With this year being my first go at London as a Spring marathon it was always about going to experience the atmosphere with the performance always being secondary. Although it would have been nice to produce a PB and a result that really showed the fruits of my early training it was always going to be tough. Finishing in 2:42:22 and 373rd was actually quite satisfying considering the weeks which had come before. The highlight was seeing Paula Radcliffe out on the course overtaking me around the half way point, great to see arguable the best British runners of over any distance. Of course not forgetting all the support on race day and after, thanks all.In the weeks before London training was not going well injury hinder all hope of getting in the last few key sessions but on race day I knew I had to but that behind me, forget about it and go out and produce the best I had. Early in the race I ran with Steve (Way) from Bournemouth which was great fun and pulled me through the early miles in a decent time (5 km splits of- 17:59, 18:02, 18:13, 18:21). Then from around the half way point it all started kicking off (in my legs) and I began to struggle to hold anything near this pace leading to a second half which was nearly 9 minutes slower than the first, in marathon running this would normally be considered a bad race, maybe it should be, but it was fun. In hindsight I probably put the previous few weeks training a little bit too far behind me and should have listened to my body a little bit more on the day. Although a marathon is always going to hurt at some point and I can look forward to this being much later in future London marathons with proper build up.
Felling a long way off my best it is time for some consistent training to try and get back there. The last couple days I have felt my legs being closer to fully fit which is a big confidence boost for up and coming races, The next key race is Mont Blanc marathon (28th June), with a 32 mile racing (Discover Dartmoor- 6th June), being a key run in the build up to this. For the next few weeks training will be one long trail run at weekends and one slightly quicker mid week trail run, building up to 80 mile weeks again. Consistency is key!!!
