Tag: marathon brabant

Race Recap: Marathon Brabant, October 27, 2013

After the origin posts leading up to my race, here is the race recap itself.

We’re talking about more than a year ago, October 27, 2013.

I have trained for this day … a lot, yet I’m very nervous.
This is the first A-race I’ve planned in all my “running career”.

Day before I laid everything out and hung the bike rack to the car so The Girlfriend could pedal from one point to another and see me go :p

Race day … 6:30am
Had a good night of sleep and woke up fairly rested, time for breakfast.
Thinking I needed a breakfast of champions I go for

  • Banana
  • Honey
  • 3 white slices of bread
  • Dark chocolate
  • No milk, but lots of water.

Start of the race was 11:45 but it was a drive of 1h45, so we got going at about 8:30 am to surely be on time.
Drive was fine, I stressed as little as possible in the passenger seat and tried to clear my head.

Once there the nerves hit me. Looking for my bib I saw all these professional runners and got nervous.
I could choose between two corrals: -3:30 and +3:30.
Seeing I aimed for 3:30 I doubted but went for the -3:30 to push myself a little with faster runners.

Fast forward to the start (nothing happened that all of you don’t know: dressing, being nervous, going to the bathroom thrice, …)

Waiting in the first corral I say to myself I should keep running in my first 2 zones as long as possible, preferably until mile 20. Then I could see what’s left in the tank and speed up if necessary for my goal time. (3:30 = 5:00 min/km = 8min/mile)
I think you all know what they say about plans. I stand there, full adrenaline, seeing my heart rate is already at about zone 2 and the gun goes off.

Go go go … don’t go too fast, DON’T go too fast, … 1km: 4:39 HR: 155 (end of zone 2) *grmbl*

Marathon Brabant - Beginning
Nice action pic from somewhere near the start
Marathon Brabant -Slightly downhill
Look at the arrow, it says marathon and points to me =]

So i didn’t take the best of starts. Every damn article talks about this mistake and I knew it, yet I went. 2nd km was too fast as well (4:43) before I got to pace myself.
Most of the following kilometers where at about 5:00 pace so that went well, but my heart rate was definitely too high. I felt it went well, but was afraid for the notorious wall at km 30-35 (~mile 20) or so. But feeling strong (and naive?) I kept going at this pace.

I brought gel and meli cookies with me, both great for carbs. Had one bottle of water with me and 2 waiting at given points with supplies.
Planning on eating one of these every 30min and drinking every km I had a solid nutritional plan, gladly it was one I actually stuck too!

Marathon Brabant - Meli cookie
Mmmm … Cookie

Everything was very solid until about halfway. That was when it got thoughts. Luckily The Girlfriend stood there and pedaled some time along with me. After 3km we sadly met an official saying this was not allowed, so it was plodding off on my own again.

The course was 2 times the same lap which meant I now knew what was coming.

Nice part through the woods lifted my spirits, but not my pace. It got harder and harder to get 5min km, but slicing the remaining distance in pieces helped a lot mentally.

Marathon Brabant - km31
Hydrating at km 31 (~20miles)

Last part of 4miles got really hard, quads started cramping, it was a boring piece with lots of wind and I knew an uphill and bridge part were coming up. I started passing ever lore walking people what was somehow helping but triggered a little voice in ly head as well. A voice that stated all those people were better trained, so if they were walking, surely I could for a bit. And if that meant not getting my goal time there was always another.

I pushed the voice away, clenched my teeth and got to the final part. Could wave to the girlfriend, could pass some walkers, started seeing more people along the way, last piece uphill was coming with the bridge after it and I pushed through, heavy as it was…

Marathon Brabant - km38Uphill
38km and uphill
Marathon Brabant - km38Uphill2
It’s clenching teeth time!
Marathon Brabant - km39 on the bridge
Marathon Brabant – km39 on the bridge

The finish got closer, a nice banner was put up at the last 500m stretch. I wanted to speed up a little for the last part, but the cramp was too close. Just running out was a-okay at this point.

Marathon Brabant - Finish
Finish!
Marathon Brabant - GooseBumps
Obligatory Garmin shot! (WITH goosebumps)
Marathon Brabant - So Happy
Yup, it’s real, I did it, I’m a marathoner πŸ˜€
Finished in 3:29:29 (20131027_MarathonEttenLeur PDF), so barely made my goal time, but I made my goal time πŸ™‚
Heart rate was consistently too high, which accounts for the cramps in the end.
But nutrition and hydration went well, so all in all I was very happy with my debut!

Endomondo & Strava link!

Marathon Brabant - Nailed it
Marathon Brabant – Nailed it

Road To Marathon Brabant 2013 – Final Training

I’ve already talked about my decision to run a marathon and about my first training months afterwards. I now want to talk about the follow-up training after summer and the final training towards the race. Last post in the series will be race recap of M-Day.

After a pretty decent 396km (246 miles) in the summer months, fall approached and with it my last weeks towards the marathon. Having read up on tapering I knew I only had 6-7 weeks left of serious training.

Since training without a real plan seemed to work for me, I decided to continue with the same principles of my first training months and adding some intervals to gain my wanted speed. Setting my marathon pace at 5:00m/km (8:00 m/mile – 12km/h) this was needed, because many people said this was too fast for my limited amount of training.

Determined as I was, I pulled through with my desired pace and geared up.
Having always trained with my phone and the Endomondo app, I thought it was time for a GPS watch, especially handy for running intervals on heart rates. I won’t bother you with the details about the search for it, but in the end I went for the Garmin 310xt. A Multisport watch (handy for cycling) at a decent price and earned it’s stripes with a lot of honorable athletes.

I cannot say this enough to everyone running longer than the “intro” phase: buy a GPS watch, it was my best buy ever as a runner. Having constant control over pace, heart rate, speed, … without twisting my arm (smartphone arm holder) or being afraid to drop my phone was bliss. Necessary sidenote: I’m a number/statistics freak :-p

Besides a GPS watch it was time to slowly tossing my Brooks Adrenaline GTS 12 aside and getting a new pair. Not knowing a lot at this point about shoes, I decided to stick with what I knew and bought the GTS 13.

The 7 remaining weeks flew by as did I (in my interval trainings) and before I knew it, it was tapering time.
Not entirely knowing what this was (long live Google) I just ate an awful lot of pasta and went running 2 times for a short distance and a slow pace.

October2013 Endomondo September2013 Endomondo

In September and October (before M-Day) joined I ended up with 496km (~308mi) which gave me a very decent base to go marathoning for my first time.

Race report coming up later, thanks for reading πŸ™‚