An idiot abroad

Apparently, there are 9 million bicycles in Beijing. I don't think Amsterdam are a kick in the arse behind that... or at least that's how it felt! It's been a fabulous weekend with brilliant company, and apart from the huge expense (God it was expensive) and the bloody bicycles, I enjoyed all the rest.

We got to the stadium on the morning of the race, and I couldn't believe how big it was and how many people were there. As we were at the back in the last pen, we watched as the elites began the race and ran out of the stadium. We had a few pictures taken and enjoyed the atmosphere... I especially enjoyed the atmosphere as today there was no pressure on me. I had in my head I was going to try to do around 4 hours 50, however if it took longer, then so be it. As this was my last very long run before India, I had also decided to make it as difficult as possible for myself. Some may think this an idiotic approach, but I decided to do the running parts of the race as fast as possible (bearing in mind I had to keep it up for the full 15 minutes), try to recouperate in the 5 minutes walk and start it all again. I figured that I would do this until I "blew up" (which I knew I would, I just wasn't sure how far into the race it would happen) and then following this, try to maintain a 15:5 run/walk whilst absolutely knackered... after all, this was only a training run and the harder I made it for myself then the better the training would be (in my opinion, that is!)

I ran out of the stadium to "Moves like Jagger" by Maroon 5... what an awesome song to start me off. I felt fantastic and was ready for some self inflicted pain. All too soon I was on a 5 minute walk break, and I felt like a complete idiot as I began walking when everybody (including myself) felt as fresh as a daisy. I didn't need to walk, and I just felt stupid as people around me looked at me bewildered. The walk break dragged and I was relieved when it was over and I could start running again. The mile with the walkbreak incorporated was 11.04mm, which I was very pleased with... at least I was walking fairly fast. The third mile came in at 9.46 and then I'm looking like a prize idiot again and I'm on a walk break, however managing to average a 10.57mm pace I thought this to be not too shabby. Mile 5 and I'm on a 9.33 pace and I feel really good and strong. This continued for the next few miles as we snaked around the river, sometimes passing people further on in the race and sometimes passing others behind. At one point there was a helluva lot of runners behind and I soon realised this was another race (possibly the 8K). They were certainly running too fast to be behind me in a marathon!

My good pace continued on where I averaged 11ish minute miles in the walking stages and 9.27 (or therabouts) minute miles for the running sections. This is only 4 or 5 seconds slower than my 10K PB pace, so I was surprised to still be able to maintain it by the midway point. I have to admit I felt a little disappointed that I wasn't aching anywhere as I wanted to push myself to the extreme... I needn't have worried!

At the end of the 14th mile I got an absolutely horrible pain in my left hip. It was really uncomfortable and I wondered what I'd done. I decided to ignore it so it would go away and put my ipod on to distract me, but by the end of the 16th mile it was still there and I had slowed considerably, now averaging a 10.37mm pace. I was gutted... why was it hurting? I wondered if there was a camber so switched to the other side of the path. My mile splits are all 10.30ish now and I was pleased to find that although the pain didn't go away completely, I was able to run through it, all be it slower. Damn! By 18 miles I was going through a bad patch and had stopped the 15:5 now and was running when I could and walking when I was hurting too much. My legs (mainly hamstrings and calves) felt very tired and achey. By 20 miles my feet hurt like hell. I knew I had blisters (wrong sock choice), but I ignored them, and I did at one point wonder if my shoes had enough cushioning because my feet felt so tired. This feeling did subside after another mile or so.

At 23 miles I did the blasphemous thing and did a 12.03 mm... I'm not allowed to do more than a 12mm (just my "thing"), but I'll be honest and say that during the race I hadn't noticed I'd done this, which was maybe a good thing. I went through that "Bloody hell, how far is it now?" mood, and disregarded the distance on the Garmin as it's always wrong anyway. I had seen at the beginning of the race a big red banner saying "1KM TO GO". I felt like it was never going to come into view! I'm running until I feel like my calves and hamstrings are either going to cramp up or drop off, walking a bit and then running again. Finally the 1KM to go banner comes. I'm not relieved as I see the hugest crowds that I've seen all day... damn it, I'm going to have to run the bugger! I run and wince and run and before long see a "500 Metres to go" sign... I can't run all of that... no way! I get round the corner thinking I'll walk but see the entrance to the stadium so keep running. I get under the bridge and into the stadium and reluctantly run through the pain as I see myself on a huge screen and "Moves like Jagger" comes onto my ipod... how bizarre, I left the stadium to the song and now I'm running back into it listening to it. I continue on until I get through the finish line and get my medal. Within seconds my legs completely seized up and were in agony. I tried lying down, stretching, massaging, but they were killing. Unbelievably they hurt like this for the next 20 minutes or so and the only way I could stop the pain, ironically, was to go for a run... which I did for a couple of minutes and went back to my friends who had Heineken and salty chips waiting!

Today I'm not bad, apart from a bit of shin pain from the walking sections which I'd tried to do as fast as possible. I had a bit of an attack of lack of confidence today until my brother in law pointed out that doing so much of the run so close to my 10K pace and coming in only 4 minutes and 1 second slower than my marathon PB with so much walking incorporated was something to be proud of. I momentarily felt better, until I got an email from Runners for Life entitled "Bangalore Ultra 2011" and the first line of the email said, "Dear runner!".... oh ...my...God!