The goal was clear: run a marathon below 3hours. It is not clear why this is so much better than 3:03' or 3:05'. It has no good reason, it just starts with a 2.
For my previous three marathons, I did slow down a lot at the end. In Amsterdam a year and a half ago, maybe I started a bit too fast, and I battled the wind. In Boston last year, the hills were maybe too much for my training. In Venice last October, I was feeling bad and struggled a lot on the last 3-4km. Sure I got sick during the week, maybe that was part of the explanation, but one will never know. In any case, losing a lot of time during the last few km is likely. How to prevent it from happening is a hard question.
Compared to the previous campaign, I did change few things. The main change was to replace the Thursday night track session by a steady-state run of 16-20km. The hope was to help the body feel comfortable at marathon pace or faster for an hour or more. Some nights were hard, but it went well.
The other change was to do my long run on Friday night, rest on Saturday, and do an easy run (or less easy) on Sunday. One issue was that some runs on Thursday made the long run on Friday quite tough. Twice I was good for the first hour, and then slowed down quite a bit in the second hour. Something to rethink about. But at least I was better on Monday mornings.
The last change is that, due to the cold winter and the presence of a lot of snow and ice, I did not train on the track during January and February. I would have liked, but it was not possible. So I did some other steady state run instead.
One thing that did not go well in Venice was the week prior to the marathon, in which I felt sick, I got a cold because of no heater in my room. I do not think I did too much sight see at that time. That partially explained my choice to run in Rotterdam. I did not want to go somewhere far and to feel like visiting the place. I wanted to make sure I was stay healthy and rested. Which I did. My parents were here during the marathon weekend. I let them go on their own to some museum, I felt a bit bad about it, but I wanted to rest, and instead of the museum, I had a good nap! I did not feel all that great and energetic the Saturday before the race, but I rested well. Some nice meat for lunch, pizza for dinner, I was ready to go.
I did a 30km race three weeks before the marathon, and I did very well. There is a lot of uncertainty about the measurement of that course, for sure it was shorter, but unclear whether it was by 200, 400 or 600m. In any case, I would have been close to do 30km in 2hours. To me, this meant that if I had ran near 5' a km for another hour, I would have reached the marathon goal. And 5' a km was around the pace when I was agonizing in Venice. So, I knew I could do it, I just had to do it. But this belief is comforting.
The training is done, the resting is done, what is left is to decide on the strategy for the race. With the 30km race in mind, I could go fast, I could try to gain enough time so that, by the time I would start to slow down, I would have enough time to complete the race at slow speed. I could also try to have a less aggressive strategy: run a tiny bit faster than the pace to break 3h, and hope that I would not slow down too much. But then, the fear to finish as in Venice comes to mind (maybe irrational because I did not get sick this time), and I did not want to have too little gain. So aggressive I wanted to be.
Sunday morning. I badly set up the alarm clock (it was set to ring at 5:30, I wanted to wake up at 6, so I changed the minutes to zero, kind of assuming that it would add an hour, but for that, you need to change the hours too. Well conclusion, it rang at 5am instead of 6, bummer!). So not a good full night. Up at 6, breakfast, bus to the centraal station, train to Rotterdam. We then went to pick up my bib number at the expo. There, we found a table to sat and wait a bit. It was cold and windy outside, better stay in a warm place. Get a little rest, go to the toilet without a too long line.
I did not realize that I would have to make a huge detour to arrive at the entrance of the coral (the expo was on the east side of the start line, the corral entrance on the west side...). They use two lanes for the start, and impossible to cross the lanes anywhere. So I arrived at the corral less than 10min before the start. Too many people, too compact, I won't start from a good position. That is the issue, the good corral are for people who already broke 3 or that are competing for the Dutch championship. Oh well.
They play the second "you'll never walk alone" which seems to be the traditional song before the start, Dutch people are singing loudly. The canon fires, off we go. Well, I need to wait a bit before actually starting! Lots of people in front. The first km, I dodge people, wait, accelerate, go to the bike lane and behind some spectators to pass people in front. It gets a little less dense, but then we merge with the other lane, and density is again high. Maybe after 3km I can pass easily. I know I lost some time, I'm not sure how much. So I take a good rythm and at km 5, I believe I am back on time. I go on at this good pace, I feel ok. I realize that I am around 4' per km, more or less the speed for the 30km race, so I know I am taking a small risk, but I also know the payoff, and I am ok with it. I pay attention to eat at bit at this time and not delay the gel intake. I take one around 16km. I know that I've maintained a good pace until then, of course, I think I may pay it off.
Maybe around km 18, I stop to urinate, I'm a bit better after that. Between 20-27km, we have the cold wind against, I do not feel so good. I do not know if it is the cold wind or if I am not well. I think I may pay for the high pace for the previous 10km, but I do not worry so much. I'm going good on time, I do not see any serious slow down. I think I take another gel around km 26-27.
I pass km 30 with a time of ~2h03'. It's not that I can now do 5' per km, but not so far. I know that in the next 4 km or so, if I do not slow down too much, I'll be able to run 5'/km if I want to. The wind is pushing us, at least I do not feel it, we pass through a park, the road is going down a bit, I have the belief I'm going to reach my goal, things get easier. At 32km, or was it 34km, I know that I can slow down to 5'/km, and a bit later, even if I look at the race clock, and not my watch. I'm doing well. I am not even trying to see what time I could achieve, actually, I did not check the possible time for this kind of pace. I know that my watch is a bit off by 300-400m, so I know the pace indicated there is wrong, but not sure by how much. I just know I will do it, and I try to keep the pace. I do not look at my watch a lot. I just read some race clocks and they tell me I'm doing well. I haven't tried to compute the exact differences with the clock, 2 or 3min.
37km, another one, 38km, another one, etc. Around km 39, some loud music is playing some 80ies music or something like that. The crowd is more involved, I got a chill of excitement. At 40km, I see that I may do around 2'57 or so, but never trying to compute with my current pace. I do not care so much, I just try to maintain my pace. I turn on the Coolsingel, the street with the finish line. I can accelerate a bit, maybe the road is going down, the wind is pushing maybe. I see my parents and say hi, keep on going to the line. Done! The clock indicates 2:56, my watch 2:53'33", wow!
I thought I would have been quite emotional during the last 400m with the crowd. I was not, but quite excited still.
So, it all came together. I was able to maintain a similar pace for the entire race, and that is a nice feeling. And not only that, but the pace I was maintaining was quite high. I could not have gone faster (except the beginning of course). My aggressive strategy turned out to have a high payoff. I do not really realize 3:53. 2:59 would have felt the same because that was my goal. Maybe it means that the end of Venice was really due to the cold I had, and not to some problem in the preparation. Nevertheless, I was faster than in Venice, so I did improve again. Such a positive race.
The stats:
- 5km 21:07
- 10km 40:47 (19:40)
- 15km 1:00:42 (19:55)
- 20km 1:21:12 (20:30)
- half marathon: 1:25:56
- 25km 1:42:08 (20:56)
- 30km 2:03:05 (20:57)
- 35km 2:23:32 (20:27)
- 40km 2:44:37 (21:05)