UKC

This Sunday. Anyone running it, or has run it in the past? Any tips*?

It will be my 3rd road marathon and I'm in the 3 hour pen - really hoping to break the 3 hour mark and feel confident based on my training - but I have an achilles niggle which I'm hoping won't cause any problems.

Fingers crossed on the weather which so far looks pretty ideal, maybe a little warm and a tad windy.

*apart from "keep running fast until the end"

In reply to yorkshireman:

Hi Yorkshireman, I'm running it as well.... or trying too. Only my second marathon so no tips I'm afraid. There is a thread on the Runners World forum about it so you may have some luck there.

You are a lot quicker than me! I'm just hoping to get rid of the cold I picked up today and run the whole way without getting cramps.

Good luck

In reply to yorkshireman:
Amsterdam is a flat fast course. There's one section that can be a little windy as its exposed, but its only a few miles. Advice, don't worry about the Achilles, and 10 seconds per mile too fast early on, means a minute a mile slower later on. Enjoy it and good luck!

In reply to yorkshireman:

Get a good taper, start steady but inside your pace, 6:45 - 6:50 and see how you feel. There should be a good group going sub 3 so sit in with them., especially if it is windy.

In reply to scaredandweak:


We'll I got my arse handed to me on a plate. Was on course for 3 hours until the 35km mark after which point I blew up, started cramping and saw the 3hr pace maker balloon gradually disappear out of reach. Got to the finish at 3:07:21 which was a PB (by one minute) but considering the huge increase in training I did it represents hugely disminishing returns.

A brutal headwind on the Amstel and a reasonably humid day didn't help but essentially I just didn't have what it took on the day.

Uluru - hope you had a good day. I'm off back into trail racing and ultras now maybe I will try to break 3 hours again but for now I'm happy to run for fun.

Cheers
YM

In reply to yorkshireman:

I'm not sure how much training you were doing but 35kms is a very typical place to fall to bits, particularly if you're going for it a little bit. Don't be too disheartened. If the marathon was only 30kms it would be very easy. It isn't, and it isn't

In reply to yorkshireman:

I had a bit of a shocker as well to be fair. It was all going well until just after halfway when I had a bad asthma attack and ended up stopping for about 6 minutes. Heat and humidity is a killer for me. I realised it was a long way back to the start so I had better get up and start running again...slowly. Made it to the end but no where near the time I was looking for.

The supporters all the way around the course were brilliant.

In reply to Uluru:

That's bad luck, I suppose there's not much you can do to mitigate against that but at least you completed the course.

I'm sorely tempted to run the Turin marathon in the middle of November (its close enough to drive, and small enough to enter late) and have another stab since I put quite a lot of effort into my training base.

In reply to yorkshireman:

Good plan to do another one with all the training you've put in. I'm going to run for fun for a while. I haven't got any races booked in now until The Grizzly in March next year. Will probably just do a few Park Runs in between.

Good luck if you head to Turin

In reply to yorkshireman:

Bad luck, YM. I have followed you on Strava seen the effort that you put into this. Your training pace suggested that sub 3 hours was a realistic possibility, and I so wished you would make it. I could see from the splits that something happened at about 20 miles. Well, that's how it goes, and at least you got a PB, and a trip to Amsterdam, out of it. There is always another run.

In reply to Uluru:

I am doing the Grizzly too! Third go. Looking forward to it!

In reply to yorkshireman:

I'd go again.. it was a hot day, take it as a quality training run and go for Turin..

I know a few who had bad runs, in fact most I know, so the heat must have been a considerable factor.

One was on for sub 2:30 (he'd just ran 69 for a half) and ran 2:36..