Fifth

A considerable monkey is off my back with a 3:10:59 time at the 2024 Kirikiriroa Marathon, my eighth official marathon. It wasn't the sub 3:10 I was hoping for but, in retrospect, that time was pretty ambitious on this course. Last year's 3:34 apparently was not fresh enough in my mind as I was again surprised with how much ascent there was. It is the second most hilly marathon I've run and I've run only marathons with hills (in order of metres of ascent: North Shore, Kirikiriroa, Auckland then Rotorua, last but famous for its hills). Compared to the others though Kirikiriroa's are insidious - there is no one peak to prepare for like North Shore's Northhead, or the Auckland Harbour Bridge; it just pummels you and your joints with a multitude of ups-and-downs.

The preparation and the morning of all went well. Despite occasional "why didn't I bring that" moments, I still had everything I needed just when I needed it. 

One of the slightly comical aspects of the morning was an incident with my collapsible cup. They promoted the event as a "cupless" event. For those not in the know, most events have water stations with volunteers generously offering runners cups of water or "electrolyte" drinks. Runners who need a drink would swoop in and attempt to drink it either on the hoof or with a brief walk, sometimes tipping it over themselves and almost always not managing to throw the cup in the collection receptacle. Anyone who has run at the back of an event knows that the wastage and incidental littering. Recently there have been more cupless events and fortunately I have a cup for the purpose. I wore a running belt with a zipped compartment and a "cupholder" part which has a particular bottle that matches with it, and in my gear planning chose this to store my gels and to put my cup in it for the run.

Anyway, literally on the starting area no more than 10 seconds after passing through the Starting arch, one of my fingers caught the cup flicking it out of the cup holder and onto the grassy area that was being trodden by my fellow competitors. I didn't see it happen but realised it straight away, quickly seeing it was gone, stopping suddenly and looking back to see it on the ground, then hesitating about going to get it: Did I need it? Yes, I did! And started heading back through the runners. Fortunately, I heard calls of "someone's cup on the ground" and people avoided it, and then one other runner swooped down with one had to bring it up to me, a really awesome act of consideration. (But did I need a cup? No, I didn't really. All stations had cups, but maybe just for the faster runners. And annoyingly they'd offer me cupped drinks instead of pouring it into my collapsible cup. I usually took their cups and emptied it into mine.)

With that start line faux pas behind me, I got back into the rhythm up the climb out of Hamilton Gardens and head south-east, up some more to a residential area and then down into a scenic boardwalked section away from the river. As was the case last year, it is hard to know whether you're running to pace because of the hills. But my problem was bigger than that: my watch's GPS tracking is next to useless. It was telling me I was going rather slow (4:45/km even when I was on the flats, and my target was 4:30/km overall). I was desperately scanning for kilometre markers but hadn't seen any during the first four kilometres. The 5km marker, however, gave me the news: I passed it after 22:00, that is 4:24/km pace, far too fast, especially considering I had gone up hills, too. My watch reported 4:51km, for comparison. So I tried my best to slow down and hope the damage was not done. 

It is said that the halfway point in the marathon is not 21.1km (half the distance) but 32km because that's when the struggle begins. And it was in this race after a weird speeding up at 30km mark triggered slowing and at about 32km dropped my splits below my target average pace of 4:30/km. With all my training and fitness, this slowdown was still to a pace faster than I'd run all my other marathons, but it was gradually eroding the chance of getting below 3:10. One of the quirks of this course is that from 36-39km it goes through the riverside section next to the CBD section which has the most rises and drops. I had hoped to make it through this with a little bit of a buffer to cruise the last flat 2-3km but by then my calves were on fire and I was stiffening up quickly. I did the maths and knew I was going to finish after 3:10 so didn't push it at all.

 

I pulled in for 3:10:59, which was 11 seconds ahead of the next runner who was steaming in trying to catch me. Little did I know I was actually the fifth finisher for the individual runners, although 15 minutes behind fourth place. There were four sub-three speedsters, and then a long gap before my pursuer and I crossed the line... then another ten minutes before seventh and then a lot of runners came in at that point. 

