Chester Marathon – lessons learnt!

On Sunday, after just over 2 years of running and 16 weeks of race-specific training, I ran my second marathon at Chester. It was a really chilly start with the year’s first frost in the morning but as the day progressed the weather was perfect for running, bright and sunny with a slight chill in the air.

My A* (and quite unattainable!) goal was sub 3.45. Plan B was sub 3.50. Failing that, anything under 3.57 was ok.

I woke up feeling mediocre, dehydrated, bit of a headache and really tired, which improved with breakfast, coffee and paracetamol but when you wake up to run a marathon you really want to be feeling amazing! I was just feeling the usual sort of pre-race jitters by the time we got to the race but quite worried about the headache, I wasn’t sure how I would feel after 26 miles. When the race started however I felt good, and all was well (apart from the hamstring and knee niggles I’ve become accustomed to)…until mile 8 when tummy cramps set in ! I then went through the half and another couple of water stops trying to work out if I could make it to the end without a toilet stop or not… and by mile 16 the answer was decidedly not, adding a good 2 mins to mile 17. When I got going again, I was feeling better, and I had under 10 miles to go, but somewhere between there and mile 23, I lost the ability to keep my mind positive, and my pace was dropping to almost 9 min miles. Just when I had hit a very dark patch, I saw a wonderful wonderful lady from the running club, who had planted herself on the 23 mile mark. I was so deep in my haze that I didn’t even recognise her until the last minute! She ran with me, and offered me sports drink, and said lots of wonderfully encouraging words that I can’t remember. After that I was off to save my race! I picked up the pace from mile 24, and the last couple of miles were nearer 8 than 9 minute miles, with the last 0.5 being in the 7’s! Eventually I crossed the finish line in an emotional heap, in 3.53.29. A 4 minute best, and on a tougher course.

Given that this was nowhere near my aspirations for this race, after the initial relief that the bloody thing was over(!), I felt unavoidably disappointment and just a bit apathetic, but really I knew after a bit of picking apart it would be ok, and I always said I would formulate my plan for next year based on Chester.

Overall, I know I’ll probably look back at Chester as a massive learning curve, and it’s been such a valuable lesson, both as an “athlete” and as a person.

Things I have learnt over the last 16 weeks:

• Respect the distance, DON’T go off too fast! I sailed through Edinburgh, I paced it beautifully, I didn’t hit the dreaded wall, I smiled all the way, I finished strong. But I was cautious and fearful about getting to the end. By the time I got to Chester I’d been there and I knew I could finish, so I guess I thought I could afford to mess around with pace a little and I definitely went off too fast (early 8min miles, like I was going to hold that !) trying to get some minutes in the bank before I settled into my pace. Big mistake!!

• Even when you think you have recovered from running a marathon, you probably haven’t! When I returned from Edinburgh, I found myself wanting to run by the Thursday, and I then just went straight back to normal training, around 30 miles per week. Within 4 weeks I was back on plan training for Chester. By the end of the 16 weeks I had hamstring and knee niggles, had lost over a stone in weight and despite my best efforts was becoming apathetic about running, all the while attending lectures on my sports nutrition course about the importance of avoiding overtraining ! The time after a marathon is so crucial for recovery, and it’s time you almost can’t get back. Even though I will probably want to run in a couple of days, I’m going to use the recovery time to learn to cross train. I’ll be getting in the pool, and getting on a road bike for the first time (I’ll update on my progress with both of these things shortly ). My intention is to take 2 weeks off running, which I haven’t done for about 2 years!

• A bad race is just as important as a brilliant race… said the same wonderful lady who picked me up at mile 23, and only 10% of races are brilliant! Chester for me wasn’t a really bad race, but honestly for the amount of training I put into it, I expected it to be better. That said, lessons aren’t learnt when life is good, are they?! I’ll remember Chester is the one where I was a bit cocky, went out too fast, didn’t respect the distance and then came unstuck Humility and respect has returned!

