My “Only” Marathon by James P Smith

MY “ONLY” MARATHON Marathon /ˈmarəθ(ə)n/ Noun A long-distance running race, strictly one of 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 km). Robert Hooke FRS 1635-1703 found fame for deducing the wave theory of light, and for his work in gravitational theory and horology; but people barely talk about his beautiful English Baroque design for St. Mary Magdalene church in Willen, possibly his least known achievement. I don’t know if when designing the church he thought “this will be a useful marker for about 11.5 miles in the MK Marathon, just after you’ve gone past the LFR marshals”, it’s difficult to say, after all he’s been dead for 300 years, but, you know, maybe, it could’ve been, he sounds like the forward planning sort to me... Also did you know that Willen was known as “Wilies” in the 13th century – I know! “Wilies” – a bit like “willies” – no? Just me? Tough crowd! Anyway, I digress – back to my first and “only” (more about that later) marathon… I’m a relatively new runner (road runner at least) and I have found more joy and friendship as a runner (and LFRer) than I could ever have imagined; I think through running we improve our health both physical and mental, and transcend ourselves (not least because at a deeper level we are through evolution some of the most natural long distance running animals in the world – we are literally “born to run”). But I realise that a marathon is a completely arbitrary distance, and it’s absolutely not for everyone, however I really wanted to run one, if only to race myself. Plus, I was thrilled to bits to have been picked to be an MK Marathon Ambassador – AND they’d sent me a really nice hoody! Also I’d been sent a delightful and unexpected event crew parking permit, which meant we were only 10 minutes' walk away from the start and finish at Stadium MK, and had access to the VIP room (I know, get me! Free tea, coffee and biscuits, plus I’d managed to smuggle Katharine inside – you get a golden wristband you know) along with all the other ambassadors and the pacers – like Steve Edwards who was planning to run his 777th sub 3:30 marathon, and who was going (if my plan worked) to get me round in sub 3:30. Maybe... So, I’d taken everyone’s advice and bought ridiculous new trainers especially for the marathon (good plan?) for the very reasonable price of... No, I can’t say it out loud – but they were in the colourway I wanted – bright crimson if you’re asking. But that’s right – I’m blaming you lot, well you lot and Kipchoge, and maybe Paul Little too! Anyway, I’m sure it’s fine to run a marathon in new trainers that you’ve only run 7 miles in – who needs toenails anyway? (As a footnote, would anyone like to buy a job lot of Birkenstocks in size 7 that will NOT be needed ever again...). I managed to miss the LFR group pic as I was having my photo taken with the other ambassadors – oh the glamour! But got to the start in plenty of time and hustled my way near to the front, not that I was overly worried about my position as I was in the first start wave anyway, and there would be PLENTY of time to make up for a slow mile or two at the start – plus I’d bumped into Colin Aitken, and it’s always quite calming to see a familiar friendly face. Incidentally, mad props to the long-haired Vegan Runner next to me in the pen who’d got the most elaborate intertwined plaited hair I’d ever seen – he was totally rocking a Game of Thrones vibe! 0:00 – 1:00 - MILES 1 - 8 The gun went off and I settled into an easy pace, the roads were wide and there was plenty of space; thankfully it wasn’t stop start like the Royal Parks Half, so you could get into a rhythm straight away. I’d read that at the start of a marathon if your pace feels easy, then you’re going too fast – but I couldn’t hang about too much as I’d got a secret time in mind: - 3:29:59 – to be fair though it wasn’t all that secret - I had told LOADS of people. Although the pace felt comfortable, there was a major problem - I was running alongside Keith Luxon - the 3:15 pacer – aaargh! This was NOT the plan – this was going to be unsustainable – do I drop back now and try and ease off a bit? Wait a mile or two and see what happens? I decided to stay with him for the very worst of reasons – easy maths – 3:15 marathon pace is roughly 7.30 min/miling – which makes it really easy to work out your splits (I tend to break down long runs into 15 minute chunks – which would be exactly 2 miles at this pace) – so I thought I might stay with him for an hour – get 8 miles under my belt, and then re-assess (even I thought this was really stupid at the time but I was a bit over-excited! After all I first ran 8 miles in an hour about a year ago and