Six Foot Track Marathon 2008

I drove from Port to Sydney on Friday, then up to the mountains with my parents where we stayed at my Aunt and Uncles place at Blackheath. The storm during the night was unexpected, as was waking up to low cloud, light rain and cold temperatures.

After getting to the start shortly after 7am I had well over an hour until my wave. Was interesting to catch up with a few people and watch the first three waves charge off over the edge before it was our turn.

I was near the front of wave 4, and had a nice relaxed run to the top of the stairs. I was pretty happy with the descent, as it was a comfortable slowish pace, which meant a safe trip down without being stopped or slowed too much other than at a couple of the trickier spots.

From the bottom of the stairs (15-20 mins) I settled into a nice easy pace mindful of not going too quick in the early stages. It’s nice open trail to Megalong Road, which I hit in 55 minutes, before crossing the fields followed by the more technical descent to Cox’s River. I was in a small spread out group for some of this section, so I had good sighting ahead of me (unlike the much tighter conga line during Megalong Mega), and easily cruised down to the river in 1:45. The river was under waist height. I made a quick stop at the aid station to refill the bottles, grab a gel and a quick snack.

The next hour and a half was the climb up to Mini-Mini and Pluvi, punctuated by the descent to Alum Creek. I walked pretty much all the uphill other than the short flatish parts. As I was approaching the top of Pluvi I could feel the lower inside part of my left quad tightening up a bit, but nothing too serious.

Top of Pluvi was 3:26, where I stopped for a quick change of socks and various drinks, some food and a salt tablet. I was thinking as I approached the station that my feet actually felt fine, but putting a new pair of soft dry socks on just felt great. I think I had a bit too much to drink there, as I could feel it all sloshing around for the next 20 minutes or so. I’d been having a gel every hour, an endura drink, as well as regularly sipping water and sports drink, and the odd piece of power bar. The aid stations were amazing well stocked and well manned.

The rest of the race was a bit of a nightmare thanks to the quad cramps. I’m very grateful to BernieG, who happened to come along just as I’d been stretching and gave me some salt tablets, which was a lifesaver as the previous aid station had run out of them. Part of my problem was that I’d never had cramps anything like this before, and in particular never had any issue with my quads whatsoever in the past. I didn’t really know what to do, or in fact whether I’d make it past the next hill or not.

A fair way up Black Range I worked out what was happening. Mostly the cramps were coming on when I slowed to walk up a few of the steeper hills and when pausing at an aid station. I found that if I kept running the cramp tended to fade away, as though the extra motion was shaking it out and loosening the muscles, particularly after the salt tablets. So seeing as I was actually feeling fairly strong apart from the cramps I ran as much as I could, but of course there are a few sections that I just couldn’t – most notably the climbs just before the Caves Road crossing. I had a fair bit of trouble there, and lost a lot of time stopping to stretch the legs on the way up. Once I was over the road I had a final stretch of the quads just after the Binda Cabins aid station and ran the rest of the way. My legs were fine from there as it’s pretty much all downhill, and that was the last of the cramps. It’s certainly treacherous going down the narrow path with the drop on your right.

It felt great flying down the walkway into the valley, seeing and hearing the crowd, with the announcer calling everyone in. That final descent is incredible, just the best finish to a race that I could imagine and made it all worthwhile. Down the bottom I turned the corner, high fived Owly and crossed the finished line in 6 hours 7 minutes, where TA was waiting with a hug and to steady me while they removed the timing chip. Mum and Dad were waiting just past the finish, as was Hamburgler who was long finished. I was a bit shattered and emotional at that stage. It was just such a relief to get to the finish after the last 2 and a half hours of pain (on top of the other 3 and a half “good” hours!) and uncertainty as to whether I’d make it all the way, plus the fact that 2 years ago I’d planned to run Six Foot this year and it had finally come to fruition. I can really appreciate now what a tough race it is.

So many people I spoke to had really fantastic runs and posted some great times.

