My Windsor And Eton Autumn Classic Half-Marathon - Or How I Messed Up My Race But Still Ended Up Beating My 7 Year Old Pre-Kids PB!
When, some time in October, my coach asked me whether I could race the Windsor & Eton Half-Marathon on 17th November, my first thought was ‘Ooh, that sounds like a nice location!’. Then I looked it up online and the excitement quickly turned into dread: 4.5 laps of the Dorney Lake. Ok, I had never set foot there so I suppose it was about time I visited, but 1 lap would surely have been enough to take it all in. In all honesty I never ever consider booking any long race that involves more than 1 lap. The simple reason: I just hate them, and haven’t yet found a mental strategy robust enough to enable me to cope with them, let alone enjoy them. So I considered saying plain no to my coach. But then I thought given that I am currently experimenting with my body to see how far I can push it and how fast it can go, I ought to do the same with my mind given how critical it is to long distances. So I accepted the challenge, never once mentioning to my coach my hate of laps for fear of being taken for a wuss.
The Lead Up To The Race
Everything went pretty well up to about 2 days before the race. My training had been consistent, I was hitting my goal paces at the speed sessions, and was feeling generally strong. 2 days before the race I moved to a strict carb loading diet prescribed by my coach (see sample below!). I wasn’t sure how fast I could go but was hoping to beat my previous 2011 BC (Before Children) half-marathon PB achieved at the New York City Half-Marathon of 1:45:02. I knew it was a challenge but I decided to trust the process and based on my time at the recent Cabbage Patch 10 Miles and the race strategy suggested by my coach I thought it was maybe possible to run something around 1:43-ish. I was just slightly concerned by the fact I had agreed to run with water only, and no gels or anything similar, in order to test my capacity to use my glycogen stores. I knew I should be managing without additional carbs during a half marathon if my pre-race nutrition had been good, but in reality I don’t think I had ever run a half-marathon without them, so I was a bit less confident, like my secret weapon had been taken away from me.
Carb loading in its sexiest form (…)
Then everything went crashing on Thursday night this week when I started to feel feverish and plain unwell. I was due to go for a short run and knew that was the wrong thing to do. I decided to sleep it off and hoping the next day would be brighter. I had a terrible night and woke up a total mess. I wasn’t even able to drop off my son at school and had to send my husband instead. I had to get up to look after my daughter but felt like a zombie. The half-marathon at that point looked like a DNS (ultrarunning jargon for ‘Did Not Start’, and an acronym I don’t like to use too often!). But I looked after myself that day and kept up with the carb loading diet just in case there was a slight chance I would be well enough to run. I took a multi-vitamin, had an orange juice, and made sure to keep very well hydrated all day. By the evening, I was looking much more presentable (hell, I had even managed to shower!), so the race looked like a possibility.
Race Day
The race was a pretty early start of 8:30am, which meant an early start at 5:30am to cook myself some porridge and down some toasts with jam before returning to bed out of sheer laziness until about 6:30am. The race was about a 45min drive and I wanted to get there in time to use the loo and do a 15min warm-up run. I got there in what looked like reasonable time, but once out of the registration queue I had to queue for a good 20min for the loo (I unwisely opted for the indoor toilet, which sounded like a more comfortable solution for someone in need). By the time I was done, it was 8:30am, so there was no time left to queue for the bag drop so I left my bag unattended in the changing rooms after shoving both IPhone and keys into my hydration vest. Sure enough, my warm-up was reduced to none. Being stressed out because you’re out of time and rushing to the start is never the best way to start a race, and thankfully something that no longer happens to me too frequently. But that day I cursed myself for not having left home 30min early. One really positive thing that came out of that loo queue was overhearing a lady saying that it was her first half-marathon and she was really nervous. You will find out further down below how I managed to use this to my (mental) advantage during the race.
Ok, There Are Worse Places To Run Laps Around… Ugh!
