Running that final straight

Today I ran more in 2024 than I did in the whole of 2023, which had been my biggest year of running. With another couple of reasonable weeks and I'll complete my goal for last year, 4,000km in a year, and I am pretty sure I'll make that. This running year is coming to a close. In two weeks, I'll have the Omaha Half Marathon and then it'll be a trip to China with some occasional runs and then it'll be 2025. My first race next year will be 9 February so it'll be quite a break after the frenetic running I've been doing this second half. 

The busyness of the last few months was increased by me getting an entry into the Auckland Marathon transferred to me from an injured runner. It's a weird situation because if I had decided to do it earlier, North Shore Marathon would have been a B-race, and I would have structured training for it. Instead, I had just a month to rethink things and motivate myself for a race that I could potentially PB. 

About a month before the marathon, and not long after accepting the entry, I proceeded to hurl myself head-first into the footpath, messing up my face and causing deep wounds on my hands and knees. It was on a morning with pretty comfortable dry conditions; I had done the hard part of the run and was just jogging my cool-down along a cycleway about 1km from home, and then I was crumpled on the ground. I lay there a while I waited for pain reports from the various branches of my body. I knew from the warmth in places that I had lost skin and was bleeding but not much pain. I initially thought I'd written off my new glasses because things were quite awry around my head, but it was just my headband and glasses getting mixed up together. I got up and walked - mechanically I seemed fine - and then jogged the last kilometre home. At home, I got to see the full extent. I was bleeding from my forehead, my nose, my upper lip, my shoulder, my hands and knees. We went to the doctor and had the damage properly dressed, and a tetanus shot to boot. With all the luck that I'd avoided a concussion, dental damage, joint damage, and other things, I was just annoyed because it wrecked my lead-in. The dressings could not get wet, which meant I couldn't shower, which meant I wasn't going to be running without being stinky and unhygienic. So I waited for dressing changes to go for a run, but it was never really more than just keeping my muscles loose and ready, and never readying myself. Seven days after the fall I got back to proper runs, which was already at a time that I should be tapering, not doing too many workouts. 

Despite all that, come the morning of the Auckland Marathon, I felt pretty good and was going to aim for 3:08. It was my fourth Auckland full marathon after 2017, 2018 and 2019, the latter being my PB of 3:23 that lasted until earlier this year when I ran 3:10:59 at Hamilton. 3:08 would be a lifetime PB, but I based that on the fact that Hamilton was a really tough course - Auckland wasn't easy, but not as challenging as Hamilton. I also believed I'd improved since June. But Auckland is hard to pace because the first half has all the hills, and then it's flat till the end. After some thought I decided on the pace I'd like to be at at the halfway point.

And come the day, we had almost perfect conditions and I had an uneventful morning. The only issue was a headwind on parts of the course including the crossing of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. As it was the first half went completely to plan and at the halfway point, I had managed to keep in the range that I'd planned ahead... However, it appears my plan was flawed - it was still too fast for my fitness for the first half. As the second half started I noticed fatigue dragging me slower and slower. From kilometre 32 to 42.2, I struggled to keep pace. Eventually I dragged myself home at 3:16, eight minutes slower than I had hoped. And I was not in the best way, I was exhausted to the point of nausea and struggling to keep food down.

The irony of the three marathons of the year are the comparisons of my time at the 30km mark and at the end:

- June 2024: Kirikiriroa Marathon (Hamilton) - 30k: 2:15; 42.2k: 3:10

- September 2024: North Shore Marathon - 30k: 2:14; 42.2k: 3:18

- October 2024: Auckland Marathon - 30k: 2:13; 3:16

That shows that I've been pushing myself faster in the first 30km in each race throughout the year, but my two later races always struggling for the final 12km.

I have always attributed my success this year to my focus on speed at the end of last year, and that's how I plan to spend the rest of the year. Even in China, I'm going to do speed sessions rather than long runs. 

My A-race for next year is the Christchurch Marathon in April 2025. Unlike every other marathon I've done, Christchurch is unsurprisingly flat. It should be the easiest to pace. With the platform I've built these two years, I hope I can get close to, or go under, the much admired 3:00 mark. It'll take a smooth first quarter of the year to do it, but not outside the realms of possibility.