I guess what happened to me seems to be a fairly classic Six Foot case of too quick to the river and then Pluvi for the training I did in the lead up. Perhaps, as I did feel like I’d done a bit less than I should have. Even though I was very comfortable to those points in the race, perhaps even more conservatively would have seen me in better shape for the back half. Even so, I’m fairly happy to have given sub 6 hours a shot as I did, crashed a bit but still finish close enough to my goal time. At least now I’m in a much better position for a more serious crack at it next year, hopefully carrying a few less kilos and giving it the full respect it deserves. That gives me a year to prepare a better training program and race day plan for the 14^th March 2009. How exciting!

2007 Canberra Marathon

Yeah, this is going to be very long and rambling…probably twice as much as my first Half Marathon post, but I want some notes that I wrote while it’s all fresh to be able to refer back to for next time!

It was an odd feeling lining up for this, my first Marathon. I wasn’t really nervous about anything apart from my hamstring, which really had me worried and everybody I saw heard about it…sorry! I knew that I’d done some tough training runs, all the main sessions I needed to do almost to the letter, had a great taper, carbo load, was reasonably well rested, had my hydration/nutrition plan in hand, some duct tape for running repairs in case the hammy fell apart (joking) and there was nothing more I could do apart from dig in and run the thing.

It was a nice cool morning with a little bit of cloud cover around and conditions seemed just right. I did an easy 5 minute jog through Telopea Park and back before lining up about half way through the thousand odd other starters.

The gun went off and about 20 seconds later I was across the line at an easy pace for the first 10km loop around Parliament House. It turned out that my easy pace was around 5:15 minute k’s and I hit 10km in 52:38. This saw me hanging about 20 seconds behind the 3hr 45min pace group, and I stayed at that position until after 30km when they started pulling away a bit. I was fairly happy with that because I’d spoken to Horrie earlier (the 3:45 pacer) and he was planning a slightly quicker than even first half. I was careful to make sure it really was a comfortable pace as it was a little quicker than my originally planned 5:30 minute k’s and I didn’t want to blow up later.

The second lap heads over the lake and out to the base of Black Mountain. I was enjoying the scenery and keeping an eye on the splits through this lap. I stayed roughly a minute ahead of the 3:45 splits along the way. There are a few undulations through the course but nothing too serious. Apart from the climb up from the bridge to the south of the lake the worst seemed to be the little climb back up from the turnaround at the Black Mountain end of the course. I really enjoyed that section of the course though as you get a long stretch of out and back where you get to see everyone ahead and behind you which is lots of fun. I found that there wasn’t anyone really running around my pace for most of the race. There were a few people I was passing and being passed by a few times, but apart from a brief chat I just ran my own race. This made it easy through the drink stations as I didn’t have to dodge anyone and rarely even slowed down.

There was lots of support from spectators along the entire course which was just fantastic. During the second lap I hit half way in 1:51. Then it’s over the bridge and along the lake back near the start after 25km before heading out on the third lap. The CR cheer squad was doing a great job here, as were Jodie and the kids, all of which was wonderful and such a great boost. It was also great to see Ewen and Gnome out and about at various places on the course – always a surprise to see where they’d pop up next! Just before this turnaround a guy on a bike came past to say that the leaders were approaching from behind on their final lap and to just maintain my line on the bend and they’d pass on the outside. I actually avoided being lapped, but only by about 30 seconds!

On heading back over the lake again, the climb up from the bridge was a bit more noticeable this time, and I pushed out to Black Mountain again. On the way out I realised that my hamstring was well under control and although I could feel it as a mild dull pain, it actually improved as the race went on. In fact apart from the general fatigue my only real pain was in my neck when I turned my head to the side. It must have been a bit tight so I concentrated on loosening that up as well as keeping my arms and hands relaxed, all of which was a good distraction as the race wore on.

