Marathon #6: The Kent Road Runner Marathon...the one with the laps

Well, I had mixed thoughts about this one beforehand. Originally, I had dismissed this race, as it is 17 laps around a cycle track (the Cyclopark, in Gravesend), and looked on the website to be full of fast serious people chasing PBs. Not for me, I thought, and pottered off to look for a more relaxed/less monotonous affair for Number 6....

Alas! This was not to be. Due to my inability to transport myself without public transport, and the lack of any kind car-driving souls around this weekend to assist in travelling to far flung corners of the UK, there were no other options for a nearby race this weekend. So then, I signed up to the 2nd Kent Road Runner Marathon.....

Well, I was wrong! In fairness, I had done a bit of research since signing up, and saw that the inaugural Kent Road Runner Marathon last year had got rave reviews from 94% of people who did it. Pretty good. So I was looking forward to the day and to doing another race. I NEVER thought I’d say this at the beginning of the year, but 3 weeks seems like a long time since the last marathon, I want another!

So, up at 4.50am. Ouch!!! Made my way up to Kings Cross (the tube is nice at this time of day, I had not a seat, but a whole carriage to myself!), where I met a fellow runner called Nick who was also bound for Gravesend and chasing a PB of 3.15 to qualify for London next year (wow!). We then met a couple of other runners at the station, and all caught a cab together to the start of the race. I’d been a little down about having no one to go to this race with, but I guess the advantage of being on your own is that you’re more likely to get chatting to others, and this race was so friendly, I met loads of lovely people. Including Emma, who is in remission from leukemia and is running 3 marathons in 6 weeks – amazing :-D Long distance running is a great community to be a part of, and today proved it.

Collected number, had a look around and had a last minute cup of tea and tried to eat the rest of my breakfast. Wasn’t hungry earlier and having a slight panic I’ve not eaten enough, but now it's too close to the start! Ah well, the advantage of doing 17 laps of the same loop is that you get to pass the drinks station 17 times (which has Cliff Energy Blocks, my favourite!) - nom nom.

17 laps means you have to keep count . So, each runner gets 16 x wrist bands to start with, and after each lap you take one off and throw it into a box, and when you take the last one off, you know you have one lap to go. I had 4xblue, 4xwhite, 4xpink and 4xblack. Why are you telling me this, I hear you say, this is boring! Well, that may be so, but patience, there is a reason - I took off each band in colour order, first blue (doesn’t go with outfit), then black (too hot for black), then white, and finally when I was down to the pink (the best) I knew there were only 7.5 miles left to go. It’s a bit silly, but I found the action of actually taking a band off each lap really helped me mentally. 

And the laps had the opposite effect on me to that which I thought they would. I was expecting to find it a very difficult race, I don’t generally like lap races, but I think with them being so short (approx 1.5 miles each), that it helped to break the race down and kept me focused on each section. Until, the last couple of laps when there were people around me finishing and I had to keep going....then it got a bit tough.

Well, the course started like this:

Turned into this:

And ended like this:

It is not flat (don’t believe what they say) and sometime about half way through the race someone tilted the track so it became even less flat. You may not believe me, but this is a fact, and is easily verifiable – you just need to run around it yourself a few times, you’ll soon find the hills.

I would however like to say a big THANK YOU to the lady who was stood on the steep HILL and had a tambourine and shouted my name and encouraging things EVERY lap!!! I actually looked forward to that hill!

Well, by lap 11 I was sure of the parts of the lap I found hard and the parts that were easy and could make up time. I felt good most of the way, apart from there was something wrong with my left leg which bugged me for a few miles in the middle but then settled down, and after about 20 miles I started to get a headache from the sun and getting a bit of dehydrated. But, well, you can make it through the last few miles feeling a bit rough.

And by then I knew I was on target for 4 hours. The (infrequent) feeling of getting to the last few miles of a marathon and finishing strong is brilliant, and I finished in 3.48.59 which is my fastest time this year, and I managed to pace myself properly :-D (and this is the ‘gun time’ so my official time will be a little bit faster - I know I know, obsessive). Totally worth running 26 miles to get the medal, it's epic!:

Quick post-race massage and some stretching = big recommendation to get your legs back to normal ASAP, I’m finding it makes a big difference to my recovery time. Then back to the station with some of the runners, and back to London....

Great race, great people, great day! 6 down....7 to go!