nearly vomited at the end). So, we ran into the city centre (I know it’s not a “real” city but c’mon really!) where the course keeps looping back– which is a joy because I saw Tom off the front – with his personal lead relay runner bicycle – cool huh! Then loads of LFRs - Gavin, Caroline Clabburn, Katharine, Jen, Julie, Claire, Michelle, Paul McG - loads of us - came flying past in the opposite direction as I ran back out. There was dance music, loads of supporters – it’s always good to see Jim Buttleman, and Pete Mackrell cheered me on (he had probably already finished!) - there were two guys with a terrifying bucket of mystery goo and a huge sign for “LUBE” - eeewww! Then you’re suddenly out of the built-up areas and into Woughton on the Green. It still felt very easy and before I knew it, we’d split from the half marathon runners and the hour was pretty much up, but… I still felt good. Too good maybe; do I slow down now? Maybe another half an hour – I’m sure that’d be fine… Yeah, fine… Probably… Just half an hour... After all, that’s still only 90 minutes... 1:00 – 1:30 - MILES 9 - 12 The next half hour was probably my favourite as it took in mile 10 – with the picturesque Willen Lake (and eventually Robert Hooke’s lovely church – see – a narrative) and I’d been looking forward to seeing the LFR marshalling crew (thank you Caroline McEvoy Mann and the team), plus I’d seen Debbie and Jon, and David and James Parker in the crowds (I’d shouted hello to so many people that it got a bit embarrassing and a runner from Redway had made a sarky comment). I’d started to feel a bit stronger by this point and had stupidly pulled slightly in front of Keith the 3:15 pacer as I’d got carried away discussing cycling with another runner as we shared his “mystery” orange drink – not normally recommended, but nobody ever regretted testing a new nutritional strategy in a marathon did they – to go with their new and untested shoes? (Also to make the sarky Redway guy suffer a bit if he wanted to keep up - he didn’t – ha!). But another half hour at this pace would be okay? Yeah? Probably… Probably... 1:30 – 2:00 - MILES 13 - 16 The next half hour flew by in a whirl and I hit 16 miles and Linford Manor more than 2 minutes ahead of my stupidly unsustainable 15-minute split goal. I felt fine so another half hour at this pace would be okay for sure, and not too risky… And I’d done the Oakley 20 at (slightly) sub 7:30 pace – so yeah… Another half hour definitely! Yeah… Just one more half hour... I mean; I’d run 20 miles at this pace twice before – how hard could another 6 be? Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that sunshine... 2:00 - 2:30 – MILES 17 - 20 And this is the half hour with a jazz band, concrete cows – amazing – I'd never seen them before; and Roman ruins, an abbey, and a windmill – suck that up MK haterz! (Eds. Please check, do the young people still say “haterz”? Okay. What about “hepcats”?) Still the wheels hadn’t come off. I hit 20 miles at 2:27 – 2 minutes faster than my Oakley finishing time, and 13 minutes ahead of my original schedule – complete insanity – I’d never run further than this before - this was going to go wrong… And badly! And probably quite soon... But you know, I get carried away quite easily – I'd been high-fiving children, thanking marshals, making stupid jokes – all these things probably not recommended, but I didn’t know when it would all go wrong so I wanted to enjoy the experience for as long as possible. After all, if this was going to be my only marathon I wanted some good memories before the horrible painful bit. 2:30 – 3:00 - MILES 21-24ish 20 miles had been my longest training run, and the point when people talk about hitting the “wall”, and so I was expecting to slow hugely and spectacularly at any moment – especially as I had now been running at an unsustainable pace. So, my 15-minute race breakdown plan now seemed hugely over-ambitious, so I started working mile at a time instead. And the wall definitely seemed to be a thing, because as soon as we had passed 20 miles we suddenly started overtaking people who had started to slow down or even walk – this must have been awful for them, some looked properly broken - but selfishly, I realised that everyone I passed put me another place higher in the race. Those of you who’ve run the course before will know that it gets very slightly uphill at this point, and it doesn’t matter how well trained you are, you’re bound to be a bit tired by now, so I started to slow – not hugely – and certainly not as hugely as I was expecting, but just enough to lose contact with the 3:15 pace group (by now the 3:15 pace group was only a few of us – compared to the maybe 20 or 30 of us at