We set off from Brighton in the Motorhome on Friday evening with my van fully loaded with food, running kit and trainers, and passengers. My friend from running Isobel was coming along to give me some adult company and also my two teenage sons.
Our first planned overnight stop was at Oostende in one of the campervan car parks (free camping for 24 hours). We arrived at approximately 12:30am and parked up for the night. I made sure all the doors were locked and dead locked and set the intruder alarm and rested my tired eyes feeling relatively secure. This was a good thing as it aids a decent night’s sleep, not having to lie awake worrying that somebody is going to gas and rob you!!
Woke up early on Saturday morning, to get back on the road again as I wanted to arrive in Rotterdam by lunch time. This would give me time to collect my race number and suss out the best cycle route to the marathon start. The ride from the campsite was very straight forward, one right turn at the traffic lights then straight ahead. It was approximately 4k ride only . On Saturday afternoon we picked up the number and race t-shirt (you don’t need to finish the marathon he get the T-shirt over here!). We went round the expo looking for some Shot Blocks but there didn’t seem to be any there – obviously they haven’t caught on here yet like they have in England. So now my race energy decision had been made – Strawberry and Yogurt Alpen bars x 2 No. and Jelly Babies x 12 No.. After the expo we found a bar for a couple of beers and some lunch before cycling back to the campsite.
Milling around the campsite everybody was very chatty. Everyone here had come to Rotterdam for the same reason – to run the Marathon. We all talked about our hopes for tomorrow and how we were planning to get to the start.
I managed to get a decent night’s sleep on Saturday night. Went to bed at 10:30pm and got up at 7:30am. The marathon didn’t start until 11am so I didn’t need to rush around at all which was nice for a change. We set off at 9:15am for the ride to the start. When we arrived we locked up our bikes north of the finish line for an easy exit afterwards from the marathon vicinity. I went into the massive changing tent and left my bag here rather than hunt for the luggage vans. Said my goodbyes and entered my starting pen ‘E’.
I waited for approximately 15 minutes for the race to start. I could see the smoke from the starting gun but couldn’t hear it. A few minutes later we were slowly moving forward towards the line. It took nearly 5 minutes to cross the line. I was very impressed with how quickly they got the runners through the line as at 11:15am the line was being used again for the start of the 10km race. I thought back to Brighton last year where I had run the mile lap around Preston Park and still there were thousands of people waiting to cross the start line.
Once running the route was very congested and very narrow. I had planned to start my 1 minute walk breaks every 2km at the 2km distance marcher, but I decided it was too crowded to start walking so I delayed another kilometre and started at 3km. So every odd kilometre from 3km up to 30km I walked for 1 minute. Around the 30km point I was starting to feel tired and struggling mentally with the distance. I started working out how many breaks I had to go to the finish and started trying to trick myself that I was doing an interval session (not a marathon) and I only had 6-5-4 intervals to go!! From 30k I sometimes increased the walk breaks to 1min 20sec as I was not really losing much distance it seemed. Maybe only about 30 metres and once I started running again I was soon catching up with people and overtaking them. At 37km I was feeling pretty zonked and changed my walk breaks to 40secs every 1km to help me through the next few tough kilometres. My plan was then to continually run the final 2km but even this was too much and I had another walk break at 41km. Crossed the line craving a cold beer. Once I’d recovered in the shade for 20 minutes we were back on our bicycles heading back to the campsite, but stopped off at a bar for a glass of Heineken .
In summary I think that the walk breaks really helped me get through a tough marathon in very tough hot conditions and with very minimal marathon training. The walk breaks gave me a chance to eat and drink every 11-12 minutes. Some breaks I only ate a single jelly baby and on every 3 breaks I would eat a third of an Alpen Bar or a third of a banana which were being handed out on the course. Even though I felt very tired over the last 12km I was surprised that my 5k split times were not really slowing much as I’d experienced in the past when I have solely run the marathon distance. I was very pleased with the consistency of my split times which were:-
5 Kilometer 27:19 (27:19)
10 Kilometer 55:41 (28:22)
15 Kilometer 1:23:18 (27:37)
20 Kilometer 1:50:46 (27:28)
Half marathon 1:56:56
25 Kilometer 2:17:53 (27:07)
30 Kilometer 2:45:11 (27:18)
35 Kilometer 3:12:38 (27:27)
40 Kilometer 3:41:36 (28:58)
Marathon 3:54:47
It’s a thumbs up from me for the run/walk method. I worked out that I walked for 20-22 minutes of the marathon and still recorded a sub-4hr time which I am very pleased with. And hopefully my recovery will be much quicker but we will have to wait and see about that!!??
