Pain

Brisbane Marathon Race Report

I guess the title gives it away. Straight into it ... and I was comfortably into the race and moving at 4:30 min/K, as I had done in the last two marathons. If anything, it was a little quicker and the first 7 km were at 4:27 pace, but I was heating up fast and saturated, sweating more than normal. I eased up a little as the pace was what I wanted, but was more effort that it might otherwise take. I looked at my watch and noted right on 45 min at the 10k marker.

I knew that it was all over for a PB in this race already, as I felt the need to back off in order to ensure a finish. It could have been the heat and humidity of 92% or the effect of running the Canberra marathon 3 weeks ago. Dropping down a gear enabled me to find a better rhythm and covered the 4Ks to 14 at 5:03 min pace. By 14k, I felt good again and took my shirt off leaving the soaked rag splattered against a wall where it remained for me to pickup after finishing (I didn't think anyone would want it!).

Before hitting 20k I had lost power and was pushing myself hard to keep for slipping off the pace too much. My focus was the pavement a couple of meters ahead of me and a friend that passed later told me that I looked like I was doing it hard. Frequently I would give an extra surge to stop myself from really slowing down. I had soreness in my hamstrings and bum, glutes or whatever the top of legs is called. It was the pain that I have felt at the end of a long run and where I would be sore the next few days. But folks there was still 20Ks to go.

I battled against slower down further and rode the pain through K marker after K marker. Around 30K I got one of those caffeine energy drinks and walked the 100 metres up the hill, taking a brief moment to regain composure and launch into the finish. At this stage I had covered half of those last 20K and all the cliches apply like "staring down the barrel of defeat", "digging deep", etc. I can not overstate the amount of work I was putting in .... really hard work. For the full run there was never a time where I drifted off in my concentration and ambled along.

The final 10K were just over 5min/K, towards the end I was passing other runners. I can't say I felt good but the sense of achievement was strong. Finish time as 3:34 although that wasn't as important today. I was very excited and delighted with this one. 20 rounds in this fight and I was still standing.