mile 10); but it was a pretty gradual thing, perhaps only 10 or 20 seconds a mile. Also, I suddenly realised that I could now run 10-minute miles for the remainder and STILL come in under 3:30; and so I did what any self-respecting man would do at this point and burst into tears – totally normal – yes it is – it is - TOTALLY NORMAL! I’m not shouting – YOU’RE shouting! Then around mile 23 I saw Marianne Aitken who I’d chatted to at the start (she’d run an astonishing 15 miles around the course cheering on Colin). She shouted that the 3:15 pacer was just ahead, and that I could still catch him. This sounds like the most overused running cliché ever, but I thought to myself “it’s just a Parkrun left” so let’s have a go at this. Also, a particularly stupid cliché for me - I’m not suited to shorter distances, so I really struggle with Parkruns, so let us not speak of this again. As I turned the corner I could see Keith with his blue balloon, now running totally alone and, much, MUCH nearer than I’d expected and so I pushed as much as I could manage and started to reel him in (not thinking that it would actually happen), but metre by metre I started to catch him; and by mile 24.5 I got back on his shoulder and shouted “Keith! I’m back on your FunBus” - can you imagine how annoying I’d been to the poor man for the first 20 miles? 3:00 – THE FINISH - MILES 25 – 26.2 Now having your own private pacer is really quite an honour, but I didn’t get to enjoy it for long - as Keith told me to “get in front of me – and you’ll go sub 3:15” (although this may have been a clever ruse to get rid of me). Sub 3:15 this had never been a part of my wildest dreams and so another (smaller) cry was in order. To be fair I am quite a cryer – I only have to hear the music from UP and I’m gone *starts to sniffle thinking about it, poor Ellie*... But it was now quite hard to judge my pace, as at 25.5 miles you join the half marathon runners for the last half mile, so I was running with people who were now mostly going quite a bit slower than me, so it suddenly felt silly fast. At this point I should step out and explain a theory of mine. I’ve run trails on and off for years, mostly quite leisurely, but I’m a relatively new (18 months) road runner. However, I am, unquestionably, a lazy, lazy runner – I don’t like it when it hurts; but I weigh less than a duck, I’ve got disproportionately long skinny legs and I was wearing cheating shoes in MK; for context my average heart-rate over the MK marathon was 136 bpm (the average in a marathon is normally 160). When it’s good, the running feels like breathing. Which in practice means that although I’ve got some chops, I probably don’t perform to my potential – which I am completely fine with. But I know people who work so very hard, and frankly much harder than me, to reach their goals or even to just be more active, that I will be forever in their awe. Until MK I hadn’t run for more than 2 ½ hours in one go – and that had seemed QUITE long enough! A perfect example is my friend Emma – she's also quite a new runner, and MK was her second marathon – which she nailed in 5:58 – absolutely amazing, and perfectly paced – but that is the best part of 3 hours longer than I could possibly imagine running for. The idea that steadier or slower runners work the hardest is the hill I AM willing to die on. So, to jump back in, the half marathon runners were grinding out their last half mile and working hard (sometimes quite vocally – blimey! That’s quite the creative swearword combination! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?), so hard that I fed off their energy. Also, I was suddenly taken with a picture in my mind of my hero Yuki Kawauchi finishing Boston, so much so that I “may” have made a half-marathoner jump shouting “BE MORE YUKI” to myself – yeah - sorry about that... I checked my watch, and it said: “Current Pace – 6.30” - whaaat? 6.30? That’s my 5k pace - this is ridiculous – what is happening? Deep breaths Smith – don't cry again. I looked over my shoulder and Keith was in the distance, but this time behind me! In the finishing stretch you race down the hill past KFC (oh the glamour again!) and through the tunnel onto the pitch at Stadium MK, this was all a bit heady as Stadium MK is really quite impressive from pitch level, and as I turned the comer onto the finishing straight I saw Katharine! And then Doyley, Emily and Garner (in her smart new bobble hat); and then the finishing arch with its clock saying 3:13:xx – what? No! This was absolutely NOT part of the plan. I could feel my form coming apart (I suspect more from emotion than exhaustion); eyewitness accounts from this time point out that I looked more like Bambi than Kipchoge. I