As there is now less than nine weeks to go until this year’s Brathay 10 marathon in 10 days. I thought I would, share a few of my thoughts. I have been publicly very quiet of late, mainly because things aren’t going how I would like in preparation for this year’s event and I have serious doubts that I can complete the event. So many people think completing the 10in10 is easy for me and a given, this is far from the truth. I have serious concerns with my right knee which is regularly painful when running. It has been like this since my last operation on a meniscus tear back in March 2020. The operation didn’t give me the full improvement I had hoped for and through 2022 it has slightly worsened. Due to this, I spent most of 2022 running slower to minimise impact and therefore pain in my knee. Basically, the faster I run and the further I run the more I aggravate my knee.
Anyhow, I’m not going to go into the details of my knee in this post, I’ll save that for another blog, another day soon. In this post, I want to talk about my last two marathons, over the last two weeks. Since the beginning of January, I have altered my training in the hope to get ready for the 10in10 while trying to limit how much I aggravate my knee and minimise my knee pain. I have been adding some strength work in the gym to my training but sadly I hurt my back in February which made me lose a week’s running and a month’s gym work.
My marathon running has been a bit sparse so far this year but I plan to dramatically pick it up through March, which started with a self-guided marathon in York on 5th March. This was followed by Oulton Park Race Course last week and today at Granny’s Bay in Lytham St Annes.
Oulton Park, flying along in the early stages.
Until last autumn sub 4 hour marathon running was my norm but last year’s slower running seems to have put an end to this. I long to find some of my old sub 4 consistent form. Oulton Park was my first opportunity to see whether I could do this since 1st of January. Oulton Park marathon is made up of 10 laps on the lovely smooth tarmac racetrack, with its fascinating but awkward steep camber in places and fairly undulating course. After 7 laps I was on for sub 4 by about 5 minutes but I was finding it very hard going. By the end of lap 8, I was really struggling to stay on course and faltered badly lap 9. I then knew I was too far behind to get a sub 4 and completely gave up last lap, crossing the finish line feeling very deflated, in very disappointing 4 hours 10 minutes.
Granny’s Bay Spitfire
One week on and it was time to take on Granny’s Bay marathon at Lytham St Annes, courtesy of Preston, Fylde and Wyre Running. The weather was less cold than of late but very windy for this 5 lap, out and back course along the sea front. The start was at an ornamental lake where there is a Spitfire aircraft displayed and the course took you east to Lytham’s iconic, well preserved and lovely white windmill.
I got warm running east but on the return each lap there was a brutal head wind which slowed me down time. I pushed hard to keep on a pace to get me in for about 4 hours and got to half way in exactly 2 hours. Sadly, I lost a few minutes in the second half but rallied over the last two miles while I had a battle with another runner. I was very pleased to finish so strong, the best finish for some months. The time was actually very similar to last week, just under 4:10 but 5 minutes slower first half and therefore 5 minutes faster second half showing much improved strength towards the end. Although my overall time isn’t any better than last week and still outside sub 4, I feel much more positive from today’s race. I’m actually wondering, if I wasn’t quite one hundred percent last week with me dropping the pace so badly near the end. I find it interesting how two races with two such similar times can have such different stories and leave me with such different emotions. I’ll take the positives from today and hope to build on these for next week’s marathon.
Next marathon, March Hare on Saturday, let see what that brings.
