Brighton Marathon

[mousetrappling]

On 15th April I did the Brighton Marathon! I entered it last year, just the day after entries opened - I'd been saying for a while that I wanted to do a marathon "some day" and it came to the point where I needed to just enter one so that I'd be committed to training for it. I'd also decided that running was taking over too much of my life but if I wanted to do a marathon then it'd be sensible to do it while I was still running lots. I picked Brighton for a couple of reasons - firstly it's a spring marathon and I figured I'd rather train over winter rather than over summer. Secondly it's one you can just enter (unlike London where there's a ballot or you commit to raising thousands for charity which I'd find more stressful than the run itself). And lastly it was actually open for entries at the point I decided I was going to do one - which counted out Manchester which didn't even have a date at that point.

So having bitten the bullet and entered I attempted to forget about it for at least 6 months. Well, kinda, I did have a couple of decisions to make that I wanted to have figured out in my head long before I started to train. How fast did I think I was going to go, and what training plan was I going to follow. Pace was the easier of the two, although in a sense I got it "wrong" but more on that later. The main thing I did was look at marathon times for people who I have a feel for their pace on race distances I've done, and 5hr 30 seemed a good ball park. Which I later refined to 12min/mile as a target pace (so a little quicker). Then in the run up to the Great East Run I did a 14 mile run at my target marathon pace as part of my training and it felt about as hard as I figured half-way at race pace should. So that was sorted.



Finding a training plan proved a little more difficult as it felt like I fell in a gap between plan types. By the time I entered the race I was already comfortable running a half marathon nonstop, so didn't need a plan that started by getting me to "run/walk for an hour" for the first long run, but equally the next step up often looked more intimidating than the race itself or was aimed at a specific pace that was faster than I wanted. Eventually I settled on the Hal Higdon Novice 2 program as it looked to be in the Goldilocks zone. And of course promptly modified it a bit, but not too much - long runs on Thursdays as that works better for me, and added in parkruns for the first 6 weeks. Skipped the half marathon race too, as that would've involved re-jigging a few weeks of the plan to get the long run day that week to fall on a Sunday.

The other thing to sort out was nutrition - I don't like the idea of gels, the thought of the texture makes me gag a little, so was trying to avoid them. In the end I settled on a mix of SIS Go Electrolyte drink, jellybabies on miles 1/2/4/5 etc and shotbloks on miles 3/6/9 etc. It was probably overkill, I definitely could've got away with less - but I figured optimising it wasn't worth the faff, and I didn't want to risk under-fueling in the race and making the end a misery.

Training went really well - had a slack week over Xmas, and got snowed off one week but otherwise did pretty much every run as planned. And that really helped my confidence when I got to race day. I swapped out the half marathon race for a half marathon at marathon pace halfway through, to see how I was going and started to worry I'd lowballed my planned pace a bit. After a few days mulling it over I decided to stick with the original plan: I'd much rather have it go well and have mild regrets I wasn't faster than over-stretch myself early on and have a disaster of a race. The worst bit about training was how it completely over-took my life - I don't mind long runs on my own, I do enjoy running and I'd just put some tunes on & go plodding off round the streets of Ipswich quite cheerfully. But by the highest mileage weeks of the plan I was running for hours & hours each week, and on long run days I'd not get much else done as I'd be tired enough to not quite have the mental bandwidth to do much that was useful. It felt like I was constantly scrambling to keep up with everything else in my life and by week 15 out of 18 I was So. Fucking. Done. With. This. Shit. Thankfully, that was the last really long run week (the 20miler) and I'd regained some enthusiasm by race day!



So the weekend of the race arrived - we were out in Cambridge at a Marillion gig on the Friday, and it's a tough call whether the gig distracted me from the race or the race distracted me from the gig. By Saturday when we'd got to Brighton I was a complete stressy mess! To be honest I think the marathon is one of the most intimidating things I've done - it's up there with my PhD viva, and shares a few other similarities. By the time you get to the race||viva you've done all the training||research so you just need to not screw it up in this final hurdle. It's also something that a relatively small portion of the population has done, but because of my social circles I know a lot of people who've done it. And by the time you get to race-day||viva-day it seems like everyone and their dog has a horror story about their first marathon||viva and you've heard Every. Last. One. Of. Them. ... twice.

I'd booked a hotel right near the start - paid a bit over the odds for a Travelodge room, but it was worth it to use the loos in the hotel rather than queue in the starting area. Bumped into another Lifer while I was waiting for the start pens to open - chap called Carl who I don't know to speak to really but we had a bit of chit chat anyway. Which actually calmed me down, making small talk with an almost total stranger is stressful in a different way ;) Also when I went through into the start pen someone from the next-door pen called through to ask if I was from Ipswich and said she had seen me running round where she lives a lot. So that was kinda neat & kinda random.

Once the race actually got going the nerves stopped - I like running, and I had a plan, so all I had to do now was put one foot after the other till the end. Thankfully I lost sight of the 5hr pacer early on as I didn't want to get sucked into running faster than planned and the hill at the start prevented me from taking off too fast. I saw J several times around the course - he'd plotted out a few places to wait for me and he took the photos in this post (plus many more!). It was good to see someone to grin at and showboat for the camera so often! I also kept an eye out for other Lifers (members of Run For Your Life which is the running group I belong to). I spotted Bex about where I thought I would, on the out & back towards the marina - she was coming back, I was going out. I also caught a half glimpse of Jon Glanfield (I think his name is) as he was finishing and I was coming past half way. Plus some others I didn't know at various points, and some Jaffas (an Ipswich running club).

The race went absolutely to plan, and I enjoyed pretty much all of it. I stuck to pace until after 21 miles, and so spent the first half being over-taken by people and the second half overtaking people. I did stop for a brief loo break after half way (when I spotted portaloos with no queue) and walked for a few seconds through a couple of water stops late on when I was getting tired of the taste of sugar, but other than that I ran the whole way which I'm really pleased with. There were a couple of miserable miles between 23 & 25 - it had started to rain & I was running into a headwind, and you can see the pier (where the finish is) but it's just not getting closer. There's also less support there, particularly once the weather changed. I cheered up again for the last mile tho - nearly done, and more support. And then I was finished, and now I'm a marathon-runner! :D



Post-mortem? I definitely have a better time in me, I didn't take as long to recover as I'd feared and I was never in doubt that I could keep up (nearly) the pace I planned. So I could've pushed it more, I think. So in a sense, I mis-judged my pace, but equally if the conditions had been like they were today in London I'd've struggled a lot more so it's only hindsight that tells me I misjudged it. I'm not planning to find out if I can go faster though, not in the foreseeable future. I just don't want to take the time to train for it and there are other hobbies I'd like to put some more time into.

And I'm a marathon runner, and that is awesome :D In case you hadn't noticed, I feel dead proud of myself - not half bad for the kid that was always chosen last for teams in PE coz she was rubbish.

Comments

[magid]

Congratulations! It's a huge accomplishment, not only the running but all the planning and training.

[mousetrappling]

Thank you! :)