This week past I completed my first marathon, Loch Ness! Signed up for it months ago now so it was great to finally get to it and start running, knowing both that I was trained up and had raised a bit of money for my charity of choice, Oxfam.
After a short nights sleep in a tent we (my cousin ran the marathon as well) had a forty minute bus ride (put on by the organisers) to the start, leaving another forty minutes before the ten am start. The weather started off typically Scottish with rain wind and cloud; this however only helped me maintain a cool seven minute mile pace for the first sixteen miles, but wasn’t ideal for the forty minute wait in running shorts/t. It did however ensure I had a good warm up, it was either that or pneumonia.
The first sixteen miles were really enjoyable, undulating hills but not too steep as to tire me out but steep enough to lumber down the other side and gain a good few seconds of time on. After starting at the four hour mark (my hoped for time), I’d managed to overtake HUNDREDS of the dafties who’d started before the 3:30 marker thinking they were the business and now struggling to power walk let alone jog or even run! Up until this point (mile sixteen) I’d been running pretty comfortably, although miles sixteen to twenty two had some (what seemed like at the time) gigantic hills which really strained me. Usually I only get ‘out of breath tired’ but found I was getting ‘sore joints tired’ and ended up breaking into a little walk twice. By this point at least the weather had cleared up a little and I was enjoying a nice spot of sun.
Thankfully though after a few miles the terrain calmed down and I got back into a pace (about nine minutes a mile, still pretty bad but a pace all the same). The first half of the race I’d been pretty into it but by this point I was just thinking about the end, thinking that my pace had collapsed and I would come in after four hours. However, I suddenly remembered I had a nice 1.5 litre bottle of home-made lemon and ginger ice-tea waiting for me in the car; the thought of which spurred me on. Straight away I leapt into an eight minute mile pace thinking about my ice tea, this took me all the way to the twenty six mile mark where I found the energy for a cracking sprint finish. Two of my three finishing pictures have me completely air-born! Overtook about five (rather annoyed) guys in the last one hundred metres, good times.
I was delighted to cross the line at 3:37, twenty three minutes faster than hoped, and still leaving a little room for improvement for next time.
Straight after stopping finishing though my stomach became real sore and I realised my four gels (I’d gotten them free and being the cheap skate I am thought I’d have to use them all as opposed to let them go to waste!) hadn’t agreed with my stomach at all, so sat keeled over grimacing until my cousin finally crossed the line.
All in all, a great day, good/bad race, great route, good freebies (even a tin of soup), goal beating finish time!
Race time: 3:37
Chip Position: 440
Overall Position: 446
Category position: 210
Gender position: 393 (beaten by forty-seven girls!)
Percentile: 82nd (17.684887%)
Category percentile: 77th (22.875816%)
