Canberra Race Report

What sort of person graphs their marathon?

No answers please.

Here it is my pace over the 42.195 K's or 26.2 miles. First 5 K's 4:40 min/K ... tick. Drop it to 4:30 pace ... tick.

Ok, point "A" is 25 K's or around the turn to face the last lap. I averaged the time over the next 5 K's but at the water stop past the 28K mark, I stopped and walked whilst I ate my gel and washed it down. This would have added time and bumped up the average for those 5K's.

Point "B" 36K. I'm in a whole lot of pain as my calf feels like tearing. Might have been a cramp. My hamstring and quads twinge with sharp pains. I start thinking that I'm doing damage and will need a long recovery after this one.

Point "C" is a slow K due to the 35K water station, where once again I walk, drink a can of V and take my last gel. Then face the last 6K's.

At this stage, I was running with as much effort as I could put in for each and every step. I looked at my arm for the invisible inscription I use to dig deep (Clairie, it got me through). I drew upon all the times in training where I would push myself when I didn't feel like it. By my rough calculations, I needed to stay under 5 min/K to land at 42K around 3hr 16 min. If I could find something extra, I could reduce the minute I might be over my PB. It was one hell of a chase, but in the 30 minutes or so, I fell short by 25 seconds. Looking at my photos I noticed that I wasn't smiling much. Katy, I might not have looked happy but when I turned the bend around 40K and saw you shining in you costume in the distance it did lift me. I love what you did to cheer and how much it meant to so many many runners on the day.

I believe that when it gets hard in the end of a marathon, I am unlikely to get any quicker and holding speed is the best I can achieve. It's a theory.

The things I am most proud of and get satisfaction from in this marathon are:

1. Running the 3:10 race plan up to about the 30K mark.

2. Hold it together to achieve the pace I did for the last 6K's.

I came back from 2 marathons of 3:40+ to run a 3:16:32. I qualified for Boston and for 30K was running a New York qualifier. I went into this race positively with an ambitious goal. I might have chosen sub 3:15 and nailed it, but would wondered if I could have achieved more. This way, I might have sacrificed the overall time a little by running hard and aggressively from the start, but I have no regrets. I do feel the 3:10 .... not sure when .... but for the first 2 hours it was happening and it leaves me still wanting to do it all again. In fact for the first 30K, I was relaxed, comfortable and in control.

For now I will prepare for Warwick in under 4 weeks and use that race to lead into the next ones.

Canberra is over and I have a lot of relief.