high-fived Katharine, ran over the timing mat, screamed, and (I am justifiably quite proud of this bit) stopped my Garmin, WHICH SAID 3:13:37! And then promptly collapsed... POSTSCRIPT... After pulling myself together, and giving poor Stephanie and Annis a horrible sweaty hug, I fetched my lucky flip flops and found Katharine (she’d been looking for me and had asked someone in the VIP room if they’d seen me – they said “is he really overexcited?” Yup, that'd be me.) - I’d bumped into Keith in the VIP room too and not thinking he’d suffered enough already gave HIM a sweaty hug too – poor Keith... Incidentally Katharine had just smashed her half marathon PB by miles! POST POSTSCRIPT... The marathon timing mats give you an average pace for four rough quarters of the race, and looking back my average paces were 7.22, 7.23, 7.23 and 7.24 min/miling; and my last mile was the fastest at 6.48. I realise how very unusual this is for a first marathon, and I know I will NEVER repeat it. POST POST POSTSCRIPT... That whole only one marathon thing... Well, you see, I’ve booked Abingdon now; so, let’s call it TWO! But just two, then that’ll be it. Yeah, definitely just two...

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It’s too late to worry about it now… by James P Smith

IT’S TOO LATE TO WORRY ABOUT IT NOW… According to legend, in 490 BC, Pheidipiddes ran the 40km from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia – with the word “nikomen” – “we win!”; at which point he was given a silver blanket, a blingy medal, a banana, and a flyer for the upcoming Corinth 10k - 2 Tetradrachms off for affiliated Atheneans. (Sub-editor: hang on – did he not drop down dead?). To this day, we celebrate his epic achievement by running through deserted industrial estates and complaining about our sore hamstrings! I know I bang on about it endlessly, but I haven’t ever done a marathon (I’ve eaten a few though ho ho! Hang on this doesn’t work as a joke at all, as I don’t like milk chocolate very much, so why would I eat a Snickers! And they’ve not been called a Marathon for 29 years – I KNOW! So please let’s all forget I said that!). Anyway, what I mean is this is very much uncharted territory for me – but since my last update I’ve finally gone further than my previous longest run of 15.5 miles. The great Bruce Tulloh claimed that you could do yourself justice in a marathon if your 5 longest runs added up to 100 miles – really? - good luck with that! To be fair – he ran barefoot – yes… Barefoot… As in “NO TRAINERS”! He doesn’t sound like my kind of go-to-guy at all! On a completely unrelated “Bruce” running theme – I’ve always felt a bit for Bruce Fordyce – who won the Comrades Marathon a record nine times (and London to Brighton 3 years in a row) – after all that amazing running, I’ll still bet that whenever anyone in this country hears the name Bruce Fordyce - the first thing they think is “nice to see you, to see you nice! “ – poor Bruce Fordyce; still he was very good on Play Your Cards Right! So… I had a go at running 16 miles down the canal (there may be a theme emerging here), and it was fine, more than fine, I ran faster than I was planning to run MK – which completely screwed up my pace planning – but we’ll come to that later. So, feeling strong off the back of the 16, and as I’d forgotten to enter the Oakley 20 until it was full, I last minute entered the MK Festival of Running 20. And it was (mostly – Campbell Park I’m talking about you) a joyous experience, robots galore, not too busy, and a chance to test out trainer, sock, arm-warmer combinations – useful arm-warmer fact – you can get 2 gels in the top of each arm-warmer if your shorts are too short to have pockets – even with my HUGE GUNS! I broke it down into half hour sections until 16 miles - hitting 16 miles in 1:59:58 – a massive 2 seconds ahead of my dream schedule! I’d done 16 miles before so I knew how that would feel, so each mile was a new experience, although 17 felt fine and 18 too; but at 19 I perceptibly slowed – I didn’t feel that I’d hit any wall, just a bit slower, and mile 20 involves running to the very top of the Campbell Park mound so I’d expected to slow down there anyway. But when I came into the finish the clock said 2:30 – a good 10 minutes faster than I’d planned. At this point I felt relaxed, and happy that if I could run 20 miles, I could maybe run another 10km – even if I was getting slower; and then I got the email… “Here are your entry instructions for the Oakley 20” – bum! I’d already entered a year ago, forgotten, and deleted the email – drink “may” have been involved. Could I do another 20 mile race a week later? I know that you should do your long runs at a gentle