Ooooh me legs !!! Toral 2005

[Riazor Blue]

Firstly, thanks everyone for the congatulations. Next, the report, of which the race itself is only a part. It goes on a bit (just like me really), appologies in advance.

I don’t know where to start with this tale though, because the marathon itself was the end of the story, not the beginning. What if I start from the beginning of last week? I know that I should have posted last week, but I hadn’t clearly worked out what I had wanted to write. Perhaps the story of doubts, indescision, funny twinges, planning and replanning of strategies would have made for interesting reading. More interesting than my usual efforts. The truth was though, that I needed to work through these things myself.
Physically, everything had gone well in preparation, I had missed a few training runs, but only a couple of the key sessions. As it worked out during the twelve weeks of my plan, I only managed to run twice on a Monday, but hey, I’m a veteran, so I have to take age into account. The plan for last week, in terms of training should have seen runs on Tuesday through to Friday, but a little judicious pruning cut this back to 5 x 1600m on Tuesday and a fairly quick 5 kilometers on Thursday. A little twinge in the left achilles left me thinking that less is more, as they say. Physically, I was in good shape. Since the Betanzos half marathon I had put in the 37km long run, and more importantly, I had recovered well from it. I had run a good 20 km plus a few interval sessions, and a couple of tempo runs.
Betanzos had given me confidence, I could see that the training was working. How I felt after the 37 km added to that confidence and then that little voice in the back of the mind started to tell me that perhaps three hours could be a realistic target. I’m glad I wrote about that on here, because what you guys wrote made me sit down and really think about what I wanted to achieve with this marathon. More importantly, and more difficult to recognize; what was achievable. I looked at many equivalence tables to guide me, back issues of Corricolari and Runner’s World aswell. There seemed to be two camps; the equivalence tables said around 3h05 whilst the magazines were more conservative, around 3h20.
So what did I want to achieve running in Toral? Well, my marathon time was quite slow in comparison to shorter races. Of course part of this is due to the fact that I haven’t run one for a year. In reality, the time isn’t so important, but so many people ask in the shop. So what else? OK, a sub three hour marathon would be nice, and I wouldn’t mind a 2h… time, but I had decided that it was not possible. Another target which would be nice, and achievable, would be the ‘good for age’ time for the London Marathon, which for me is (or was) 3h15. Running in London would definately please my family. Sub 3h15 works out at 4’37” per kilometer.
4’37” per kilometer, hmm, I thought I could do better than that. As I said, I had looked through old magazines at marathon plans, advice etc and a number that kept returning was 17 seconds. Seventeen seconds per kilometer difference between half marathon pace and marathon pace. For me then, that would be 4’25” per kilometer, which would work out at 3h06 more or less. What else? There seemed to be a consensus that one should pass the half marathon mark around six or seven minutes slower than in the test half marathon. For me then this would be around 1h34, so with even splits I could be looking at 3h08, which would be 4’27” per kilometer. I looked at those times and thought them achievable. So there I was with objectives: firstly, if everthing went perfectly, I could aim for between 3h06 and 3h08, if things weren’t so good 3h15. I had also thought about pacing myself according to heart rate, but in the end I discounted this because with all this training my legs could not keep pace with my improving fitness, so, for example, if twelve weeks ago I could run 10km @ 4’40” at an average of 165 bpm, last week I could run the same at 155 bpm. With the extra fitness I could not decide at what heart rate to run.

[Riazor Blue]

