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Well What Do You Know - I Won!
Posted by
Whippet gal
,
10 May 2010
·
157 views
This is a belated race report from the National Capital Marathon on 2 May. What a surprising day that turned out to be!
Going in to the race I really, very honestly thought I'd do somewhere between 3:05 and 3:10. My half mara times have been awful this year, I'd had a couple of injuries and I was lacking motivation to train. I think I'd also been a bit distracted by the whole triathlon idea, although in the end, maybe the extra swim training benefitted me. Something worked anyway.
Well, I'll start from the end... I won. So very surprised at the time (which was not a time that should have won a marathon, but I was pleased that it was sub-3) - 2:58:56. The same time (one second slower) placed me fifth in last year's Canberra marathon, which gives you an indication of the lack of depth in this year's field. But more of that later...
The weather was perfect - I'd been worried it would be too cold given that this race was held later in the year than the Canberra Marathon, but you couldn't get better running conditions. Because I had convinced myself to take this as a long training run the nerves were pretty minimal - I felt OK and settled down as soon as the gun went off. Usually it takes me ages. I thought the day would be a good chance to get a solid distance run in and, as I'd already looked at who was entered, I was pretty sure I could pull off a top five finish and get some prize money to take home.
I spoke with Eliza M on the start line and told her she was a shoe-in for the win. She's a much better runner than I am and has a really fast PB. When she took off at the start I didn't even try to go with her, and I didn't worry.
Early on I started running with Keith, who I'd run with in last year's Canberra marathon for a while. He was trying to go sub-3 for the first time (he just missed out last year) and he was running really strongly. He convinced me to go out to win, saying I was looking like it was too easy and Eliza was tiring. I decided to stick with him as he was good company and he looked really strong. I owe him big time. We went through 10k in 41.04, which surprised me. I thought it would have been slower.
I was surprised when I began to catch Eliza a little out near the turnaround (19k??). Keith said I'd get her there, but she's strong and she pulled away again. I was still feeling good in the legs and I think we were running a pretty even pace (could be wrong) so even though Keith was saying I was going to catch her I really wasn't too worried. I was actually just happy at how the race was progressing up to that point. Actually, from about 14k to 22k the kilometres just seemed to fly past. I was getting more and more surprised - but I was dreading the 32k mark where I know so many wheels have fallen off.
I took the lead as we headed up the hill next to Kings Park (think it's called that - just after the Carillion). After that I got a bit tense - I kept hearing footsteps and thinking, "Here she comes, back to second place." Still, I was feeling OK, althoughI knew I was starting to fatigue and slow down. That's called the 'I haven't done enought long runs' syndrome! Keith started to pull away from me, and I'd been urging him to go ahead because he was looking strong and I knew he could go sub-3, where as I still didn't think I would. The 3 hour bus passed me (not sure where we were) and, although I was disappointed because I'd been beginning to think there was a miracle in progress, I'd been expecting it to happen.
Then I started to do some maths. Maths always helps the time go by when I'm racing because I'm so bad at it that it takes forever to work things out. I thought, 'If my calculations are correct, and there's every change that they're not, that three-hour bus is going way too fast and I'm still on track for a sub-three finish.' I kept working it out from about the 35k mark, and each time I kept thinking, 'I am actually running OK here.'
I still kept expecting to see another female come crusing past me - it's happened before when I thought I had a win coming - so I didn't even think about winning. I just wanted to get home in as good a shape as possible. And I felt great! With two kilometres to go I thought, 'hmmm... maybe I will win this,' but quickly told myself to shut up and remember seeing all those youtube videos of people who collapse in the last 500m of a marathon and take 10 minutes to cross the line.
As I came into Manuka stadium I was a bit excited - more so for the fact that I'd actually NOT bombed out on a day that I expected to. The win was nice too.
There were a few things going through my mind, both on the day and afterwards. I guess you could say they were 'glass half full' vs 'glass half empty' type arguments. One thought was that I was embarrassed that the race had been won in such a slow time compared to all the other Canberra Marathons. I had actually set myself a long term goal of getting top three in Canberra, but I didn't want it to be like this. The other view is that I was the fastest person there on the day so I deserved the win. For a while I fixated on the negative view, but then I had a hard look at myself and told myself to be happy with what I'd achieved and not worry about what anyone else said about the time. So it was much slower than other wins - so what? I showed up and I ran it.