I was exhausted. Even with a bit of a walk around to get moving again, I felt nausea before getting in the car and had a lie-down in the carpark, before getting up and back to the hotel for a quick shower before our "late check-out". The weather which was threatening to rain on the event didn't turn up so we got out and home to rest. All in all, mission accomplished and one for the wall at home.  

T minus 6 days

And in the blink of an eye, I have arrived six days out from my first marathon for 2024, the Kirikiriroa Marathon, which has organically become my "A" race. For the non-athletes out there, an "A race" is the main target race that your training is geared to peak you for, but that is not to say it is the only race that is amongst your training. Huntly Half was a "B race" for me, a race that was to be an indicator of progress. There are even races that you could regard as "C races", which are half-workout / half- race. Coatesville Half for me was a clear C race. Waterfront was intended to be a B race, but due to the niggle turned into a C race. All the parkruns are C races for me because I haven't been specifically training for them, either. So despite I've been making pleasing personal bests in the 5km and half marathon in the first half of the year, none of those are with distance specific training with them as an A race target. I say it has organically become an A race because the scheduled formed around it late last year despite having booked it much earlier.

Last year was my first time running the Kirikiriroa course and I did it with a 3:28-3:30 target. However, my lead-in was pestered by niggles and then I paced it poorly and ended with 3:34. Looking back, the goal was probably about right: my 10km time trial indicated a 3:29 time, and a half marathon time trial indicated a 3:23 time. Looking back at the paces on race day, I did all the same silly mistakes. My pace for the first third was actually as if I were aiming for a 3:14 finish. I slowed down in the middle phases but was still on track for a 3:25 time at the 30km mark (but as I was slowing it was not going to be likely). All of that shows that I had gone out far too fast, well beyond even what the most optimistic target required. Suddenly I'm not as disappointed by my actual 3:34, though I was in a world of pain for the last 12 km, as I did hold on to a vaguely acceptable time after the earlier stupidity. 

This time round my Huntly Half effort indicates I should be able to run a 3:04 marathon which, based on my history, is almost unimaginably fast. It would be an 18 minute improvement on my personal best. But I feel like I've made a breakthrough in my running this year and things have been smoother than any other lead-in. Bearing in mind that Huntly was flat and Kirikiriroa has about 400m of ascents, I'll be strictly targeting 3:10 and if all goes well till the final 2.2km (after the last grinding slope) to make a clean finish below that. If things are more challenging, 3:15 would also be a pleasing B goal, which is still a 7 minute improvement on my best ever. 

Those are all the training factors for success but external factors are looking quite good. So far, the extended weather forecast is for a warmer morning than the frosty start last year. Also, last year I was a bit stressed and overworked during that period of the race, whereas this year with a new Senior Teacher, and just one school to manage, I am feeling less distracted. 

One final external factor is that I bought a new pair of carbon-plated racing shoes, also known as "super shoes". As mentioned before, these are de rigeur in racing these days. I found a sale pair of Saucony Endorphin Pro 3, which had recently been superseded by version 4 so the 3's were prime for the picking. I had only run 5km races and two half marathons (Coatesville and Waterfront) with my old pair of Saucony Endorphin Pro 2's so this would be my first marathon in super shoes. What effect could this have? Well, it could mean that my target pace will be easier to maintain and if I need to ramp up pace toward the end, it may not be as daunting as in normal training shoes. We'll see though.

Overall, for this last week of taper, I'm hoping just to feel fresh and able on the start line. My body, aside from a returning tightness in my right hamstring, feels great. My calf issue of a few weeks ago is all gone. I started my training with tight Achilles but there is no sign of them either. And the hip flexor discomfort I usually get at the later stages of a marathon haven't been evident in my training. This week will just being keeping everything pretty light, with lots of sleep and good nutrition. I have also decided to not have alcohol in this period, too, which will help with the resting and lowering any inflammation in my body. So all the controllable factors are in favour of a good run.