This was my first marathon two years ago and although I struggled from mile 22 onwards, I enjoyed it. Last year I was doing it after the White Peak the day before and I surprised myself how well it went.
This year it didn't start well, I slept poorly the night before, so I was still tired when I woke up. The day before had been fun watching and encouraging the Ten marathons in Ten Days runners at various points round the Lake (they do the marathon course every day !). Met many people I knew, including Phil Owen who came over to watch and support them.
Go to the start in plenty of time and and saw the Ten in Ten runners off on their final lap (they start an hour earlier), more chat and then off to our start. The plan was to be disciplined and do 10 min/miles and help others to new pbs. My hamstring hasn't been good this week and I have Edinburgh in two weeks, so it was always going to be gentle, enjoy the scenery, run.
The course is very undulating and it wasn't easy to keep a consistent pace. My plan as it evolved through the race was to stick as close as I could to 10 min/miles and not to speed up to catch others who were speeding up, but to slow down if people were struggling to keep up. We were a minute or two ahead of schedule at 13m and then the hardest undulating quarter kicked in and we started to slip behind the schedule. Andrew had always been slightly ahead and he disappeared soon after half way. Kev went ahead at 15m, followed by Tracy at about 18m, leaving me and Mel.
Then at 19m I fell ! I had moved off the road to look at my watch and caught my foot on a driveway kerbstone. It was like being in slow motion, I thought I had recovered, but I hadn't and I smacked down on the driveway. Ouch. Everybody around me stopped to ask if I was okay and I knew from previous experience of falling that I had to give myself a minute to assess the damage. Initial assessment was good so I told Mel on go on and said I would try and catch her up. I was up at this stage and walked for a bit. The inside of my left hand was a but bloody and grazed and I had slight pain in my side at chest height, but no damage to my legs.
Caught Mel up before we got to Bowness and we went along the flat part and walked the 21m hill to be greeted by a couple of friends at the top, it was great to see them. I was becoming conscious of the soreness in my side and my hamstring was starting to protest, left calf was tightening and it was starting to become harder work.
Then at 22m, the heavens opened and rain came down in buckets. Before this it had been a mixture of cloudy and sunny with a slight head wind in the first half. Mel was starting to struggle a bit, but it was clear we were going to get her a new pb and it seemed to be possible to get her under 4hr 30m. In the end we missed that by 23 seconds, but got her a new pb by about 6min, so that was great!
Afterwards I was amazed how tired I was. Not sure whether it was because of poor sleep or the fall, but it seemed worse that it had been the last two years.
A lovely weekend !
Photos : https://picasaweb.google.com/105792896882008304219/Windermere2009
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