Marathon time! Road 2 Hope Race Report

After months of training (and looking for excuses not to train), two Sundays ago I ran in the Road 2 Hope marathon in Hamilton. One of the goals I had stated when I started this blog (and I use the term blog loosely here as this has basically just turned into a series of race reports) was to run a sub 3 hour marathon. As the race approached I tried not to be too concerned with meeting this goal as just putting a good marathon and not completely falling apart near the end.

The day before the race was definitely a short and relaxing one. Woke up late, went to East Side’s for a pre-race carb-load with a bunch of people from H+P (at which the marathon was obviously the dominant topic), went to Running Room to stock up on gels, then got a good dinner and headed to bed early. The Hamilton marathon is appealing for multiple reasons, one of them being the fact that it occurs the day that the clocks are turned back, meaning that you get an extra hour of sleep before the race. So even though I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m., I went to bed at what was really 9:30 p.m. the night before and got a good 8 hours of sleep.

Everything went smoothly pre-race sunday morning. Woke up just before my alarm went off at 5:30, had a bit of breakfast, packed up and had a virtually traffic free drive to the race start. Hamilton is a point to point marathon (as opposed to a loop), so after dropping me off at the start Maria headed to the finish line to beat the traffic/road closures. Although slightly chilly, the sky was completely clear and once the sun got high enough it was perfect running weather. I met up with Jordan before the race as we were planning to run together, both at a sub 3-hour pace. Also ran into a bunch of other H+P people who were running either the full or half marathon, it was awesome to see so many people I knew there!

Jordan and I lined up pretty close to the start line, and right at 8 am we were off. To run a sub 3 hour marathon you need to average just under 4:17/km, so the plan was to start out at between 4:10 and 4:15/km pace for the first half of the race, then speed it up a bit on the big downhill (the race goes down the escarpment, following the Red Hill Parkway) to try and bank some time. Once we reached the flat part again around 30km, the idea was just to try and hold something around a 4:15 pace for as long as possible.

Coming through 16k, feeling good

The first 8k or so of the course has a few rolling hills and goes east along the edge of the escarpment. The views were amazing, and at this point the pace definitely felt easy. We were able to talk a bit as we ran, and this part of the race passed by fairly quickly. I took my first gel (not counting the one before the race) at around 9k, and we kept the pace consistently around 4:12/km. A couple guys had gone out a little too fast at the start (and realized it quickly), and we started picking them up around this point, running in a bigger and bigger group. One of the guys in the group was also trying to run a sub-3 hour marathon, so we agreed to try to stick together. Since I don’t remember his name, and he was decked out in Kona Ironman gear, I’m going to refer to him as Kona for the rest of this entry. The first part of the course is one big loop, and at around 16k we passed by the start line again, this time going the other direction. The group had shrunk a bit but there was still about 7 of us running together, which worked out very well for the windy parts of the course (as we could take turns leading).

By the time you reach the halfway point, the course is already starting to go down the escarpment. The km or two before the halfway point were slightly faster due to this downhill, and we went through the half in about 1:28. After that the course turns onto the Red Hill Parkway, and the real descent begins. Unfortunately, there was a strong breeze blowing right up the big downhill, negating a lot of the energy and time savings we were hoping to have on the downhill. I’ll confess that for the next few km I definitely did not do my share of leading the group, and spent most of the time tucked in near the end trying to catch my breath and reassure myself that everyone else was feeling the effort too. I believe Kona and Jordan led the group most of the way down the hill, and near the end (around 25k) I had my third gel and started to feel a bit better. I was able to get back up with Jordan and as we kept the pace around 4:15 on the flatter part of the course, we put a bit of distance on some of the group that ran the downhill with us. After a brief flat section, the course actually has a few short climbs, and some tricky downhills on gravel and brick trails, which definitely broke up the next few km. After this trail section you run on a bridge over the highway, and then its right down to the lake for the final 12k.

By this time I was defintely feeling tired, and it was somewhere shortly after the 30k mark that Kona and Jordan started to drop me. I was still averaging well under the 4:16/km that I was shooting for, but every km started to take longer than the last, and the long flat straight sections were getting mentally tough. I ended up running alone for about 3k, from 32 until the turnaround at 35.

At 35k, everything started to hurt, and each km became slower than the last. The final stretch is back on a path along the lake towards the finish area. The group I was running with previously was completely split up now, with some like Jordan and Kona in front of me, and others behind me. My legs got really cramped and I chose to take a couple 10 second walk breaks to try and stretch out my hamstrings and calves as they were both in a lot of pain. The rest of the run was just a blur of counting down the kms, until all of a sudden I was passing the 41k sign and had just over one kilometre to go. With about 300 metres left, H+P coach Sean was waiting to run the last little bit with me, and encouraged me to pick up the pace. Passed a few people in last few hundred metres, and then came across the line in 3:06:02.

Attempting a finishing sprint!

Shortly after finishing I experienced some crazy cramping again and ended up just lying on the grass right by the finish line getting Maria to massage them for what probably added up to about 20 minutes. Every few minutes I would think I was feeling better, then get up to walk and have my legs cramp right up again. Finally I felt a bit better walking, grabbed some soup and snacks from the food tent and then headed to the car.

Finished and feeling…not so good. Here come the leg cramps

Although I didn’t end up running under 3 hours (or even the 3:04:59 I would’ve needed to qualify for Boston), I did run almost 40 minutes faster than my previous marathon best, so I was very happy with the result. My legs also didn’t feel nearly as destroyed after this marathon as previous ones, and within a week I was able to do some running (just long slow runs). This is the first time that I’ve really got the proper nutrition in during a run, and I think it showed in the results in the fact that I only really crashed in the last 5k, instead of hitting the 30k mark and feeling exhausted.

I still believe that a sub-3 hour marathon is possible for me, and in my near future. For now I’m going to take it easy for a bit, and then start training for Around the Bay (30K) which is at the end of March. After I see how that goes I’ll make a decision on when the next marathon is for me.

For those interested, I’ve posted my km splits from 2-42. I didn’t start my watch until the 1k mark because for some reason, on a perfectly clear day it couldn’t get a gps fix until that point.

2 – 4:07

3 – 4:14,

4 – 4:12

5 – 4:08,

6 – 4:12

7- 4:12

8 – 4:06

9 – 4:13

10 – 4:11

11 – 4:13

12 – 4:16

13 – 4:17

14 – 4:17

15 – 4:15

16 – 4:11

17 – 4:11

18 – 4:10

19 – 4:14

20 – 4:08

21 – 4:12

22 – 4:07

23 – 4:03

24 – 4:07

25 – 4:11

26 – 4:10

27 – 4:11

28 – 4:14

29 – 4:19

30 – 4:07

31 – 4:15

32 – 4:20

33 – 4:27

34 – 4:28

35 – 4:39

36 – 4:42

37 – 4:48

38 – 5:05

39 – 5:16

40 – 5:29

41 – 5:38

42 – 5:11