This weekend we went to Nottingham where I was going to run the Nottingham marathon. We went up on the train on Saturday morning and spent Saturday afternoon looking around Nottingham including Nottingham Castle with a friend and his two kids. Nottingham Castle was interesting, the grounds were well maintained and had a couple of plant sculptures. The Castle is actually the site of the old Castle, the building that is there now is actually a 17th century mansion. Inside the mansion is a museum, we were expecting something a bit more castle-y and more Robin Hood-y as well but it was a nice way to spend the afternoon. A couple of photos of the afternoon below...
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| The three of us with Robin Hood at Nottingham Castle |
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| Another Robin Hood at Nottingham Castle |
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| The 'Castle' |
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| Roads closed for the big run |
We had dinner at the hotel restaurant on Saturday which was a little faulty towers-esq including a short (although not Spanish) waiter who seemed to be well meaning but relatively incompetent. The food was passable though and I managed to get a big plate of pasta.
While eating dinner we observed at least 4 hen/stag parties heading out (into fierce winds and driving rain). Unfortunately at 3am, and again at about 4am we had noisy, drunken stag/hen parties returning to their rooms, in one case to find they'd lost their key card and proceeded to spend about 15 minutes in the hallway talking loudly waiting for their friend to get home. So not the best nights sleep in preparation for the marathon.
Fortunately by morning the driving rain had cleared although the fierce winds remained. Rice pudding and bananas for breakfast to fuel up and off we went. Outside it was warm enough but the wind was going to be a problem.
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This photo was taken on the Saturday, Jackie outside our hotel, just happens to be in front of a billboard for Hooters. As we walked to the start line on Sunday morning Jackie casually suggested we might go to Hooters for lunch after the run, I think she said that just to motivate me to run faster, after the run she said she'd seen one of the Hooters girls in her uniform on the way to work and we would not be going to Hooters for lunch.
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We got to the start with just a little time to spare. It was one of the most low key starts to a marathon I've experienced with the gun going off with no prior warning, I was over the start line within about 40 seconds, which again is unlike previous marathons I've done where the sheer number of people mean it has taken up to 15 minutes to get across the start.
There were actually several first time experiences for me on this marathon:
- quick start, over the start line in 40 seconds
- running with a half marathon, they started at the same time from the same starting group
- hills
- fierce winds
- a timing chip that is attached to your ankle by a velcro strap as opposed to being laced into your shoes
- running with a hanky
- there were only mile markers, no kilometre markers
The quick start was a good thing.
Running with a half marathon was a bad thing, it made it very difficult to keep to my pace, even when I noticed I was running too fast I found it difficult to slow down because the majority of the field were running the half marathon and were speeding up over the last couple of miles into the finish. As a result my first half was about1:44 - about 4 minutes faster than I'd planned. While I was feeling good at the halfway stage I knew I couldn't sustain it and it was going to be a tough second half, I wasn't wrong.
While I've trained on hills in London, they are not the biggest of hills and don't feature on my longer runs. The first half of the marathon including some quite tough hills and the down hills are hard on the legs too. While the second half was billed as being predominantly flat there were some long inclines and even though they weren't steep they were noticeable.
Fierce winds, I think the winds were forecast to be around 21mph and I expect that is what they were. The wind wasn't so much of a problem in the first half as we were in town and up and down hills so probably relatively sheltered. The next 10km were predominantly down wind or cross wind. The next 10km was straight into the wind and it was tough. We were in the country so there was little shelter and at one stage we were running along side a rowing lake which was very exposed, this is where I found it the toughest I slowed down considerably for this 10k and it really took it out of me. It probably was quite a scenic part of the run but I couldn't vouch for that, my head was down the whole way.
The timing chip on the ankle was different, it rubbed a bit but was ok, easier to get off at the end too.
Running with a hanky was a good idea, I've had a really runny nose the past few weeks, while I'm pretty much better now blowing my nose on a hanky on a couple of occasions made me feel much better than trying to blow my nose on my t-shirt (doesn't work when you're wearing a race number) or trying to blow straight out onto the ground which I never find particularly satisfying. The hanky was also useful to wipe sweat from my brow before it got into my eyes (bit gross if you think about it but I can assure you I wasn't thinking about that as I was running).
Mile markers were interesting, I was wondering if running 26 miles would be easier than running 42km, I can't really compare because of the wind, I find working in kilometres more natural so struggled doing the pace calculations with miles, although because there are fewer miles there are fewer calculations to do. I think I'd prefer km markers though.
There were a few sites along the way including Nottingham Castle, the Trent Building at Nottingham University...
Wollaton Hall...
And Holme Pierrepont Hall...
So I slogged it out, it was tough but my number 1 and number 2 supporters were there at crucial times and helped me get to the finish eventually. I probably went through the half in about 1:44 and then took about 2 hours for the second half, last year both the marathons I did a faster second half, there was no way I was going to do that this year with the combination of going out too fast and the wind. The provisional times on the marathon website are 3:44:01 (placed 287 out of 1405) on the gun time and 3:43:21 (placed 293) on my chip time, despite the slow second half I'm pretty happy with this overall time given the conditions.
Interestingly the winner finished in 2:38:40 which is relatively slow for a win, but then this marathon wouldn't attract elite runners.
A few photos with commentary below...
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| The Olympic rings at St Pancras train station. |
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| My #1 and #2 supporters |
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| Ready to go |
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| If you can't read it this guy had 'Captain Birds Eye' on the back of his raincoat. Not sure what that was all about but possibly a new marketing stunt by a friend of ours who works for Birds Eye frozen foods |
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| Me blowing my nose so I look good when Jackie takes my photo, I got the timing a bit wrong |
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| After having blown my nose, looking like a dork. This was just after halfway when I was still feeling good but knew I'd gone out too fast and was going to have to struggle into the wind to finish |
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| At around 38k |
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| Still at 38k, notice the guy in white who was just in front of me is now much further in front. |
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| Still at 38k - I wasn't moving very fast at this stage hence Jackie was able to get lots of photos of me |
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| At the finish with my thermal cape |
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| Stretching it out, I nearly had cramps in my right calf while running, thankfully I never really cramped up. |
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| Not quite Hooters but it was just what I needed |
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| I was looking forward to this a lot too (not the photo, sitting in the bath) |
