Running race 3:06:26 [5] 42.19 km (4:25 / km) +50m 4:24 / km
ahr:149 weight:73.9kg shoes: Asics GT1000-2 White/Yellow No
Finally, after years of intending to do one, a marathon. I hadn't been so keen to do Edinburgh on account of it's reputation as a bit of a boring course but it was perfectly good at the start and the course was fine.
Met up with Mike T, Gavin and Rhyno at the start and so it was looking good for running as a pack, all four of us aiming for 3 hours. But we all set off too fast. Well, just a bit too fast. After a few km we were at 4'09/k pace (into the wind) versus more like 4'12+/k intended (vs 3 hour pace 4'16/k), then Gavin and Mike T drifted off ahead and Rhyno and I kept running at what seemed to be 2'55 schedule. We were however only being sensible relative to Gavin and Mike. A large alarm bell in my head started ringing and I dropped back at about 10k, intending to drop to precisely 3 hour pace. But after a km Rhyno was still just ahead so I joined in again, well I might just be able to run at that pace, or it's good to run with other people and I might just die a bit at the end.
Through half way in 88'20, it was certainly starting to hurt and at 14 miles I decide to drop back a little and see if I could save things a bit by dropping 10 seconds a km while that was still optional. By 18 miles it was pretty grim. Quite a lot of distance left to grind out. Was through 20 miles in 2'17, similar time to the E>NB and kept 4'25/k up for a bit, eventually dropping to my 4'45/k long run pace. Actually I was pretty happy to manage to stop the rot at that speed - my legs were cramping up. Ran past Mike T who had blown up even more.
So - major pacing failure and I wasn't the only one - all four of us were comfortably under 90 mins at half way and none of us made 3 hours... It's always nicer to be one of those who are finishing strongly rather than those that they are running past...
Some optimism for the future though. I think I might have had a chance of the 3 hours if I had paced evenly (and I had learned from the E>NB that I had nothing spare to have a chance of 3). My training was disturbed by injury - I think I got the long runs in and the tempo runs. What was missing was total mileage - I can't go out for a 10 mile easy. That still feels like a long run. Next time, I'll make sure I'm more comfortable with the total distance and that my 'day to day' mileage is higher. And I'll run my own race...
263rd.