This year's GCM loomed large on my calendar, and in many ways was the centerpiece of my running goals for the year. The simple [yet hard to achieve goal] was to join the sub-3 club. In other words, break the 3hr threshold for the marathon. In days gone by roughly 10% of marathoners would achieve that. Thesedays marathon demographics are changing. The number of participants is growing, but the average finishing time is blowing out to 4:30 and sub-3 runners constitute 2% on average.
If you want to have a crack at a marathon PB, the GCM is the place to do it. Brilliant weather virtually guaranteed, excellent organisation, flat course, heaps to look at and plenty of support on the road.
My last marathon was the Melbourne Marathon in October last year. An atrocious day for me, atrocious weather, and memories that I have tried to bury lest they haunt me! Coming off the back of Comrades Marathon in June 05 [90km], and a prolonged period of illness, I journeyed to Melbourne and foolishly attempted a sub-3 without the necessary form in training. I held the pace until the halfway mark and then suffered unimanigeable torment until I eventually breasted the line at 3:10. Had I set out to run 3:10, I would have had a much better day, but instead I bit off more than I could chew and paid the price.
Coming into GCM I had a few indicators about form whcih is essential. My time at the Brissy Marathon Half [1:26] suggested a 3:02 marathon. This showed that there was some catch up work to be done if I was to join the sub-3 club. After the Half recovery, a solid month of training lay ahead within which I needed to lift my game.
My coach was instrumental in achieving that by stretching me with interval training, and gifting me a far superior runner at track to drag me around quicker than I thought I could sustain. Essentially, my coach allowed me to realise that the deeper I dig, the more I can find, if only I have the heart and mind to go there. He helped me discover that my ceiling was artificial, and only placed there by myself. My limitations were entirely self defined.
In the week before the race I rolled my ankle on the side of the bitumen avoiding a car in the early morning darkness. This put a dent in my pre-race taper with 4 days off the road and a great deal of swelling. I made a return to running 7 days before the race with the aid of heavy strapping and plenty of icing and compression.
The weather on the day was perfect, and although I had nagging doubts about what the strapping would do to my calf muscles later in the race, I stood at the start line knowing that I had done the work necessary to run the time I wanted to. My goal time of 4:10 per/km was printed out on a pace wristband around my right wrist. This gave me my 5km splits, but 4:10 is easy to work out on the run, especially in the earlier parts of the race, where staying on pace and not surging ahead is important. Later on in the race I have noticed that my ability to think straight is affected by fatigue.
The start was magnificent with a large field [2000], pumping music, helicopter swirling above and lots of international runners.
My initial plan was to run in front of the 3hr pacing group, as I assumed they would be pacing a bit slower, at about 4:12. By the 5km mark I discovered that they were pacing dead on 4:10. Pat Caroll and another pacer kept us well marshalled, paying close attention to slowing down the group. You always feel so strong at the start of a marathon, but every second you spend in the first half you pay for big time after the 35km mark.
The real halfway of the marathon is 33km. The real deal starts at about 35km.
The pacing group kept slightly ahead of our goals every 5km, but only marginally. I went through the halfway mark at 1:27:35 which was bang on target. A 4:10 pace if kept to will get you across the line in 2:55:50. I felt that I needed that cushion at the end, in case I was doing it tough. It's good to have a little bit of margin when you are close to shutdown!
My calves usually start to tighten around the 20km mark and this time it was no exception. Runner's have the unique ability to forget about how painful their last race was, but the downside is that you have to go through the whole realisation again in each race. At around the 25km mark I remember having a stern lecture at myself about how marathon's are supposed to be painful and that I should just shut up and get on with it. Negotiating with yourself is common for me in a marathon. I split into two personas, one is whinging, the other is positive and encouraging. Thankfully, the positive persona mostly wins out.
Things progressed to plan until the 35km mark, when the 3hr bunch started to stretch and a number of people started falling off the back of the 'pacing bus'. Up until then the 3hr bunch had pretty much stayed together, much to my surprise. I usually expect a pacing group to begin stretching out after the halfway mark. Perhaps because this was the Australian Marathon Champs there was a higher percentage of sub 3 runners in the field, not sure about that.
Pat Caroll kept up his encouragement to those around him to stick with him which I pretty much managed to do until the final km when he pulled away, or more like a slowed down. By then I was experiencing the dreaded 'wall', with a gradual shut down of physical and psychological resources. I was still negotiating with myself with only 500m to go, whcih I found bizarre.
At the last km marker I looked at my watch and realised I had 7+ minutes to do the last km, which was encouraging. I knew that I could crawl a km in that much time if I needed to.
I crossed the line at 2:58:34 for my first sub 3 and my second ever GCM.
GCM is major stepping stone to my next goal: a Comrades Marathon silver medal [90km, sub 7h30min]. The KPI for silver medals is a sub 3 marathon. My goal over the next 6 months is to keep on getting faster by racing and pushing things on the training track, whilst taking in a Half in October sometime. I need to arrive at the start of January in the same if not better form than now in order to complete the harsh demands of a silver training programme, which takes 6 months and up to 2000km.
But that's for later. Right now I'm just trying to get back into running, although the legs are still a bit trashed!
cheers
Stan
