May 2017 Running Challenge

Finally -.

Race report. Sorry for the length, the images, and my bra.

The event was a bit of a weekend thing – I arrived lunchtime ish on the Saturday, as really there was no point just hanging around, put up my tent and went to offer to help the organisers. I ended up being put on the finish line, and as there were in theory 5 races going on at once, it was a bit of a challenge. The race was a 12 hour lapped race – you could do as many laps as you like, solo, or in teams of 2, 3 or 4. And then there were the people gunning for the 50 miler. So a runner comes in, looking like they have had enough, and once they’ve made the final decision, off comes the timing chip, their name is marked off and they get the relevant medal – a giant of a thing, shaped like an ox’s face, beautifully coloured, and with dangly skulls denoting whether they were in a team or solo. The 50 miler was a whopper of a medal, and they got a t-shirt as well. I think I ended up helping for about 6 hours before I finally had to stop for food and a sit down!!

Following the 12 hour race was a night-time 10k. dressing up was quite a thing so many people were wrapped in lights, which was a sight coming through the fields!! I had to head for bed before the final finishers came in.

A COLD night in the tent. Not sure if it was that, general hard ground or me worrying about the HM but I slept badly. Got ready and headed to the start where the morning 10k race was taking place. Some entrants were doing all FOUR races over the weekend. There is only one word for them – nutters.

And then we were off. I kept near the back, knowing that’s pretty much where I’d stay. Happy with a slow start. The first couple of miles were a killer, even on a gentle downhill, my legs did NOT want to work and I vaguely worried that I wouldn’t make it to the end. But then I remembered that I ALWAYS struggle the first couple of miles on any run, so stopped worrying. We hit the first of several evil hills at about mile 2, but that was good in a way, as it meant a change to hiking muscles and a walk up it. I’d told myself to walk up all of the hills during this race. I don’t think I saw anyone running at this point. Then there was a mad dash down to the bottom, I passed several people at this point, mostly I was waving my arms and shrieking like a small child. And bouncing my tutu.

There was an aid station at about mile 4, but I didn’t want anything – I had a vest with electrolytes and that was enough for now. But I did change my top. By that I mean I took my top off and did the rest in my sports bra. I mean, I was wearing a tutu and skull leggings, I couldn’t lose any MORE dignity!.

Looked at my watch at mile 6 and realised we’d been out over an hour and a half. But mile six was possibly the worst of the hills. 360ft of elevation in under a mile. Seriously, NO ONE was running these…..The presence of paragliders in front of us should have been dire warning enough.






The next three miles were fairly flat and I was actually feeling quite good by this point. I was enjoying myself, taking some photos, and settling into a good running gait (I won’t say pace, pace and me don’t really go together). The sun had come out too, which I wasn’t expecting. Sun puts such a shine on sheep, and sweat.

Mile 9 saw us reach the Promised Land, the infamous Lovestation, where I got a lipstick laden kiss on the cheek, and a shot of cherry vodka. I KID YOU NOT. It was that or the cider. Water tastes boring after that. Stocked up on chocolate brownie pieces, cocktail sausages and slices of orange, but managed to tear myself away from staying too long – was still feeling good and didn’t want to waste it.



Miles 9-11 were nothingness. I found myself looking for a suitable tree for a bladder moment, but it was all a bit exposed. It was relatively flat track here and I actually found myself hoping for another hill. Am I mad? Beautiful woodlands distracted me, full of bluebells and more wild garlic that the eye could see. Does the smell of garlic help you be a faster runner?


Then I started to flag. I think I was bored with the flat, but there were some stern conversations with my legs which went something on the lines of ‘MOVE!’

‘I don’t want to’

‘MOVE and you’ll get to the end quicker’

‘grumble grumble’

I had a brief moment where I toyed with the idea of trying to get under 3 hours, but then realised that 2 plus miles in less than 20 minutes wasn’t realistic. Plod on from this point on. No more nasty hills, just a gentle plod upwards. And then I saw it – what I thought was the finish tent. And from nowhere came my sprint finish. Except it WASN’T the finish line, but the car park, somewhat further away than the finish. And now I was approaching the finish line, looking like a sprint finish but my legs were spent. Rather than lose ALL dignity by slowing to a walk, I skipped. Yes, me and my tutu SKIPPED towards the end. 3hours and 7 sweaty minutes or something. A giant medal and a t-shirt greeted me. All I wanted was a beer and my bed. But first I had to give my specially picked posy of flowers to the Race Director. Pretty pretty pretty and smelly wild garlic. He didn’t want them……







I am never running again.