The slightly rush start may explain why I started off my race so quickly. I just felt relieved to have made the start line before the gun shot, and the adrenaline fueled me for the first few kilometres. The may in insight also explain why by doing so I forgot one of the fundamentals of endurance running. By going too fast during the first lap, I had depleted my glycogen stores faster than necessary. I should have been running at a pace of between 4:50min/k to 4:55min/k and my first 5 splits were in the region of 4:40min/k. By the time I finished the first lap, the thought of quitting entered my mind. It was a tough time, because I knew I had 3 laps to go and I knew how long they were and mentally it was soul-destroying. I had to find strategies to deal with these thoughts, and the first thing that entered my mind was that my son knew I was racing that morning, and the thought of coming home to him with no medal to show for it just filled me with disappointment and sadness. That temporarily shup up the negatives thought. However, after 2 laps, I really started to struggle to stick to my pace. I was checking my splits and they started to shift to 5:00 to 5:05min/k and I didn’t seem to have the energy to speed up. I entered the damage mitigation phase. I had probably used up my glycogen stores due to my fast first lap, and was now paying the price for it. The thought of quitting intermittently entered my mind again near the start of lap 3 but it was easier to brush off because it seemed a bit silly to quit after 3 laps with just over 1 to go. I found two mental strategies that seem to really work for me. The first one was to pay attention to the other people in the race and specifically the ones who were struggling. I focused on the fact that some people out there were running their first marathons. I remember that lady in the loo queue, and I started to feel very good about my own ability, and that prompted me to cheer on a few people who I saw struggling. I specifically remember cheering on a lady named Catherine, who had her name printed on her shirt. I remembered how I had felt when strangers had shouted my name during the London Marathon and I hoped she would get the same boost from my cheering. What I didn’t expect by doing so is that I got an equally big boost and noticed I managed to speed up a bit after passing anyone I cheered. Funny (and beautiful!) how the mind works, isn’t it! Another mental strategy I found useful whilst running laps, bearing in mind my hate of laps, was visualisation: from lap 2, I pictured myself running through the exact same spot one lap later and visualised how it would feel to know there was just one lap left or that it was the final lap. Both these strategies kept me going and allowed me to maintain a slower but steady pace and most importantly kept any further thoughts about quitting at bay. I will be honest though, I still had visions of crawling on all four across that finish line, I was that battered (mentally, physically, or both, I still don’t know), and it took all I had to maintain that pace. I became so desperate to reach that finish line that, with about 1k to go, I no longer cared about my time, I just wanted to cross that damn line!
As expected I did eventually reach the end, and was delighted when I looked at my watch to see a time of 1:43:27. I had done it and beaten my pre-kids PB by a whooping 1 min and 35 seconds! Given that my last half-marathon time in September was 1:50:18, I was over the moon. I also placed 6th in my category, which I was pretty pleased with. Somehow it didn’t matter that I had somehow lost the ability to walk (I hobbled back to the changing room as snail speed because somehow my legs no longer seem to want to carry me and I had this massive pain in my left glute which had started as soon as I had stopped running). There was no goodie bag at the finish line, which I was not expecting so I had not taken anything with me and was starving by then. I didn’t have card or cash with me because I thought I would use my phone but the Waze app on the way to the race had drained my battery so I panicked when I approached the Costa stall to buy a banana with only 1% battery left. Had my phone died before I was able to pay for it, I honestly think I would have cried. Thankfully I managed to pay for my banana just in time. There was a massage stall, and given the state of my body I would have killed for a massage but I knew my phone would not last long enough to pay for one so I had to give that a miss and embrace the pain. On the plus side I managed to find someone to quickly take a picture of me in front of the Lake before the IPhone gave up, so at least I got a souvenir.
A PB - Result!!
Race Lessons
I have said in a previous blog post that you can learn from any race, and this time was no exception. Here are my take-aways…
Arrive early for a race. Aim to be there an hour before the start. Even if you think this is not necessary, you will be glad you did. Especially if you are a lady, don’t underestimate how long you will have to queue for the loo.
Don’t start too fast. Seriously, I have said it before in previous blog posts and I can’t even remember it for myself. But this is key. You should know what your race pace is (just use a pace calculator like the McMillan Running calculator) and don’t try to run a half-marathon at your 10k pace, it just won’t work.
Find your mental strategies. What works for one person will not work for another, so you will need to experiment. Anything that gets rid of the negative thoughts is a winner, just make sure you use them!
Cheer on other people if you can, thank the marshals and high five the kids cheering on the side of the road. It costs nothing to you but will make their day! You’re even likely to get a little spring in your step for it.
Make sure you take cash with you. You never know when you might need it but if a massage is on offer you will be glad to be able to afford it when your muscles are screaming in pain. Or you can use it to buy a beer, whatever works for you!
Happy running!!
A Relieved and Happy Me!