Before the Race: The Battle Begins
Running a marathon is a battlefield of the mind and body.
Ahead of your goal race, you’ll train for weeks, work out many times when no one is watching, endure early mornings, and get more familiar with your body than you thought possible.
This past weekend, I completed my second road marathon, the Jacaranda City Challenge. To date, it’s the most prepared I’ve been for a road race (this is only my second marathon).
The cliffnotes for the race: I ran a PB by 11% on my previous road marathon.
Why I’m Writing This
Before I talk about the race itself, I’ll add this small disclaimer: This post is for me. I know my mind and body can exceed this performance. This write-up is about documenting my raw feelings so I can come back to them in future. I’m my harshest critic —I know this intimately. For me, taking an honest look at the day does not detract from how proud I am of the result.
Running is a personal, continuous improvement project. Over the last 2 years I’ve surpassed what I thought possible on the road and trail, and then some. I’ve learned more about myself, and how I deal with challenges, how my body reacts in dark moments, than anything I’ve done before.
The First Half: Smooth and Steady
This weekend’s race was puzzling. A true tale of two halves.
The race was jam-packed, but despite this, we were able to keep pace right from the get-go.
First half (21km): I felt like things were going to plan; I was running at a good pace, keeping up with fellow clubmates, taking breaks at every water stop. I had started nutrition early on, and felt like it was going to plan.
The course was relatively flat by comparison to the hilly terrain I run regularly. Dare I say this is arguably Pretoria’s fastest race. If you’re chasing a personal best, this is the race for you.
The Turning Point
Just after the halfway mark, things changed for me. Like clockwork (as in the first marathon), at the intersection where they split the half-marathoners and the full-marathoners, I felt an impending dread of another 21km ahead of me, deep in my stomach. It was like my body was flashing red warning lights at me.
At around the 26km mark, I couldn’t keep up with my clubmates and watched them disappear into the distance.
I knew I had to drop back and reset. The mental gymnastics officially kicked off for me. Far earlier than I thought would happen.
The Mental Game
You can see the drop-off zone in the data below.
I started taking longer walk breaks than I’d like, but I vowed to keep moving forward, no matter what.
I kept eating and drinking, but maybe that wasn’t cutting it for what my body needed. Looking back, I was underfueled. My engine was burning hot, and I couldn’t cool it down to bring myself together.
When the Buses Came By
When you run large races, you’ll inevitably see a few buses along the way. These are pacers, but for normal people, not the race winners you see in major marathons.
When your race derails, they’ll come past you and recruit you to join them. Two like this came past me this weekend. They promise to keep their passengers motivated and, most importantly, to take them to their destination. In my case, this was the 4:50 and 5:00 pacing buses.
I tried tagging along, but just didn’t have the strength or maybe the mental grit to hold on. I’m pretty frustrated about that, looking back at it now.
Bringing It Home
I kept moving forward, power-walking in sections, and did some slow jogging to bring it home.
I’m really proud to have dipped in under 5 hours. It was a real slog, with loads to take from it, but I did it.
What I Learned
Here is a short summary of learnings I’d like to work on going into the next marathon distance race;
- Pace slower in the first half – don’t burn your matches too early
- Nail down nutrition needs and test them out in longer training runs to train your gut. Write down when you need to start fueling and stick to the plan
- Learn how to run on tired legs, and keep moving forward—no matter what
- Training for the 28-35k zones. This zone has eaten me alive every time
Thanks to all the words of encouragement from so many people around me, I couldn’t have done it without you.
Until next time!
You can see more data below on Strava