In all, I am actually happier to see that my form hasn't deteriorated like I thought it had than I am about winning the race. But I'll take the win all the same!!
Going in to the race I really, very honestly thought I'd do somewhere between 3:05 and 3:10. My half mara times have been awful this year, I'd had a couple of injuries and I was lacking motivation to train. I think I'd also been a bit distracted by the whole triathlon idea, although in the end, maybe the extra swim training benefitted me. Something worked anyway.
Well, I'll start from the end... I won. So very surprised at the time (which was not a time that should have won a marathon, but I was pleased that it was sub-3) - 2:58:56. The same time (one second slower) placed me fifth in last year's Canberra marathon, which gives you an indication of the lack of depth in this year's field. But more of that later...
The weather was perfect - I'd been worried it would be too cold given that this race was held later in the year than the Canberra Marathon, but you couldn't get better running conditions. Because I had convinced myself to take this as a long training run the nerves were pretty minimal - I felt OK and settled down as soon as the gun went off. Usually it takes me ages. I thought the day would be a good chance to get a solid distance run in and, as I'd already looked at who was entered, I was pretty sure I could pull off a top five finish and get some prize money to take home.
I spoke with Eliza M on the start line and told her she was a shoe-in for the win. She's a much better runner than I am and has a really fast PB. When she took off at the start I didn't even try to go with her, and I didn't worry.
Early on I started running with Keith, who I'd run with in last year's Canberra marathon for a while. He was trying to go sub-3 for the first time (he just missed out last year) and he was running really strongly. He convinced me to go out to win, saying I was looking like it was too easy and Eliza was tiring. I decided to stick with him as he was good company and he looked really strong. I owe him big time. We went through 10k in 41.04, which surprised me. I thought it would have been slower.
I was surprised when I began to catch Eliza a little out near the turnaround (19k??). Keith said I'd get her there, but she's strong and she pulled away again. I was still feeling good in the legs and I think we were running a pretty even pace (could be wrong) so even though Keith was saying I was going to catch her I really wasn't too worried. I was actually just happy at how the race was progressing up to that point. Actually, from about 14k to 22k the kilometres just seemed to fly past. I was getting more and more surprised - but I was dreading the 32k mark where I know so many wheels have fallen off.
I took the lead as we headed up the hill next to Kings Park (think it's called that - just after the Carillion). After that I got a bit tense - I kept hearing footsteps and thinking, "Here she comes, back to second place." Still, I was feeling OK, althoughI knew I was starting to fatigue and slow down. That's called the 'I haven't done enought long runs' syndrome! Keith started to pull away from me, and I'd been urging him to go ahead because he was looking strong and I knew he could go sub-3, where as I still didn't think I would. The 3 hour bus passed me (not sure where we were) and, although I was disappointed because I'd been beginning to think there was a miracle in progress, I'd been expecting it to happen.
Then I started to do some maths. Maths always helps the time go by when I'm racing because I'm so bad at it that it takes forever to work things out. I thought, 'If my calculations are correct, and there's every change that they're not, that three-hour bus is going way too fast and I'm still on track for a sub-three finish.' I kept working it out from about the 35k mark, and each time I kept thinking, 'I am actually running OK here.'
I still kept expecting to see another female come crusing past me - it's happened before when I thought I had a win coming - so I didn't even think about winning. I just wanted to get home in as good a shape as possible. And I felt great! With two kilometres to go I thought, 'hmmm... maybe I will win this,' but quickly told myself to shut up and remember seeing all those youtube videos of people who collapse in the last 500m of a marathon and take 10 minutes to cross the line.
As I came into Manuka stadium I was a bit excited - more so for the fact that I'd actually NOT bombed out on a day that I expected to. The win was nice too.
There were a few things going through my mind, both on the day and afterwards. I guess you could say they were 'glass half full' vs 'glass half empty' type arguments. One thought was that I was embarrassed that the race had been won in such a slow time compared to all the other Canberra Marathons. I had actually set myself a long term goal of getting top three in Canberra, but I didn't want it to be like this. The other view is that I was the fastest person there on the day so I deserved the win. For a while I fixated on the negative view, but then I had a hard look at myself and told myself to be happy with what I'd achieved and not worry about what anyone else said about the time. So it was much slower than other wins - so what? I showed up and I ran it.
In all, I am actually happier to see that my form hasn't deteriorated like I thought it had than I am about winning the race. But I'll take the win all the same!!
