terça-feira, 28 de outubro de 2008

Carl Ryde - 2:29:29. 31st place

To Watch the last 100 meters of the marathon click here
My marathon debut and I found out that the marathon is different to all running events. Firstly, there is no strong cardiac effort, you don't ever breathe heavily, you feel like you are jogging for the first 30 kilos, you feel relaxed early on, and even after 30 kilos you think you are fresh and have lots of power in the tank. However, after running such a distance, despite how comfortable you feel, fatigue can set in. Fortunately I managed to grind it out to the finish and get under 2 and a half hours, which is a positive debut really.

I reached halfway just outside 1:13 and it honestly felt like a jog. I caught other runners between halfway and 30 kilos and went through 30k in 1:44. At this point I felt really good. In fact, I worked out that if I could run the next 10 kilos in around 35 minutes, I'd be looking at 2:26. 'No problem,' I thought, 'I feel good, not long now, no problem'.

About 10 minutes later, the wall just hit me...BANG...my legs just started seizing up but worse was the pain in my back, which was making every stride painful. With 5 kilos to go it was going to be a struggle to get under 2:30 I had tired so much. I managed to pick up over the last kilo and was relieved to finally reach the Olympic Stadium. It was such a relief that I sprinted to the finish to make sure of breaking 2:30.

Straight after I thought about never doing another one again. However, only 10 minutes later I said to someone 'I will be back next year...after I have done the London Marathon'.

It was a positive experience. I had enjoyed the training. The relief and feeling of satisfaction after a marathon is incomparable to anything else really so I have got the marathon bug. I will be posting my London Marathon entry off for London 2009.

For now though, I am just resting, not running at all and recovering. I am going to lose a lot of fitness, that is inevitable, but I am not going to have any concerns about that.

Full results here