Goal was to run at least 2.5 miles today but calves cramped up at 1.36. A little progress is better than none!

So here's my race recap of the Geneva marathon yesterday, It's horribly long, so if you aren't interested, just skip it. I'm putting it here despite its length for those of you who like reading race reports

Before the race
The full marathon started at 9:45, more than an hour after the half marathon, so I didn't have to get up too early. I had picked up the bib on Saturday and already knew the start location from running the half last year, so I only arrived 30 min before the race. Enough time to drop off my bag at the truck that would transport it to the finish line, queue up for the porta-potty, and slowly make my way to the start line. It stopped raining a little before the start, so I took of my jacket and stored it in my hydration pack.

The course
The start and finish were the same as for the half marathon I ran last year, but the full marathon branched off to a loop through the countryside at km-8, and rejoined 18km later at the 5-km-mark. It was a net downhill - 165m (540ft) of climbing, 210m (690ft) descent.
My goal was to finish in 4:30:00 or less, so I was aiming for an average pace of 6:23min/km (10:16min/mi).


0-6km
Splits: 6:27 - 6:03 - 5:56 - 6:10 - 6:13 - 6:07 min/km (average 9:54min/mi)
The first kilometre was really crowded, but I still managed to get close to my goal pace, only 3s too slow. I could see the 4:30 pacer just a little ahead of me, so I was rather happy with that and started following her. During the second kilometre, something went wrong with my knee. Almost like a cramp, but I've never heard of cramps in the knee... Whatever it was, it hurt, but I managed to run through it, and after a few minutes later the pain faded away almost entirely. For a while, I didn't pay attention to my pace anymore, I just clung to the 4:30 pacer while I was focussed on my knee. Only at 3.5km did I realise that the second, third and and the start of the fourth kilometre had been much faster than I wanted. I tried to force myself to slow down, but mentally that was really hard. I never have that problem in training when I run alone, but in this race I kept getting sucked along by all the people around me who were running along with the 4:30 pace group...

6-12km
Splits: 6:36 - 6:13 - 6:09 - 6:29 - 6:19 - 6:26 min/km (average 10:15min/mi)
All this was out in the countryside, with few spectators outside the occasional village & rest stop. Mostly, it was fields (and no cover from the wind). The first and second rest stop were at 6km and 9.7km. Walking through them while I ate some of my honey-citrus mix and drank some water helped to bring the average pace to where I wanted it to be, although the parts in between were still a little fast. After 11km, it started raining again, so I walked another few steps while I got my jacket out from the backpack and put it on. Somewhere around the second aid station, I finally managed to let go of the pace group.

12-18km
Splits: 6:34 - 6:21 - 6:20 - 6:24 - 6:34 - 6:27 min/km (average 10:21min/mi)
This was were most of the elevation of the race was gained. Just gently rolling hills, but clearly more up- then downhill. And the wind was bothering me a lot. I also noticed I was slowly catching up to the 4:30 pacer again - it seems they were slowing down more on the climbs than I did.
On average this section was a bit slow compare to my goal pace, but since I knew that it had all those hills and the corresponding downhills would follow later, I didn't worry too much.

18-24km
Splits: 6:28 - 6:21 - 6:10 - 6:40 - 6:17 - 6:16 min/km (average 10:15min/mi)
By this point I had caught up to the pace group again. I was hoping running in the group would provide some cover from the wind, but not so much. At the top of the last hill, they sped up again, and I followed them for a bit until I realised what happened and slowed down again.
I passed the half-marathon timing mat after 2:13:51 - not too bad for a goal of 4:30. And faster than the half marathon race I ran exactly here a year ago! That thought made me quite happy
At the aid station at 21.6km I decided to take one of the offered gels to save some of my honey supply for later. I lost quite a bit of time trying to open the package - reminded me again why I don't like gels! So this ended up being my slowest kilometre so far. Still, the average pace was right on target.

