (Balmer's mum). We celebrated with some beers and burgers which all tasted very good.
Paris was a great marathon- well organised, amazing atmosphere, scenery, lots of water stops and great to spend time with family and friends- I would recommend this race to anyone wanting to run their first marathon and looking for a pb.
I would like to thanks Steve for being a great coach! I would recommend him to anyone looking to better themselves or train for a race.
For me now I'm taking the next few weeks to reflect and think about future races- I'll be back raring to go again soon.
Strava stats - https://www.strava.com/activities/535620206
Splits pre race & Ash and I
The Running Squad
Sammi and I
