Short Report:

2.44.47 – managed my target of sub 2.45

Long Report:

What a beautiful day for the marathon. At least this time is was warm at the start and being on the good for age start meant shorter queues for the loos. Was alot more careful about hydration after last year’s cramp episode.

Got into the start pen about 30 mins before the start – still ended up half a dozen rows back and then all the celebs were put in front. The start was alot slower than last year – on this start the road isn’t so wide and you have all the slow celebs blocking it in the first few miles.

6.57 first mile nice and conservative, second mile 6.09 (on target) then third mile 5.45 – always a quick mile as it’s mostly downhill. My left quad started to twinge on this mile just like last year and progressively got worse until I had to stop in mile 4 to stretch it. I couldn’t believe it – not convinced it’s cramp, more like the quad is full of lactic, like you’d expect it to feel in mile 25. I decided to ease off slightly and run through it. A gel and water and it started to improve. By mile 6 I was back to consistently miling between 6.10 and 6.15 – in my target range for 2.40 – 2.45.

Funny – u feel so good approaching halfway. Across tower bridge with the crowds then u hit halfway (in about 1.21.30) and then within a mile it starts to hurt. Struggle to keep the miles in the high 6:teens and low twenties – conscious that this was eating into my buffer for 2.45 and a championship start next year. With four miles to go I was able to push it along and get some strong sub 6.20 miles but it was going to be close. The last 2.2 miles were torture – finished in 2.44.47 by my watch, official time hopefully a little quicker.

Well chuffed – next year no standing around in a crowd for 30 minutes before the start – perhaps that will stop the tight quad in mile 3!!