pace, and these are a bit more racey – and as Johanna Sharples had told me at the MK Festival 20 - “you can’t jog in a vest”; but I’m not all that competitive – I’m really not – truly – I’m a lazy, lazy runner, if I can’t chat/ get on the nerves of my fellow runners I’m not playing. I’m genuinely in awe of runners like Tom, Elle or Paul Little who absolutely empty the tank – I wish I could do that, I just haven’t got it in me. Plus, I wanted a hoody – especially as the word on the street is that it would be “salmon” (genuinely) one of my favourite colours – as it goes so well with aqua (like most of us, I have a lot of aqua) – I am ALL about the complementary palettes… And Oakley was better (and faster) than the MK Festival 20 – a beautiful course, well marshalled, great weather (which helped). Loads of LFR there to chat to; and although it was hilly, I still managed to run sub 2:30 – a time I could not have comprehended 18 months ago (it was 10 seconds a mile faster than my first club run – for 4 times the distance) – and the hoody was SAPPHIRE – let joy be unconfined! And so, I have a quandary… assuming I only do one marathon (even I don’t believe this now) – and I have since run another couple of 17 milers down the canal (I know it’s boring, but I can’t get lost or run over), and over 500 miles for the year – twice what I had run by this time last year; how fast do I run at MK? People talk about a marathon being a race of two halves – a 20 mile and a 6 mile race; and that you should start really easy, then wind it up – but let’s be honest – that is NOT going to happen; I am absolutely going to get swept up in the excitement and try to hang on – and maybe that’ll work – I’ve got the miles on my legs after all; I’ll let you know how well that turns out…

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EAT, SLEEP, MARATHON TRAIN, REPEAT by James Smith

Since finding out that I had been chosen to be an MK Marathon Ambassador (what were they thinking?) and realising that I’d actually have to run a marathon (I’m still only doing one -I’m not kidding), I’m roughly halfway along my ill thought out and hokey training plan (if this was one of those inspirational running blogs, I’d have to refer to it is my “journey” with a photo of me in the lotus position - perhaps with “NAMASTE” superimposed over the photo)… So, there are two approaches to marathon training: 1. A careful plan, with a mix of intervals, tempo runs, recovery runs, rest days and a long slow run at an easy pace, building in distance, tapering to hit race day in perfect condition. 2. Or… Loads of running! Don’t overthink it – just run A LOT! Why not run twice a day? Why not run two half marathons on the same weekend? Rest days? Pffft! Obviously, I’d planned it to be approach “1”, but it is tending towards approach “2” a bit – for example on the week of my original blog I’d run 18 miles, last week I ran 49 – a 272% increase! If I extrapolate that out another 3 months - then I’ll be running 133 miles the week before the marathon (I can see this happening!). However, larger mileages change your body in new and exciting ways that you’re not necessarily expecting – 1. The arms and upper-body musculature of a Tyrannosaurus Rex – before I started running I had MASSIVE guns (citation needed) – but where have they gone? Surely I couldn’t have looked like this before… Yeah... Surely not… 2. No bum whatsoever – and I mean no bum! I am never going to win “Rear of the Year” at this rate - they might as well give it to Carol Vorderman in perpetuity… 3. The toenails of a hundred-year-old tramp… No sandals for me ever again – but fear not, I’ve got a plan for the summer – I’m of German heritage – so I can legally and morally sport socks and sandals simultaneously! And if anyone tries to stop me – that makes them a RACIST! But still I have absolutely no idea how to pace it on race day. My longest run (so far) is 15.5 miles and I ran it at my totally arbitrary marathon pace to see what it would feel like; and it felt surprisingly easy, a bit too easy really, as my average heart rate was only 130 (my heart rate should be reasonably accurate as I’ve now got a super-fancy heart-rate-monitor – so fancy in fact that it gives me loads of completely unnecessary metrics – I now know that I’ve got an “Average Vertical Ratio” of 7% - cool huh?). So do I re-assess my (secret) marathon goal time; but would the wheels have fallen off at 18 miles? At 20? There’s only one way to find out – especially as my hilariously over-optimistic Garmin reckons I should be aiming at 2:46 – yeah… Seems legit! Anyway, I can’t spend all day here yakking, I need to do some MOAR RUNNING and sharpish, I haven’t run since yesterday after all!!!

