Last week, after some entry fee troubles, I started the Swiss Marathon Light. This is a half marathon run around Sarnen in Nidwalden, very close to where I live. It's a great event, on what I wouldn't call a flat or easy course. In particular, the bit at the end can get a bit hard if you have overdone it up to about KM 15.
In light of all my calf issues, and the fact that the Physio said I shouldn't push it, I decided to start conservatively. As usual I was not at the front at the start, but rather settled in nicely to (what I thought) would be a sub 90 min pace. This all went fine to about the 3rd KM when the guy driving the 90 minute bus passed me. Duh. So, what the hell I thought, I would just hang on and see where it went.
Luckily for me, my maths brain hasn't been lost over the years and I was fairly certain by the 5th KM that Mr. Bus Driver was going a little toooo fast. So I settled in and waited. Sure enough, after about 8 km of running, the bus started to slow ever so slightly. I, on the other hand, just kept the pace up and slowly started to inch away from the bus. 10 km came and went in 41:40 (about 4 min 10 km) so I was happy. This was a good pace.
However, after the 2 next KM's, we started on the hills (well more like bumps to be honest) but I wanted to keep pushing myself so I started increasing my pace on the tar. Once I got to a speed I knew I could hold, I just kept it there and every hill I pushed a little harder and faster and inched my way towards a 4 min 07 pace.
15 km came and went and then we started on the last hill. At this point I stuck it in overdrive and pushed up hard. Obviously the pace didn't change much, however as I was not slowing people started to come back to me. I lost count after 20 runners as I realised that my slowish start was helping me on to a strong finish. I keep my foot on the gas using the fading runners as target practice.
Once over the top at about 19 km, my calves did start to hurt a little, but I didn't want to drop pace so I was concentrating like mad on keeping my running style neutral to the foot and adjusting my running position so as to reduce as much strain as possible on the legs. Although quite uncomfortable I was able to hold this to the end, even picking up some super KM's at the end.
My final time of 1 hr 26 min 12 quite surprised me and the fact that I was able to finish so strong was really a great feeling. My km time of 4 min 05 seconds was almost astonishing - who would have predicted such a speed (certainly not me, I had been hoping to get as close to 90 as possible). It's always nice to be chuffed after a race.
I am noticing, however, the lack of distance and I'm aware that a marathon is an entirely other beast to be honest. But I'm upbeat and looking forward to the next 3 weeks of final training before going into my 2 week marathon rest and recovery period.
Saturday was a OL and today was track, but more about that later :)
Here you can find the website: http://www.switzerland-marathon-light.ch/
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