After 34km, the climb out of the turnaround was a little tough, but at that point I was thinking about all the training I’d done, particularly in the hills, and that this one wasn’t as bad as I was used to. At the 35km station I walked for a couple of minutes and loosened the legs a bit before getting back up to pace. From that point it was tough, but I never felt like I really needed to stop for a walk again, although I felt that I was going as hard as I possibly could and simply couldn’t (or shouldn’t?) run any faster. I was really working on the mind games over the final 6km to make sure my legs just kept going and counting down how close the finish was. I was thinking about the months of training I’d done, with all the time, effort and expense involved in getting to this point, determined not to let a tough half an hour bring it all undone. It helped to know for certain that my body had the fuel and training it needed to make it to the end. I knew I’d make 4 hours easy, but 3:45 slipped away with my walk break so I refocussed on beating 3:50. There were heaps of people walking in those final few kilometres, and I was gaining on quite a few runners as well. A handful of people passed me, but not even close to as many as I passed.

It felt great to turn up along Telopea Park for the final stretch before the finishing straight. I pulled in more runners along here before turning into the finishing straight to the cheers of my family and the CR cheersquad which really spurred me along for the last couple of hundred metres. The crowd lining the finish was a blur and whilst I took it all in, I was mostly focussed on that finish line and the timer above that said 3:48:xx.

It was the most amazing feeling and I was a little overwhelmed to finally be crossing the line. During the run I’d been thinking about how it was over a year ago (before I’d even run my first Half) that I had the idea to run my first Marathon at Canberra on this day. To realise that after all that time and all the steps along the way I’d achieved that goal of finishing the Marathon, finishing it well and coming in under the time that I wanted was very satisfying. I think I was a bit dazed for a fair while after finishing.

Thinking back now I believe that the training I did and the race I put in on the day was very well balanced. For my first one I wouldn’t have wanted to push harder for the first 30km, and for the final 12km I couldn’t have pushed much harder. All my nutrition and hydration went perfectly to plan and I had no troubles at all with any of that side of things, which I’d carefully planned in the preceding days.

I’d read a compelling article during the week about not eating anything for at least 3 hours before the race, and considering my experiences with early morning runs on nothing but water this made sense for me, and in fact I could recall the negative effect that even a small meal had before a few runs. So I decided not to eat anything as although it’s good to top up liver glycogen stores 3-4 hours beforehand, it’s probably better to just get a bit extra sleep and focus on getting what you need once the race is underway. When Isabel stirred and I was awake at 3am anyway I figured that I may as well get the 300-400 calories in anyway as there was still 4 hours to the start time, then go back to bed for another couple of hours sleep. So after getting up at 5:30am I just had water beforehand and a dose of Endura Magnesium formula at the start line.

I had my own sports drinks at 15km (Gatorade), 25km (Endura)and 35km (Endura) and had 4 gels at the 1, 2 and 3 hour marks, give or take…the final gel being around the 3 and a half hour mark for a bit of a boost to get me home! I just had a few mouthfuls of the provided sports drink in the cups – just what I could have quickly on the go. The water sachets were just great, being really easy to use and at most times I had a spare on hand as they were easy to carry in hand or pocket, and very useful for when there was a gel due. I didn’t need a pit stop at all, although I could feel the need coming on a couple of times so I just eased up on the water a bit and it was all fine. It wasn’t a humid day and I didn’t have sweat dripping off me at any stage so I didn’t feel the need to rinse off with water.

My legs (quads in particular) have felt pretty smashed up since Sunday and walking down stairs is the least of my favourite activities at the moment. We went for an hour walk on Monday and I had a massage today, so they should be back to normal shortly. After walking around the zoo tomorrow and an easy cycle in a couple of days I’m not going to run until the weekend, and even then it will be just easy recovery runs for another week or two. I do want to run and feel the motivation to do so, but don’t feel the need to rush back into it too soon.

There are some photos, maybe splits and future plans to come, but until I get home in a couple of days I have limited internet access so that will all have to wait. So too will catching up on everyone’s blogs, particularly reading all the other Canberra reports. Can’t wait!
Apart from a couple of isolated mentions I’ve been neglectful in not naming so many of the people that were involved in the weekend, before, during and after the race. It’s been tough just getting this massive report done and as there were so many people that provided inspiration, encouragement, advice, support and congratulations that I’m scared of missing out on anyone!! The safest thing to say is that I appreciate the support I’ve had from so many people before hand and from pretty much everyone I spoke to over the course of the weekend…I know it’s a cop out, but thank you all so much :)