Dublin Marathon, Mile 3

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Mannheim Marathon May 2014

Yesterday was the Mannheim Mannheim. Mannheim is in Germany, about 4o mins south of Frankfurt, and is my adopted home town. The Marathon is run in the evening on a Saturday and is a very lively, party atmosphere event!

I have lived here for 11 or so years now and have run the half marathon a few times but never the full one. I recall a few times coming to the point where the "halfies" go left to finish at 20KM, and the "fullies" go straight on to do another 21.1 KM, and thinking to myself, "i could NEVER do another half marathon at this point!!". So I had it in my head that this point in the race was going to be psychologically difficult for me as i am used to turning left there. But it turned out not to be such a big issue.

The strategy I got from my trainer Darryl was to keep under 0615 per km as much as possible up to 30K, and then just tick of the last 12K as best as possible. So that's what I had in my head and I nailed it to perfection. I ran KM1-KM25 mostly at under 0600 pace so new I was ahead of my schedule and had some time in the bank for when I slowed and tired toward the end. Then at KM 30 I recalculated what I needed to come in at 04:25 and slowed the pace a little.

About 1Km from the end the pacers with the 04:30 balloons tied to them came passed me and I wasnt having that, so I put the boot down and flew passed them, right at the spot where my mates were gathered to cheer me on. I ran the last bit of the pace at full pelt, hamstrings screaming, and finished in 04:26:01!!!!

That was a PB and the first time ever under 04:30, making this Davey a very happy bunny. The icing on the cake was that this morning I weighed in at the lowest I have been in 11 years - 87.6KG.

After the initial elation of the PB and going to meet my mates for a beer, I quickly dipped and felt pretty crap i have to say. I think it was a combination of 8 gels, ibuprofen, Imodium etc, but the beer i thought i was so much looking forward to, went back to the bar as i didn't drink it.

Off to a wine fest today though, so should make up for that!

Now, with 2 records met this weekend, its time to find a new challenge........