Picking up from the last instalment of Run Reece Run, the decision had been
seriously in the balance through the whole week… Either way, Lesley and I were both heading to
Brighton on that Saturday morning, but would I would be joining her with the
Bearcat Running Club cheer team or be one of the 20 plus Bearcats actually
taking part in the Brighton Marathon?
The fact that I managed to run 400 metres that morning
without any noticeable pain in my right knee had decided the matter… I was on
my way to run!
The rest of that weekend has left me with an absolute
vault of memories… quite a number of weeks have gone by and yet I’m still not
sure I’ve got my head round it all!
One vivid memory I have says a lot… On the morning of the
marathon, Lesley and I were walking up from our apartment near the seafront to
the start area at Preston Park, about two miles away. The walk started quietly enough, as would
generally be the case early on a Sunday morning, but before long we found
ourselves a part of a throng of marathon entrants and their supporters heading purposefully
to the start area.
The building anticipation that I could feel in myself and
witness in the mass of people around me is one of the great things of the
bigger marathon events – I am still a long way off from feeling apathetic about
that feeling and in that experience alone I knew at the time I had a reward for
persevering through the previous week and not withdrawing my entry!
There are also great memories of the evening before… For
weeks the anticipation had been building among a large contingent of the
Bearcat Running Club with so many of us having entered the Brighton
Marathon. On the eve of the event many
of us were already in Brighton and we rendezvoused for a pasta party… making a
pretty good effort to take over Piccolos for the evening! Obviously, for the majority it was a meal
unaccompanied by alcohol (despite some photographic evidence!), but I’m sure I wasn’t alone in feeling high from the
anticipation shared with so many friends!
Lesley and I reached Preston Park and scanned the crowd
for a sign of the Bearcats. It didn’t
take long to see the club banner being held high!
We joined the group that
grew steadily larger as the Bearcats converged, almost as many having travelled
from home that morning as had stayed overnight locally. Nerves, excitement, resolve – a pretty heady
mix of emotions was brewing! The
Bearcats were in a mood to leave their mark on the Brighton Marathon!
After a while I felt the time was right to extricate
myself from the Bearcat crowd and make my way to the start pen. I’d resolved to back myself in an effort to
attain something near to the target time I’d had in mind for months, 3h45m. Five weeks earlier I’d started the Spitfire 20
with doubts in my mind having been unable to run through most of the two
previous weeks due to my knee and ITB problems.
That day had gone incredibly well for me and, if that was any indicator,
I felt that I would be in good shape to reach the 20 mile mark in a time of
about 2 hours 50 minutes. I felt that if
I managed that then things were on for my target finish time.
The pen for runners aiming for a finish time of 3h30m to 4h00m was steadily
filling but I pretty comfortably squeezed myself to about a quarter of the way
from the front of the pen.
These are
great moments… drawing strength from the building emotion and tension in the
air while focussing on the effort about to be exerted. If the feeling arising from the crowd wasn’t
enough, the anthem of David Bowie’s “Heroes” playing over the PA definitely had
me primed and ready to start. For the
umpteenth time I resolved… keep the pace at 8m30s to 8m40s per mile. This was slower than I’d sustained at the Spitfire
20 and was there to be done... get to mile 20 and then each mile as it comes!
And then there was the start countdown with a cheer emanating from some way ahead as, out of my sight, the first pen was opened and the marathon
started. The crowd of which I was part started
inching forward and gathered momentum over some minutes until the start line came
into sight… through the start, activate the Garmin and focus on getting the
pace right….
The first couple of miles at Brighton are not the easiest
in which to settle into a pace as the course has a pretty sharp climb at the
start before an equally significant descent.
My first mile took 8m46s and my second 8m16s and then, even though the
course continued to undulate, particularly until the halfway point, I had found
my groove. Seeing my split times after,
I’m pleased to see that from mile five to thirteen I kept within a pretty tight
range of 8m28s to 8m39s per mile. Overall,
at the half way point I had an average pace of 8m33s per mile – pretty much
spot on!
I was feeling pretty good throughout the first half and
all the better when within the first five miles I heard a call and, looking
round, saw fellow Bearcat runner Andrew.
He looked in great form - some way ahead of me in the field but coming
up on the other side of the road as the course looped round. This prompted me into the welcome distraction
of Bearcat spotting along the significant parts of the course where it looped
on itself. I saw Andrew and Anna, both
well ahead of me, a few times and likewise with Jess, closing in from behind,
and there were numerous other Bearcats that I got to call out to. As I went
past mile 13 I got a call from the crowd and there was Roger (and presumably
Emma) and about a mile later there was the Bearcat banner held proudly aloft,
crewed by group of Bearcat supporters which I guessed (correctly) included
Lesley.