On Thursday though a customer told me something which made me think. He has run over 30 marathons, his best being 2h36. He said though, that it took him until his thirteenth marathon to learn how to run them. He was talking about negative splits. So we chatted about this, about doing too much in the first half ( his worst was 1h14 for the first half, finishing in 3h15, whilst aiming for 2h40). We talked about the psychology involved in having half the runners passing you in the first 15 kilometers, but knowing that you’d be passing them when it mattered most. He told me that having the discipline to run so conservatively to begin with is the most difficult part. What else? His eyes also told me that he thought that 3h06 would be really hard from the time I had in Betanzos. On Thursday and Friday, then, whilst trying to digest all those carbohydrates, I also tried to digest this advice.
Speaking of carbohydrates, there was the small matter of the carbo loading. My secret weapon was to be Kelloggs All-Bran bars, then lots of pasta on Thursday, rice on Friday and mashed potato on Saturday, all this washed down with flagons of water and isotonic drinks. There were sardines on Thursday night aswell, as it was the feast night of San Juan: a night where barbequed sardines and cheap wine are king. It’s my favourite festival here in Spain, it’s Spanish bonfire night mixed in with mid-summer night and a bit of hallow’een. In La Coruña, the bonfires on Orzan beach are the most famous, having been given the status of ‘fiesta of national importance’ last year (sadly it pissed down with rain last year). We had our traditional sardiñada with the Peña David in Plaza España and then fought our way along the seafront to see the bonfires.
I thought I would enjoy the carbo loading, but the reality was that I was bloated and uncomfortable right up to Sunday morning. It didn’t help that for the vast quantities that I was eating, there wasn’t much coming out the other end. Still, I carried on. Bea, being over six months pregnant, had been told to cut down on all the things I was now eating in vast quantities. I think she was as envious of my spicy indonesian rice as I was of her mixed salad.
On Saturday morning the achilles was still a little tender, I had been massaging it with an analgesic to see if that would help, but there hadn’t been much improvement. I decided that it was probably more mental than physical as I can remember a spurious knee pain last year and a phantom bout of shin splints before San Sebastian a few years ago, none of which caused me problems on the day. Even if there was a bit of pain, I thought that my long Paula socks would provide all the support needed (however silly they look).
After lunch on Saturday we headed off for Toral de los Vados, the car was loaded to the hilt. Apart from the normal , there was my post race bag, the beach bag for the river after the race, the sun tan lotion bag, there was the food and drinks bag, plus the bag with the pillows from home. During the journey I was still deciding on how to run on Sunday, what pace should I go for? Should I aim for a negative split, and if so what pace for the first half? We were a little concerned in the hotel that there was no air conditioning in the rooms. I had asked for air con because of Bea, and was told that the hotel had it. What they didn’t tell me was that air con was in the public areas and not in the rooms. The Bierzo in Summer is quite a bit hotter than La Coruña, indeed, on Saturday afternoon it was five degrees hotter in Toral than in La Coruña. The hotel room, though, felt like an oven.
Heading off to collect my race number, we had arranged to meet up with Simon and the Baggie family. We spent a couple of hours with them on the terrace of a bar in Toral, Bea and Rosana talking babies and pregnancies, Simon and I talking running and beautiful baby Lara just looking beautiful. I don’t think that I actually mentioned what my strategy for the race would be in the end, I think that both Simon and Rosana were a bit concerned that I was going out to half kill myself. I had almost decided on my plan, and it was going to be fairly conservative.
After a late (and enormous) supper we headed off to bed at around midnight. It was too hot in the room to sleep, we opened the windows and it was just as hot, plus we could now hear the traffic on the main Coruña – Madrid highway which was in front of the hotel. We closed the windows, swapped sides in the bed to see if I’d be able to sleep. Bea dropped off, but I lay there sweating, counting cars, and deciding on my pace for the morning.

[Riazor Blue]

It’s possible that I may have slept half an hour before the alarm sounded at 5.30 or perhaps it was less. Anyhow we went down for breakfast. There were a couple of other runners there already each of them looking nervous. I hoped they had managed to sleep better than me. Everthing was prepared in the room for me, I had laid out my kit on the spare bed on Saturday night. There was just the small case of using the loo. I tried, oh how I tried. Both Saturday night and there on Sunday morning. After all those carbohydrates, all those calories, but nothing was moving. I made sure that I had some paper with me for the race, I was sure I was going to need it. I tried again just before leaving the hotel at 6.45, no luck. I drove the 3 kilometers to the football ground where the marathon was to finish and started to warm up a little. The start line was a gentle ten minute jog away, nothing before the race, but, as I found out last year, it’s a long old trek after one has run 42 kilometers. After applying copious amounts of warm up cream to the legs and suntan lotion to the shoulders a miracle occurred. I felt the urge, now where was the nearest bar? The bars were near the start line so off I jogged, trying to keep inside what I’d been trying to expel for so long. Simon appeared in the bar for a pre-race photo before I joined the queue for the toilet.

Releived and prepared, we lined up at the start. As Simon has said, there were around 300 of us from all over Spain. In the Spanish rankings Toral comes out in sixth place behind Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, San Sebastian and Valencia, all of which are big affairs, with budgets to match. The day was bright with clear skies, the temperature around 14 degrees. I knew that it would get hotter later on, but for the best part of the race it would be fairly comfortable. Simon and I ran the first kilometer together but got separated round the back of the football ground just as he was asking me if I was usually a slow or fast starter.
During the night I had finally decided on how I was going to run. I wanted to run easily in the first half, my aim was to run the first two ten kilometers in 45 minutes each, then to try and raise the pace slightly for the third and finally to give it everything in the last twelve kilometers. As far as the race goes, I don’t remember too much, the first ten kilometers were all about leaving Toral and waiting to arrive in Cacabelos. The next ten had a couple of hills and a quick piss just before the 15km drinks table. Just after that we started to see a steady trickle of pilgrims as this part of the course followed the Camino de Santiago. I made a point of saying hello to all of them as I passed. I had settled into a rhythm, not really looking at the watch and only occasionally looking at my heart rate. Twenty kilometers came and went, then we passed the half marathon where there was a group of supporters with a banner saying they were proud of all of us. I was struck by the huge statue of a knight in the centre of Ponferrada, although I have been there twice before, visited the castle aswell, I never realised the castle was a Templar fort.
From the half marathon onwards I decided to take my splits every kilometer, which made me miss looking for Simon’s wife and baby at the 25 km mark. I also got overtaken by two runners at this point and what with the drinks table aswell, I must admit that I forgot to look out for them. The next few kilometers I tried to stay close to the runners who had passed me, one attatched himself to a group in front of me while the other disappeared into the distance. I tacked onto this group just as it began to slow, then decided that it was too slow, so off I went again. The guy who overtook me went aswell, and we continued, the two of us at a good pace until around thirty seven kilometers. We were overtaking plenty of runners aswell, with me feeling good and trying to encourage those who we passed. The guy in red stuck to my shoulder and didn’t say a lot. I slowed to take a sports drink at around the 37km mark and immediately got hit by cramp in the left hamstring. The guy in red disappeared as I cruelly noted that he had unusually thin legs. I overcame the cramp and settled back into my rhythm and started to catch up again, then got struck again at 39 km, which forced me to stop and massage both hamstrings to life again. From there to the finish though, I kept telling myself that I was strong and that sub 3.15 was mine.
With the cramps I realised something. The first one occurred more or less when I thought to myself that it was in that spot where I cramped last year. The second one occurred when I thought about what I would do if I got cramps again. And the final one was when I said to myself that old marathon adage ‘pain is temporary, pride is forever’. It was then that I vowed only to think positives, never to mention pain, cramps, sore feet or any such thing until I had finished.
And that was it, even though the last couple of kilometers were uphill, I ploughed on passing a few more runners, trying to catch the guy in red with the thin legs. He beat me in the end, but only by twenty three seconds.

Here are the stats:

10km - 45’41
20km - 45’35 (1h 31’ 16”)
21km - 4’39 (1h 35’ 56”)
30km - 44’48 (2h 16’ 04”)
40km - 46’02 (3h 02’ 06”)
42,195 - 11’04 (3h 13’ 10”)

The negative splits can wait till my next marathon, but hey, I’m so pleased with how this went in the end. I cannot ask for more. Once again, big thanks to you guys on the forum, especially Bierzo Baggie and Sampedro for stopping me from getting too carried away. Big thanks also to José Ramón who’s cautionary tales really made me stop, think and run more wisely than I might have done otherwise.

[Riazor Blue]

Bierzo Baggie on the left and Riazor Blue on the right.

[Nigel]

Marvellous run, Brian, and awe-inspiring report. It is so refreshing to see that even so much faster runners like you can be plagued by uncertainty, doubt, insomnia, and - er, constipation....

Those splits are just about perfect, negative but for the grace of a few seconds spent stretching right at the very end. I'd say it was a race to be very proud of, and you can certainly smile at all those customers this week.

And did you really decide on 'tres-trethay' (3:13) just to practise your Spanish listhp ?!

[sampedro]

Congratualations again Brian, that was an intellignet run. Let your brain not your heart rule your efforts. I know it's hard.
Tnaks god you went to the toilet before the rzce, otherwise you would have been in serious problems, believe me.
See you

[Antonio247]

Congratulations on both the marathon and your wife´s pregnancy.

It´s great to have managed to finish under three hours fifteen minutes so that you can take part at London marathon next year.

Best of luck with your future fatherhood and running, Brian!

Antonio

[Bierzo Baggie]

Well done again Brian. I've sent you the photo taken before the race. Also here are a couple of links if you don't already have them.

http://www.marathontoral.com/ for the classification.

http://www.bierzodeportes.com/ more photos.

[El Gordo]

Superb report, Brian, and what a great performance considering all that pre-race anxiety, sleeplessness and bottom trouble. Not a whole lot more to say except well done again.

Perhaps we'll see you in London in the spring.

[Riazor Blue]

Thanks again eveyone. I was glad about the loo. Imagine having to run with those extra kilos.

Nigel, the thing is, it's all that uncertainty and doubt that I enjoy. If I could predict for sure how I was going to run every time, I wouldn't want to do it. Race, that is... I've always run, for some reason or other, but racing, if it was predictable, I'd take up hang-gliding.

[Sweder]

Congratulations on a masterful run, RB.
Sorry to come in late with this but I've been too embarassed to appear on a runners' forum since I started the recent affair with my living room sofa . . .