Today a friend and I ran the Parakeet Marathon for the second time, nearly a year after first running it. My aim was to improve on my previous time, and to get round in much better shape, and if possible to get up all the hills at something approaching a run, rather than the shambolic stagger I was reduced to last time. All of these I can safely say I achieved, thanks mainly to the stalwart support and encouragement of my friend.
I have already written about my non-tapering approach to training I employed this year, and I can also report that that worked for me. I know it won't work for everyone, especially those who are training seriously to try to get a particular time, or to race as well as they can, but that is not my aim. This year I felt ready for the distance, confident that I would be able to complete it, having run nearly 24 miles the week before and not suffering too badly afterwards.
Everyone tells me that if you start running too fast, you will run out of energy before the end. My friend is a much better and more experienced runner than I am, and he helped me control my speed to the right pace from the beginning. Also, because he very generously was prepared to run at my pace the whole way round, we were able to talk, and the first 15 miles slipped by in 3 hours with my barely noticing the distance.
After 15 miles we paused briefly for drinks and a few jelly babies, then set off on the second leg of the marathon. The Wimbledon Common leg is tougher, with 4 hill sections, and a couple of short but very steep mounds to get over. In fact I wished I had tackled it doing that leg first. The riverside / Bushy Park / Home Park section is almost completely flat.
We kept the pace steady and slowed down on the hill sections. I needed to stop to catch my breath when I got to the top of some of them, and my legs started to get twinges of cramp, but I was able to continue after a bit of stretching.
Another friend phoned me and arranged to rendezvous with us at Robin Hood Gate of Richmond Park to accompany us for the last ~3 miles. He was on his bike, but he managed to negotiate the muddy tracks we ran along. Where possible I ran on tarmac for the latter stages where I would normally stick to the grass verge. My legs were tired and I found a hard surface was easier than a soft one. With my friends' encouragement I managed to pick up the pace a bit in the middle of Richmond Park heading to Ham Gate.
At Ham Gate I checked the distance we had run on my Garmin. There is always the possibility of a discrepancy between what a route measuring program on a computer measures, and what a Garmin measures on the ground. I wanted to be sure that I could say I had completed at least 26.2 miles as verified by my Garmin. It said ~25.4 miles, and I thought that it was about a mile back to Richmond Gate car park, so that would be fine. I explained to the others that if the Garmin was reading less than 26.2 miles when we got to the end that we should run on some more until we had made up the distance. As the car park came into sight, I re-checked, and was disappointed to find that the Garmin was only reading 25.9 miles. So I explained this to my companions and decided we should run past the car park, through the gate,until the reading reached 26.1 miles before turning round. This we did, and the final distance when we got back to our start point was 26.23 miles, and the time was 6:01:22. My legs felt pretty tired but I was otherwise OK. That time is 40 minutes faster than last year, mainly due to the fact that I had 6 fewer refreshment stops.
My thanks to my friends who ran and cycled with me and supported and encouraged me, and to my ever loyal and patient wife who timed us and provided drinks and refreshments.