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MK MARATHON AMBASSADOR 2019 – WOO HOO! by James Smith

  Although I was a truly awful runner as a young man (I failed the RAF fitness test quite spectacularly on the first attempt – only just scraping through on the second attempt after being chased by a Brummie with fists like hams threatening to “punch yow head in if yow don’t hurry up” – true story!) I have come to love running in my late twenties (sub-editors please check – should this not say late forties?) – but running is still very much a learning process for me… So, I’ve been working my way up from the 2017 Leighton 5k (my first race), through Cross Country, the Flitwick 10k and Leicestershire 10k (36th overall & 2nd V45 – almost certainly the best result I will ever have – I know! BOOM!), and the Buckingham, Burnham Beeches, Royal Parks and Dirt Half Marathons (my absolute favourite distance); but I feel that (and this is only my opinion mind – and thus completely worthless!) I won’t consider myself a “proper” runner until I’ve done a Marathon… At this point, dear reader, I have an admission to make – with a gang of mates from work I’ve done the Oxfam Trailwalker 100km event for the Gurkha Welfare Trust in 2013 and 2014, so I sort of have a Marathon PB – 6.5 hours, and my second fastest Marathon is 7 hours, but to be fair they were on the same day – but they weren’t really like racing, fast walking mostly – at 50 miles I sat in an armchair and ate a bowl of casserole – a fuelling option NOT available at most Marathons – although you can probably get some Quinoa or an Avocado on the VLM ho ho! I love the fact that you can run a Half Marathon on a Sunday – and be back running as normal by Wednesday, but as far as I understand, the toll on your body from a Marathon can take a while to recover from – so I’ve got a grand plan – no 100 Club for me – instead I’m going to run ONE! And as I’m planning to only run one, I want it to be a spectacular one – I thought about New York, Tokyo, London, perhaps Berlin… But they didn’t have the out and out glamour that I was looking for; then I though perhaps Kielder, Loch Ness or Snowdonia, but they’re not scenic enough; so realistically there’s only one left – MK!!! What’s that? “You’ve only chosen MK as it’s nearby and you can’t be bothered to travel?” How very dare you – I’ll have you know that the City of Dreams has loads going for it, for instance did you know that: You are never more than half a mile from a park (or a Nandos – although this bit “may” be made up). 22 million trees have been planted in MK (that’s more than 3.6 million for each of the Concrete Cows). Midsummer Boulevard is aligned so the sun rises at its east end on the Summer Solstice – actually true! The Point was the first multiplex cinema in Britain when it opened in 1985, although it’s shut now and looks pretty rough to be honest, I think they’re going to knock it down – alright this one was ill thought out. Cliff Richard filmed his Wired for Sound video in the Centre:MK – and I think we can all agree it’s an ABSOLUTE STONE-COLD BANGER!! So, taking our own Super-Jen Garner’s advice – I applied to be an MK Marathon Ambassador for 2019 – AND GOT IN! What were they thinking? I get a hoody, a Buff with a cow’s face on it – reason enough to apply! And I get to have a celebratory wee in the underpass of my choosing! So, it’s all VERY exciting, and I’ve got lots to learn, and would appreciate any and all advice from everyone – the more conflicting and impractical the better! p.s. I completely and genuinely have a really soft spot for MK, I think it’s massively underrated, but then I grew up in Leicester – go figure… p.p.s I’ve started a blog at http://roadtomkmarathon.blogspot.com and my Instagram is getting ever more running related at https://www.instagram.com/hunstantonsmith/ – get me – quite the social media influencer, just wait until people see my MySpace page!

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