Race report: Copenhagen marathon

Copenhagen marathon had been in my diary for a while. Since a disastrous race at London last year, I’ve been scared of trying to run fast. So I ran a few marathons with friends, ran at a relaxed pace and focussed on a couple of ultras where the emphasis was on distance rather than speed.

I went back to London this year to run the race I should have run in 2014 – ran comfortably and enjoyed the vibe – to put right what went wrong. But that nagging feeling at the back of my head was still there. I was scared to push the pace over anything more than a 5k.

Copenhagen marathon was far enough away from EcoTrail Paris (80k) that I figured that I would be recovered enough to put my foot down. I laughed off the idea that I’d been ‘training’ for Copenhagen: “Yeah I’m training for a marathon by doing a couple of ultras” but really it was a way of taking the pressure off myself. I’m not good with pressure.

Then 10 days before the race, the doubts started to build: what was I doing? London had been horrible. I haven’t run fast in months, what made me think I could keep the tempo up for a whole 26.2 mile. I went swimming, wrestled with my internal monologue and then later that day my foot refused to work properly. It hurt when I flexed it and wouldn’t let me walk down stairs. My internal monologue changed: “I’ve missed my chance. It was going so well.” I did what anyone would do in this situation and entered an autumn marathon as a back-up.

I travelled out to Copenhagen with Phil, Katie and her friend Kate. We rented an Air B&B 200m from the race start and finish, ate a lot of cake, bought a lot of post-race beers and had a chilled out couple of days before the race. My foot felt better and I’d done 10 slow miles on it the Sunday before to make sure it was OK. We settled in with a big dinner and a film in our flat the night before the race and then it was time to go run.

Phil asked me the day before what I was planning to do in the marathon. What my ‘race plan’ was.

“I don’t want to finish feeling I could have pushed it a bit more. I don’t care what the clock says, I want to finish knowing I gave it my best shot. I don’t want to back away from running fast.” But I had no idea what this translated to in terms of pacing.

I lined up behind the 3:40 pace balloons with a vague plan forming that I would gradually make my way past it in the first half and then see what happened from there. The race started and balloons bobbed along ahead of me, as did thousands of heads.

We crossed a bridge and headed to the heart of Copenhagen. The route was lined with spectators and landmarks, and we’d get to see a lot of sights along the way. It was a great route for being a tourist, but not so great for pacing a fast time. As we wound our way around the town, the busy pace group in front of me would slow almost to a halt to turn the corners. Then came the drinks stations and the combination of drinks in cups and having them only on one side of the road made for carnage – everyone stopped or dived perilously in front of each other to grab a drink.

At five miles I started to pick up the pace and work my way ahead of the pace group where I thought the field would be thinner. A few miles later I went passed their purple balloons and found enough space to keep running round corners. I went through half-way on target for 3:40 and with the pacer a couple hundred metres behind me.  I drank from the water stops, but the drinks stations that I’d missed started to creep up on me. My mouth was dry and the sun was out. My legs had felt good, the pace had been fine, everything had been going well with my body but now I started to slow.

I spent a desperate couple of miles hoping that someone would go past me with a bottle of water that I could beg a drink from. But it didn’t happen. We got to a water stop near a bridge and I stopped to take two drinks. The pace group went past me and I walked slowly over a bridge that, to me at that point, felt like a mountain. I thought about giving up – not on the race but on running fast. The pace group disappeared as I picked my feet up to a jog.

“You can run slow, but you’ve got to keep running” I told myself.

I thought about my race plan. My aim had been to not give up. Not to stop pushing, whatever pace that meant. The purple balloons with 3:40 on them had been an arbitrary number. They didn’t mean anything to me. I thought about what I really want to achieve from running marathons faster – other than getting back to that beer a little quicker.

3:35 – this would qualify me for Boston marathon. This wouldn’t happen today but I could see how close I was to making it happen this Autumn.

3:38 – my current PB. It wasn’t in danger of being toppled today.

3:45 – something under this would get me another Good For Age place in London next year. And so that became the plan.

After three miles of feeling sorry for myself as the pace slowed, I picked my feet up, picked my chin up and started running. In the last six miles of the 80k EcoTrail Paris, I ran all my miles under 9 mins. There were no excuses not to do the same today.

I found the pace I’d kept for the first half of the race and kept running. As we headed back over the bridge towards the start I ran as hard as I could, past other runners, past our apartment and past the finish line.

I was handed a medal, a rose, a hot chocolate and a Danish pastry. I climbed four flights of stairs and sat by the window to watch out for Katie and Phil.

My watch said 3:42. My legs said there was something left in the tank. My mind said it’s not scared of running faster. Roll on October.