25 09 2011
My own race was quite good, though not perfect. My goal was targeting 3h36', to break my own record (3h40'24"). However, my preparation was complicated by an hurted ankle in early August, then a very shaky September month at work with a lot of stress and work days up to 12 hours. Not the best way to prepare a marathon.
Last two weeks were fairly good wrt running, with an half-marathon run in 1h43' two weeks ago.
Still, we complicated this by speding a few days to do sightseeing in Berlin (you can't really be in such a nice city and not try to see it!). So, that means a lot of walking here or there, with museum visits and quite long days. Again, not the best way to prepare a marathon..:-)
Still, my watch was set on a 5'07"/km pace. My goal was starting like this, work to avoid going faster over the first 20K ad see what happens.
At the beginning, it worked fairly well. Contrary to Paris marathon, Berlin's start in Strasse des 17. Juni is very cool for the first 3 kilometers with an incredibly wide avenue, whilst Paris marathon shrinks in Rue de Rivoli after km 1.5, making it fairly complicated to pass. Also, runners in Germany are much more respectful of running principles and very few register for starting blocks that are nont their real performance (like registering for 3h30 while your best time if 4h). So less passing and a much more costant pace.
Up to km15 in Kreuzbeg, everything went well, though the heat was growing, which already made me suspect that I would not make it (0-5K in 25'31", 5-10K in 25'54", 10-15K in 25'55") . From this point, I had to "fight" a bit more to keep the pace...and a few streets without shade had their effect. Moreover, I already had to refill my belt bottle after drinking 0,8l for the first 17KM.
The pace thus went down to about 5'10-5'15" and I reached half-marathon in 1h50'28", already not really on time for less than 3h40). 15-20K in 26'41", including a bottle refill. Then 20-25 in 25'44", so small drop after all.
However, the wall hit me on km28. For the first time in my marathon life, I think I considered abandoning because I was feeling without any energy and still 1/3 of a marathon to run. Well, that was only the 30K wall which they apparently moved 2K earlier..:-)
After calming myself down, I decided to do what has to be done in such case: refill with energy. So long for the gels I had and particularly the hyper-glucidic "Coup de Fouet". Finally, around KM30, I found more motivation to complete the race. Anyway, we were then very very far away, at the end of Hohenzollendamm, so the only option was to come back anyway!
Despite all this, I kept a very decent pace, after all: 26'45" for 25-30K. Each kilometer, my watch was beeping to remind me that I was not crawling on the street but more keeping about 5'20".
Still, the last kilometers on these giants avenues (oh, endless Leipziger Strasse after Postdamer Platz!) needed a lot of motivation to be completed. It's indeed only at Gendarmenmarkt that I finally could be reliefed and know that I would not only finish, but also do it in a very decent time. 30-35K in 27'43", 35-40K in 27'38".
Then we turned in Unter den Linden and, even better, at KM41, my beloved Elizabeth was there yelling. This, plus Brandenburder Tor not so far away....I could then "sprint" at 5'08" for the last kilometer.
Finally, this marathon (my 6th official) was completed in 3h44'50", which is my second best.
I'm really happy with this result, finally. OK, I didn't break my record as I was intending to (I think I can go down to 3h35 with a normal preparation and good conditions), but the way I managed the difficulty was finally good.
So, now, let's prepare the next goal, a 67km night race in November, the longest distance I have ever run. Yet another different thing to prepare.
And what about Berlin in all this? Well, in short, that city is *great*. What could I tell more?
posted at: 21:36 | path: /bubulle/planet-debian | permanent link to this entry