Sadly, it was around the mile 13 to 14 zone that the
wheels started to come of the Reece machine, though I didn’t really fully
recognise the problem for a while. In
hindsight, I had been aware of a troublesome pain on the outer edge of my left
foot from about mile 7. I had been
trying to manage this, for example by running as much as possible along the
middle of the road where the camber wasn’t so steep as at the sides. This had
been steadily getting worse but I don’t think was the main reason why mile 14
was notably slower (8m44s). I recall
noting this and not being too worried at the time and simply trying to bring my
pace back up to the average I’d been sustaining. However it became evident that whatever extra
effort I was trying to put in wasn’t having the desired effect as mile 15 took
8m50s and mile 16 took 8m57s. The pain
in my foot was becoming a lot less tolerable as I realised that my target time
was slipping away and I had a further rough couple of miles where I continued
to lose pace.
Serious doubts were nagging away at this point about any
damage I might be doing to my troublesome knee (even though that didn’t seem to
be the source of the immediate problem) and I contemplated the possibility of
withdrawing at mile 18. At that point I
was well aware that the course takes a
turn, heading out east and further away from the finish line. One way or another I knew I had to get to the
finish to collect my baggage, so if I had to withdraw I knew it would be better
to do so at mile 18 rather than mile 21, from where I’d have an extra 3 miles
to get back from!
However, during mile 18, while I found myself unable to halt
the decline in my pace, I somehow felt less uncomfortable (seeing Lesley at mile 18 no doubt helped!). Perhaps this was through accepting to myself a
much less ambitious target time. I’m
pretty sure that by then I wasn’t even thinking of a sub 4 hour time but was
reckoning on being able to average the rest of the course at between 10 and 11
minutes per mile which would have seen me finish inside 4h10m. Miles 17 through to 19 saw me hold that line
pretty well as, though my pace continued to decline it was still faster than 10
minutes per mile pace. However, things definitely
slumped during mile 20 as I lost almost a further minute off my pace. By now I was certain that my right glute was
not “firing” (a term picked up from a chiropractor I’d been consulting!). There was a very serious debate going on
inside my head over the next couple of miles and having completed mile 22 at a
pace of 12m23s and with my watch indicating I was slowing even more (I thought
at the time, perhaps mistakenly, that I was down to 15 minutes per mile pace),
my resolve snapped.
Having run, however slowly, for 22.37 miles there is no
doubt I’ve found it difficult to come to terms with walking the final four
miles! If it wasn’t for the need to collect my belongings
from the finish area I might well have taken myself off at that point to the
pub where the Bearcats had agreed to meet.
However, I was able to walk and I just carried on. One thing for certain, once I’d stopped
running, there was no way I was able to re-start running, whatever the pace. I did try for one brief ten second spurt but
by then, having stiffened up further, my legs and particularly my right knee
literally felt brittle and ready to break!
Rationally, I knew there was every chance that if I continued to run I would
pick up or worsen an injury.
There’s no denying that most of what I feel about the
experience of walking four miles to finish is negative. I know how annoyed I felt about the
performance of a certain football team close to my heart in the last two games
of the season just ended! They had
played brilliantly and well above expectation for months but when winning the
league ceased to be a possibility, though they continued to have 11 players on
the pitch getting paid as normal, they seemed to more or less stop playing
football. The inner chastisement I’ve
given myself about walking for four miles at the end of a marathon is pretty
much on par with my thoughts about that football club during those two games! Nevertheless, I’ll be supporting them with restored
passion at the beginning of next football season (COYS!) and likewise I’m sure
I’ll be backing myself to achieve whatever target I set myself the next time I
run a marathon!
There are still positives to draw. Genuinely, overall I’m glad that I gave
myself the chance to compete. On another
occasion I’ll start an event with similar uncertainty and things will work out! As I’ve said earlier, the experience of so
much of the weekend was brilliant and I’m sure wouldn’t have been anywhere near
as good if, after all the training I’d done over the last few months, I’d had
the anti-climax of not running at all.
Another thing is that, however much regret there is about only being
able to walk that last four miles, the support was absolutely fantastic. If anything you get even greater support from
the crowd if you’re walking as you become the focus of more people encouraging
you to carry on!
The best encouragement
I had was when I finally reached the point where Lesley was looking out for me
and for a while she joined me in my walk towards the finish. It was also great to see so many of the
Bearcat runners doing so well in the final miles and checking I was alright –
in particular Sarah and Mel who kept going through their own big problems on
the day.
It was sad to go through the marathon finish line with no
great feeling of celebration – just relief to get finished (in a time of 4h49m)! But I still had a further finish line to
find… the pub that was the rendezvous point for the Bearcats. That was a finish line I reached with much
greater enthusiasm!
Big congratulations to the brilliant achievements of so many of my
clubmates - huge numbers of PBs and many first marathons completed. In
contrast to the previous night the evident intoxication at the pub had nothing
to do with anticipation!
It was particularly special in being the first time that there were
three of the family taking part in an event with both Lesley and Carmella joining
me in a medal shot…
My knee still isn't entirely right but an X-Ray gave some reassuring news
last week. I’m hoping to see some
continued improvement over the next few weeks as I’d like to be fit to start a serious training campaign by the beginning of July that would enable some further challenges in the autumn.
All being well Run Reece Run will be back later this year!
