Stability Through Motion

Antwerp Marathon: 26.2 miles (42k)

3 hours 13 mins 2 seconds

I travelled through some zones of despair I hadn’t seen before on Sunday. It crept up to 21 degrees C with no shade for long stretches - quite nasty, though I know that’s not really hot.

First half was fine and dandy, keeping ahead of the 3:15 pacers and their bright blue balloons, and on course for my optimum time of 3:10. Forgot my handy pace band though so was a little bit lost for some of  the time, and too tempted to chase people - a very stupid mistake. Then after a long lonely seemingly endless section of dual carriageway I was started to slow.

All of sudden, at 26 or 27k I heard the pounding of a pack of runners on my tail, glanced round and it was the pacing group - minus balloons. What a horrible moment, I really thought they’d just pass me and that would be that. I could console myself that I’d still make it to the end with a PB, but I think I would have lost so much spirit if I had let them past that I gritted my teeth and stayed in front of them until 38k.

By that point, several of the pack had fallen by the wayside and we were passing runners all the time. The pacer was level with me shouting encouragement in Dutch. He translated one of his phrases to me as

“Everybody feels pain now, so we must make the pain pass quicker”

True but highly annoying words - and he then sped up for the last 3k - by this time my quads were in agony, something I’ve never had before. Our fastest kms were right at the end. Even after the Snowdonia marathon and the infamous descent to the end, my quads were fine.

Post-race I had the traditional relaxing limp around town for hours desperately looking for UNsweetened water, lunch, and general moseying around town. I still can’t remember a thing about Antwerp though, so I’ll have to return another day to do some sight-seeing.

Not sure quite what the reasons for my pain this time were - quite possibly I didn’t take enough water and fuel on board. I was reluctant to drink more because if I’d stopped for a pee, I just know I would never have caught the pacing group up again.

Next goals (there’s always another one) - a 10k race in Oxford in May - nice and short, but again trying to break my PB and dip under 40 minutes, which should be realistic, then an off-road and hilly marathon in Swaledale in mid-June.

3 hours 31 minutes 31 seconds.

That’s it - all over. I can drink, stop running, eat what I like, sleep more. All I can say is WOW! What a race - I’m still buzzing from it two days later.

Oooh, latest: check it out the S4C highlights on the web.

Mile splits: 8:19; 8:30; 8:48; 9:11; 7:09; 7:20; 7:12; 7:45; 7:13; 7:37; 7:58; 7:12; 8:14; 8:34; 7:59; 7:39; 7:20; 7:50; 7:53; 7:51; 7:32; 10:09; 10:12; 8:59; 7:51; 7:34; 1:20

You can easily tell where the hills were by that. On the flatter bits, I was as regular as clockwork - 7:50 ish.

Nervous nervous nervous, dropped off at Llanberis Electric Mountain cafe/centre and started to walk up to the Start Line at Nant Peris (300ft). Got chatting to a lovely guy who’d run it before which was very calming, and arrived at the start line in time for the obligatory pee in the bushes. The start was just a grassy area off the A4086 from Llanberis to Pen y Pass (1100ft). It was a less tense start than I’ve experienced before, in the shadow of Snowdon. We didn’t catch a glimpse of the summit all day as it was so misty and rainy, but the views, especially from Pen y Pass onwards, were fantastic.

I soon joined up with another runner who’d been visiting the Runners World forums, and we ran most of the race together. So for the second time in a marathon I had the benefit of a really experienced pacer. I think that’s why my time was quicker than I’d hoped for. She had run faster marathons than me on the flat and was 5th in her category (Female 40-45), but seemed happy to keep my pace, and definitely took me down the hills faster than I would have gone on my own. The uphills weren’t a problem at all, I even ran the last hill at 21 miles all the way, so all that hard slogging over the South Downs, Black Mountains and the Ridgeway paid off. I hate to gloat but even the next day my legs weren’t stiff - a far cry from how they felt after my first marathon.

Up to about 15 miles I was smiling all the time. It got a bit tough for me then, with a long slog uphill after wet Bedgellert in heavier rain and the prospect of the much-talked-about killer hill at Waunfawr still to come. But a couple of slices of mars bar later (yes, that was on offer) and I was much more cheerful. Waunfawr hill was just a steady plod up for two miles, passing lots of people walking it, up, up and up into the mist with no idea of how long it would last. As predicted though, for me it was the downhill that was hard - I just cannot get the hang of flying down the way some of the people I’d overtaken on the way up managed on the way down. I really need to learn that knack, but I couldn’t trust my legs to hold me up on the steep slopes.

There was such great public support given the bad weather, I was really impressed, and it was the friendliest bunch of runners I’ve ever encountered.

Well, Microsoft Live 3d has 50 times better quality mapping for Snowdonia, so I’d better link there as well as the Google Earth map (which is rubbish in the aerial view). Try out the 3d perspective for a great zoom through the hills.

Download a Google Earth map of the route, or just check out Map My Run: