The start of May marks a new season on the C2 logbook.
The first 2 weeks of May are also C2’s first challenge for the year, the Marathon and Century Challenge.
This is the only time of year that I actually complete a full marathon as it is just too long, boring and painful to want to do more than one a year, so I only do it when there are multiple certificates, and a badge, on offer.
This will be my third full marathon, my first in May 2022 was completed in 3:18:52.3 (2:21.3/500m average), my second in May 2023 in 3:15:43.3 (2:19.2/500m average).
I wasn’t overly happy with last year’s time especially when compared to my half marathon progression and felt that I should really be completing the full marathon in under 3 hours.
3 hours for a full marathon is a pace of 2:08.0/500m, back in January I completed a half marathon in 1:23:39.7 averaging 1:59.0/500m for the piece, now there is no way I am going to attempt to hold that same pace for a full marathon, but I thought 2:05/500m was possibly achievable which would give me a time of 2:55:48.7.
I set up the distance on the ErgZone app, triple checked the distance – you don’t want to do these sorts of distances only to discover that you were off by 1m (been there done that on a half marathon) set a pace boat for 2:05 and off we go.
I don’t bother with warm ups for half or full marathons as the pace is not usually too taxing to hit quickly and starts as a low UT2 piece for the first 10,000m or so.
The early part of a full marathon everything feels easy, however you need to keep reminding yourself that there is a long way to go and not to over do it in the early stages.
I was within 4-5m of the pace boat for quite a while, I saw no point in catching or overtaking it as that would be a waste of effort at this stage and I could always ‘sprint’ past it in the closing stages.
10,000m in 41:45.6, 2:05.2/500m average pace, 22m behind the pace boat.
1 hour in, 14,355m done, 2:05.3 average pace, and I am 45m behind the pace boat, still catchable on a sprint finish, so no worries there.
From this point onwards, a level of fatigue was starting to creep in, the constant effort of staying this close to the pace boat was also tedious and required slightly more effort than I was willing to apply.
As a result I started to drop off the pace slightly, more so whenever my concentration wavered and the pace boat was slowly pulling away from me.
20,000m in 1:23:58.4, 2:05.9 average pace, just outside my half marathon PB, 154m behind the pace boat.
Half way seemed to take an age to reach, my pace kept dropping to be closer to 2:08/500m, but I still reached this point in under an hour and a half, managing a time of 1:28:36.3 (an average of 2:06/500m), now I just had to do it all over again for the second leg of the journey.
I am now 168m behind the pace boat, still potentially doable, but looking less and less likely.
1 hour 35 and I pause for a quick back stretch (lean backwards on the erg to almost horizontal) and a sip of drink, then back on it again.
Two hours couldn’t come soon enough, now at 28,545m, 2:06.1/500m average pace, the downside being that I still had nearly an hour to go and I was really starting to feel the fatigue, I am now 255m behind the pace boat, ‘sprint’ finish is going to need to be around 2,000m long to pull this back, so not looking likely.
2 hours and 3 minutes, another stretch and sip break that cost me some more meters on the pace boat.
30,000m in 2:06:23.1, 2:06.3/500m average pace, 332m behind the pace boat.
2 hours 18 minutes and I am having yet another stretch and sip, my legs are really not enjoying this any more.
2 hours 21 minutes, not a full stop, but I did stretch my back again.
2 hours 35 minutes, yet another stretch and sip, this is getting painful, lets see if we can push for the finish.
40,000m in 2:49:20.0, 2:07.0/500m average pace, 640m behind the pace boat, no way I am bringing this back.
My legs are screaming by this stage and my body really wants me to quit.
Final ‘push’ for the line, time to ’empty the tank’, not that there is much left in there to empty out by this stage.
I did manage to bring the split down to around 2:02/500m for most of it, but it was a struggle to keep it there.
I crossed the line in 2:58:25.5, 624m behind the pace boat, with an average pace of 2:06.8/500m, a new PB by over 17 minutes and my first sub 3 hour marathon.
The black spikes are where I stop for a stretch and a sip, the blue spike is the single stroke stretch.
Well as expected that was horrible and not at all enjoyable, three hours of torture, followed by aching glutes for the next day or so as well as various other aches and pains.
I will take it easy for the next few days to recover, our coach wants us to do a 3 x 2,000m, 1:30r piece this week with negative splits, I think I am going to need a day or two before I even contemplate that.