• Less might have been more… However you look at it, I trained my socks off for this race. The volume was far greater than I put in for Edinburgh, which makes me think I probably could have trained a bit smarter. I was tired and apathetic with a few niggles coming out, and perhaps backing off a bit sooner for tapering than I did would’ve enabled me to go in less tired and given me more time to recover.

• Sort the kit out in advance! No matter how much I think I’ve sorted out what I’m wearing for the race, both times I’ve ended up having a last minute panic. This time, I chose my race shoes about 6 weeks in advance, but then because I did all my long runs off road in different shoes, by the time I got to the race I hadn’t done a single run in them longer than 9 miles, and was suspecting they weren’t quite cushioned enough and contributing to the niggles, so I wimped out and bought a new pair of my old road shoes 6 days before the race, racing in brand new shoes. So amateur!

ABOVE ALL

Fuelling is SO key:

Being a training Nutritional Therapist, my overall nutrition is pretty sound. However, there will be some definite drastic changes to my race fuelling in future. One of the major issues with my race was that from 8 miles in, I had excruciating stomach cramps and having put up with it for a further 8 miles I wasted 2 minutes on a toilet stop at mile 16. Every time I took a gel, my tummy would cramp up, and then ease gradually, but it meant that for the majority of time I was running in pain, and it made for a pretty miserable experience. I have been using the SiS gels since I began running and had no problems until I got to marathon distance, but for that length of race they just don’t work for me. I started to train with Tailwind, towards the end of my training, which is a more natural energy source, but I left it too late and wasn’t confident enough to make the switch. More work to do there! The other strategy I have used pre race which I believe might have an impact on GI function is beetroot shots. Beetroot, due to its nitrate and antioxidant content has had a really positive effect on my performance, but I am starting to think that perhaps it may for me come at the expense of GI function. So unfortunate as I really believe in beetroot, so I will certainly be looking into alternative methods of getting it down be before a race!

The last thing I will mention is what I have learnt through my personalised sports nutrition course about the importance of carbohydrates in relation to the the immune system and performance, especially if doing any form of endurance training. One word, absolutely crucial. Carbohydrate is the number one substrate used in energy production during high intensity aerobic activity, and it is also the number one substrate used by many of the cells (neutrophils, basophils, lymphocytes, T-cells) involved in keeping the body healthy and functioning, which becomes even more crucial when subjecting it to the physical stress of endurance training. And it is stress, in a very literal sense. A byproduct of intense exercise is the stress hormone cortisol. So as duration and intensity of exercise increases, levels of cortisol in the body rise. This is key for enabling the body to make healthy adaptations to enable increase in strength and fitness…however… one of the functions of cortisol is to suppress the immune system, and so, if the immune system is suppressed, and glucose levels are low, cortisol will inevitably start to break the body down, which includes all manner of bone and soft tissue – not at all good for running a race! Due to my eating history, I will always try and get out of too many carbs if I can, and I did find carb loading really tough last week. However, going forward I will make every effort to have more respect for the carbs, and to get them down, in the interest of being well!

So now I’ve spent 2 years running, mainly on road, I feel it’s time to mix it up a bit! Road running is wonderful, and it has changed my life, but performance wise I’ve achieved a lot in a short space of time, and I feel that as an amateur runner I’m quite limited in the improvements I can make in performance without getting too serious, and losing the love, and potentially risking injury.

So, my plans for diversifying a little:

• Learn to swim and aim for twice a week

• Learn to bike and aim for twice a week

• Take part in a triathlon race next year

• Keep running as my primary discipline (unless any revelations occur in the other two!) but enjoy the winter xc on trails, with friends and forget the pace.

• Take part in a trail race next year

At the end of the day, it’s so important to remember that this is all just for fun, and where competition is good, it can also be taken too far.

The bottom line is, get out there, have a go, be healthy, be active, be confident, be social, enjoy it, and above all…

BE HAPPY!!