Mitiog ate so many cafienated gels she couldn't sleep never mind lie in!!!! I had 10 in the end....one at the start with 100ml of isotonic and some imodium (preventative) and one gel at each of the 9 water stops. I didn't hit the wall!!!! woop woop!!!!
Anyway race report. My hotel was 7mins from the start so on the Saturday evening I wandered down to see what the first mile was like - gently down-hill, not, as the organisers claim in their badly-scaled publicity, like running down mount Everest!! I finished my carbo-loading with the same evening meal I had before my last 20 mile run and had the same breakfast before making my way to the start.
The weather forecast was for a hot day and PA was giving out that it was 18 degrees already and it was only half past nine! It was expected to be 26 degrees by midday, so I slathered on the factor 50 and sat in the shade until I abolutely had to go into my start pen.
I'd decided to go out at about 11:30-11:45 pace, keep at it until 20 miles then "best effort" to the finish line. Gels, as mentioned above, every water stop (about every 3 miles) and ofcourse plenty of water. The gun went and we shufled forward then started jogging as the start line finally came into view. Then several hundred runners dashed past me and I felt a bit of a numpty jogging "so slowly"..but on checking my GPS I was already doing 10:30 pace so I slowed it down a bit more and even more runners carreered past me. This was the pattern for the first 5 miles, being overtaken by anything that moved.
By mile 6 we were out on the coast having completed the only bit of the marathon that's actually in Edinburgh. I kept on plugging away, same sort of speed, and to be honest it felt really really easy, though it took a lot of effort not to pick up the pace. I got to 10 miles in around 1:55 I think and was very happy with that. I saw the elite field come past me at mile 23 (other side of the road from where I was at mile 10) which was an awe-inspiring sight, so much I stumbled and almost fell over!
I got to the half-way point in 2:32ish, feeling comfortable, unlike London 2 years ago, when I got to the half-way point at almost the same time but felt pretty done for! I was starting to really feel the heat though so I made use of water sprays that locals had set up on the course for us - very refreshing.
The next stage was the long out-and-back loop which had little in the way of crowd support. There was a water stop at mile 16 which was mile 22 on the way back, but other than that, just a few marshals. By mile 16 most people around me were walking which I found a bit demoralising as I was desperately looking for someone about my speed to run with because I was feeling the heat. I knew if I walked I'd never get going again so I plodded on, telling myself "I can do this" over and over again. Mile 18 was tough as we went through an estate and the surface was gravel - felt weird after all that tarmac. Back on the main road towards the finish I started counting down the miles. My pace had slipped a bit to low 12's but I still got to mile 20 in 3:55 so was very pleased with my progress. It was incredibly hot and I had no idea how I'd cope having trained in blustery wind and rain but 20 miles is nearly home and I wasn't giving up now.
I got to mile 23 in 4:30 and decided now wasn't the time for heroics so I ignored any thoughts of a sub-5 and kept pluggin away and was encouraged by some friends at mile 23 (who had also seen me at the same point going out at mile 10) and it was then that I relaised that I had 3.2 miles to do in less than one hour and one minute to get a nice new marathon PB...
Edited: 28/05/2012 at 20:34
