3:26:55 – for now is good…

First marathon in 2016. Still not ready or at least that how I feel. But I had to try. Try myself. And besides that there was AGM after the run. So, I was on the road again, driving towards Lilliput to see my running friends and to run with them. Lilliput is not even a hour drive so early morning and into the car. Morning was actually grand, not too cold and it wasn’t raining…

Arrived there just before early starters begun their race. Had to wait for them to pass the gates of Lilliput Adventure Centre and just after that I could park the car, register and start my preparation for the run. Form not the best but my biggest concern was (still is) IBS. If I will be able to run without pitstops? This time was ok. Better than on the training sessions. No more talk about that. I always liked Lilliput route. It is flat, which should make it fast. But there is as well some parts of the loop where you are running not on the road just on the trail. In fact, one loop has less than 10 km and trail makes over 5 km from that. It could be tricky part. Last year, when it was freezing that part was hard to run, very slip. This time it was warmer but couple days before it was colder and wetter so trail potentially could be quite bad to run. But again it was ok. I was over thinking all. I should just focus on what was important- steady run without breaks. Time wasn’t important, but was I would be happy to get 3:45. So, steady pace of 5:18 per km. 6 months ago would say that running at that pace would be a jog but now, at the beginning of the recovery process that is a running pace for me…

Start just after 9AM. In my mind one idea – stay at your pace, do not run faster. I was tempted to run after the faster runners but knew that could cost me much (walking in later stage). Stay behind, run your own marathon. 5:18 seems to be slow or… Anyway, I have started little bit faster. 4:57, pace for marathon time of 3:30. Silly, isn’t it? It was. But did another silly thing. Went faster. Was feeling great and happy after small loop and half of the big one that suddenly decided that should go faster. Why, oh why? Why not sticking to the plan? That is my problem – why planning if I will ignore it later. This time wasn’t too bad. Until wind kicked in on the 3rd lap I was managing around 3:25 time but after little bit wind in the face I have slowed down. I could feel it, could try to keep the pace but didn’t want to loose energy before last lap just to get 3:25. Same amount of energy, just slow little bit down. Most important was to finish without stopping and I did that. Time 3:26:55 was actually much better than I have expected…

Little recovery time after run and MCI had AGM. Decisions, new board, growing club. Changes… great club.

Plenty pictures but not me on them…