April 2019: London Marathon
April 2019: London Marathon
I've run a few road marathons in my time, and have not yet had my perfect race (and probably never will) but I really enjoyed the family weekend and running a strong marathon. With all of my off road and fell running I didn't have the time to do the road running that I would normally do and the toughest of my hard training miles were in the Snowdonian mountains where I had no idea of splits and pace judgement. This meant that I had very little to go off for target times and resulted in me running free and "on feel" rather that paying excessive attention to mile splits. Besides, it was never going to be as tough as battling gales, snow, ice and torrential rain whilst navigating in the dark over the Glyderrau!
It helped to know the routine from previous attempts, but also not to have run it for a few years as it kept things a bit fresh. I arrived at the start relaxed and the miles ticked by comfortably at first. After a call of nature half way around cost me a few minutes, I was back on the road and then set my sights on a 2'50 run which I tackled in as measured way as I could. The atmosphere at London is fantastic and coupled with the motivation that this was part of my running challenges that I have received so much generous sponsorship for I was spurred on. I was pleased that I managed to keep my mile splits pretty even all of the way and found myself finishing strongly in 2'49. Happy and with the job done I was abe to enjoy meeting up with family afterwards without any post race regrets.
I've run a few road marathons in my time, and have not yet had my perfect race (and probably never will) but I really enjoyed the family weekend and running a strong marathon. With all of my off road and fell running I didn't have the time to do the road running that I would normally do and the toughest of my hard training miles were in the Snowdonian mountains where I had no idea of splits and pace judgement. This meant that I had very little to go off for target times and resulted in me running free and "on feel" rather that paying excessive attention to mile splits. Besides, it was never going to be as tough as battling gales, snow, ice and torrential rain whilst navigating in the dark over the Glyderrau!
It helped to know the routine from previous attempts, but also not to have run it for a few years as it kept things a bit fresh. I arrived at the start relaxed and the miles ticked by comfortably at first. After a call of nature half way around cost me a few minutes, I was back on the road and then set my sights on a 2'50 run which I tackled in as measured way as I could. The atmosphere at London is fantastic and coupled with the motivation that this was part of my running challenges that I have received so much generous sponsorship for I was spurred on. I was pleased that I managed to keep my mile splits pretty even all of the way and found myself finishing strongly in 2'49. Happy and with the job done I was abe to enjoy meeting up with family afterwards without any post race regrets.
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