24-30km
Splits: 6:10 - 6:45 - 6:10 - 7:29 - 6:30 - 6:08 min/km (average 10:31min/mi)
This part was the lowest point for me, as far as motivation in concerned. It had been a while since I saw any group of spectators, the field was really drawn out, and - worst of all for me - half of this was along part of the course that I already ran earlier, and somehow the second time around each of the little hills seemed more annoying than the first time. Worst of all, like in my first marathon I apparently over-hydrated before the race or in the first part of it - in any case, I was glad that there were some porta-pottys placed at the rest stop at 27km. I lost more than a minute there, so I knew I had to speed up a little bit afterwards to make up for it. At least it stopped raining, so I took off the jacket and just tied it to the straps of my hydration vest.

30-36km
Splits: 6:29 - 6:43 - 6:12 - 6:13 - 6:22 - 6:20 min/km (average 10:16min/mi)
Finally back to the city! There was a rest stop after 31.5km, and shortly after that the long descent started. My left knee, which had been fine the two hours before, started complaining a bit, but I was so happy to be back in town with people, and running downhill for two kilometers, that it didn't bother me too much. Still, I took a bit of care and went slower than I usually would on a descent, and once the road flattened out, everything was okay again.

36-42.195km
Splits: 6:23 - 6:15 - 6:08 - 6:05 - 6:17 - 6:13 - 5:29(for 300m) min/km (average 9:54min/mi)
Running along the lake, it got rather cool and windy again. I thought about putting my jacket back on, but I had tied it too securely to my pack - I couldn't untangle the knot, so I eventully gave up and just kept on running.
According to my watch, I was on track for my 4:30 goal time. Suddenly, I saw the 4:30 pacer - she must have slowed down at some point, because she had been out of my sight for a while. But now she was visible in the distance again, and I was feeling okay, so I decided to pick up the pace a bit to catch up, which I did around 40km.
I don't know what it is about the 40-km-mark, but just like in my first marathon, once I crossed that point, everything started to hurt. Bottom of left foot, left knee, top of right foot, right calf and hamstring, none of them were happy. Maybe I need to make my long training runs a little longer to get past that point. Or maybe it was due to the fact that I had increased the pace quite a bit between 38-40km.
I wanted so badly to slow to a walk, I almost did. But I was afraid I'd end up walking the rest of the way once I stopped running. Instead, I decided to overtake the pace group, so I gritted my teeth and kept on running. What really helped me was that during the last stretch of the race, there were a lot of spectators, and quite a few of them were even reading the names of the bibs and encouraging passing runners by name. I don't know why it should matter when a complete stranger tells you to keep on going, but it did push me on. And then I was on the bridge that leads to the finish line, and I was so happy! I even managed to speed up a bit for the final meters, and finished in 4:28:00. A new PR by more than 11 minutes

After the race
After the finish line, you could do an extra lap, the "UNICEF Extra Mile" - fortunately, despite the name it was only 600m), and for every person who did completed that, Montblanc (a big watch company) would donate money to Unicef. From the numbers I saw today, nearly half the half-marathon and marathon runners did that, so they'll donate 30,000CHF! I also did the extra loop. I admit I was walking it instead of running, but that still counted.
After that I just wanted to go home, so I had to walk some more to the bag pickup, put on some warm clothes and walk to the next tram stop. All of that was fine - but after 15min of standing still in the tram, the 800m walk from the stop to the parking garage where I left my car was tough. My step counter sais it took me 1424 steps to get to the car, and every single one hurt. My legs were okay, but my feet were really unhappy with me. I started out saying "argh, ouch, fu**", but that was too long to keep it up the entire way. In the end I was muttering the shortened version of "a-foo" like a mantra to keep moving (left foot, "a...", right foot, "foo", left foot "a" ...); if anyone heard me they probably thought I was crazy
A hot shower, food and rest fixed most of the aches when I got home. This morning I felt good enough to take the bike to work - it's just a short ride, so I figured it would make for some nice "active recovery". The bike ride was no problem, but I nearly landed flat on my face when I wanted to dismount and my leg wouldn't go high enough to swing over the saddle. Maybe tomorrow I'll take the car for some "passive recovery"

And in a moment of insanity (runner's high, most likely) I bought the official marathon photos despite the outrageous price. Here's two of them - the first is about one kilometre before the end, when I just wanted it to be over, and the second is just a few metres before the finish line, when I was feeling a lot happier ^^