After the Gin Pit Double marathon two weeks ago, it was now the turn of the other Manchester marathon. The Greater Manchester Marathon has had it’s fair share of issues over the last few years regarding the course length and the organisation of the baggage handling but the organisers seem to be getting their heads around these problems and the event keeps growing. Last year there were 9000 finishers and this year they topped over 13000! The event is becoming a very large, big city marathon, I understand it is now ranked second after London in the UK and fifth in Europe. The event is set up to handle large numbers of runners, offers a flat and very fast course which is a strong attraction to both PB hunters and first timers.
The Greater Manchester Marathon is certainly getting greater and next year the route is to weave its way through the city centre which should make the course more interesting and shows the event is building momentum and it is fully supported by the council. The crowd support was brilliant, it keeps improving every year and is a credit to the people of Manchester. From my experience it is second only to London in the UK.
As for the event yesterday, we had almost perfect running conditions, cool, cloudy, dry and calm. I’m usually a conservatively paced runner but sometimes when the course and conditions are good I’ll push myself to see what I am capable of and test my fitness level. This felt like one of those occasions and my plan was to run just under 8 minute miling, with the aim to be well inside 3 hours 30 minutes.
At the beginning of the race I bumped into a runner called Paul and we chatted together for the first few miles. Both of us had a similar game plan but we ended up running slightly quicker than planned. The first few miles passed fairly comfortably at 7 minutes 30 second mile pace. I doubted I could keep this up but thought it would be worth keeping it going for a bit longer and wondered if I could do it to half way and then drop back to 8 minute miling.
At half way I could see Paul was looking stronger than me so I wished him well and dropped back. Even so I still kept roughly the same pace for a couple more miles but I was feeling a pull in my left quad. As I tired and the pain in my left quad increased and it was inevitable that my pace would slow.
At half way I was on for a time 10 minutes inside my goal but by the time I got to 20 miles, I was hurting and had lost virtually all my gain from the first half. It was even looking like I was going to slip outside my target of 3 hours 30 minutes. Over the last few miles the crowds started to build up, I saw Swinton Runners at the water station at 22 miles, then my club, Astley & Tyldesley runners at 25 miles. It was great to see familiar faces cheering me on. I appreciated the short pep talk from Chris as I dug in to battle the last mile.
Along the final straight the crowd were electric and gave me the determination to speed up and a glimpse of hope to dip under 3:30. I made it 3 hours 29 minutes 37 seconds! Painful but I was so relieved to dip under my target time. Overall a great event and atmosphere, making me proud to be a Mancunian.
Reflecting back on the day, I wasn’t as quick as I would have hoped to be. Over the last week I’ve also been suffering with a pain in my left foot between my third toe and the ball of my foot. I could feel it while running at Manchester and I’m wondering if this made me compensate my running and had a bearing on my saw left quad. I’ve also done a bit of cycling last week so maybe that was a factor on my quad. Lots of questions and no definitive answers.
It is now only a month to my 6th Brathay 10in10. I might be clocking up some reasonable running mileage and marathon times but with these aches and pains I feel a little concerned about the 10in10. I wish my training over the last month or so had gone a little smoother and incident free. All I can hope is that my niggles improve over the coming few weeks, or the Brathay 10in10 could be a very uncomfortable 10 days.
