Where do we start?
Sorry it's taken a few days to get this latest blog out there, but I'm sure you'll all understand it has been a bit of a whirlwind 48 hours...
But here we are!
The London marathon 2014 provided me with some fantastic memories and convinced me to come back again for another crack at the course, the distance and the London experience. It didn't disappoint!
I travelled down from Preston on the Friday afternoon with Molly this year, after deciding that cramming the travel and expo in together on the Saturday hadn't been a wise decision the year previous. That turned out to be a good decision, as it meant that the stress of registration was out of the way early and I could completely rest and relax on the Saturday.
I had warned Moll that I would be rubbish company and suffering with stress and tension on the day before the race, but having got the important stuff out of the way early I actually felt much more relaxed than I had expected. We travelled on the train to Covent Garden and had a bite to eat for lunch with a brew and chilled out enjoying each other's company. In the evening Alice (Molly's mum) had organised tea and booked a table at a nearby Pizza Express, so I didn't even have to worry about my pre-race carb loading!
I was extremely fortunate to have so much support throughout not only this weekend, but the duration of the full training programme, from family and friends alike. Without all of their help, there would be no story to tell.
The Sunday morning, I awoke a little bit anxious and apprehensive, but most of all just dying to get underway and finally put all the hard work of the past 19 weeks into action.
I knew exactly how I wanted to approach the race, I didn't want to get roped in to setting off too quickly, and wanted to try and run a solid 5:55 pace for as long as possible. In discussions with my coach, Rob Affleck, before the race we had decided that I was in a position to run quicker than my initial 2:40 target, and that 2:37 was a more realistic marker for where I am at right now.
Rob did tell me that on a perfect run he felt that I was capable of breaking 2:35 though, so to try and set off at 5:55s rather than 6:00 p/m pace and see how I felt.
Mile one went more or less bang on the money, I managed to reign in all the tension and adrenaline and resist the urge to set off too fast. I clocked the first mile at 5:51 and was happy enough that I had held back enough.
Miles 2, 3 and 4 were possibly a little bit quick, as I averaged 5:47 pace through that section.
By mile 5 though I had managed to settle into a really good rhythm and through to (and including) mile 12 every single one was between 5:51 and 5:52 pace.
I took onboard my first gel at mile 8, which was a bit earlier than I had done in training. This was because I planned on taking on board 3 lots of gels in the race, rather than just 2 as I had done through my long training runs.
Mile 13 saw the pace drop slightly to 5:56, before I recovered to run 5:50s through miles 14 and 15.
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