The Edinburgh Rock & Roll Half Marathon 2013 - Race Report

There are things you don't want to see on race day. Offical race marquees blowing away is one of them. Umbrellas blowing inside out is another, as are waves of sleet whooshing across Arthur's Seat, the backdrop to hundreds of people queuing for the portaloos.

Yesterday I'd been really positive about the race and feeling like I'd got my running mojo back. But pretty much as soon as I woke up today, to the sound of a howling gale coming down my chimney, I started to feel a whole lot less confident about (a) wearing my new vest and (b) running a PB at the Edinburgh Rock & Roll Half Marathon.

I swithered about wearing my new vest. It was a symbol of how positive and ambitious I felt about the race - to ditch it seemed like a bad omen. I'd painted my nails to match it. When I realised that there was No Way I would be taking my gloves off during this race, meaning my nails were irrelevant, I gave up on the vest and put on a t-shirt instead.

The conditions were horrible. Starting the race on Queen's Drive in Holyrood Park is asking for trouble - it's a wind tunnel and even on reasonable days I try to avoid it when I'm running. Today wasn't a reasonable day - although it wasn't too cold (12oC), the wind was 37mph and the rain and sleet were driving. The start of the race was delayed while the course was made safer - not what you want to hear when you're shivering at the start line! Undoubtedly there were moments when the course was warm and sheltered - but the start and finish in the park easily obliterate those memories.

To join the pace group, the instructions said to go to the souvenir stall at 0830 and sign up. The weather meant that every marquee was crushed full with sheltering runners so I had no idea which tent housed the souvenir stall. I looked at the queues for the toilets and the bag drop, and decided to cut my losses. The pace group I could live without, but I couldn't run with a full bladder and a rucksack.

You couldn't fault the route. It took in lots of parks and lots of Edinburgh's lovely views, including Portobello Prom! I got to run past my street - although the weather really diminished the crowds.  And the organisation was fine - doing a pretty good job in the face of adversity. But Holyrood Park is a rotten venue for anything on a windy day.

My lovely, wet, grumpy children waiting on Leith Links to cheer me on.

Me passing the bottom of my street and managing a grin for my lovely hubby and kids.

I was undeterred and still gave the race everything I could. I put up with the weather (I've faced much worse in training); at any given moment, I was putting my all into the race. From mile 10 my hamstrings were really feeling the pressure. I hurt pretty much all the way round. The hills were tough and sometimes my pace was slow, but I never stopped giving it all I had. I felt really pleased with the effort I put in - I reckon I put in about 20% more than I did when I tried the route last week.

Sadly, 20% extra effort translated into an improvement in my time of 1.8%!

I finished in 1 hour 50 minutes 10 seconds. That made me 182nd woman out of 2269, and overall 964 out of 4361. But mostly it made me pretty disappointed! I can't blame the weather, or course congestion, or anything going wrong - I just wasn't fast enough.

The low point was the queue for the baggage return. A massive, unmoving queue of shivering, wet runners waiting in the howling gale. It was like trying to get served in the world's busiest pub with only one barman. We were given bacofoil blankets which deafened you as the wind whipped them! The queue for the t-shirts was a bit shorter thankfully. The t-shirt is very nice and so is the medal. So were the compression socks I won in the Facebook competition yesterday.

Big thanks CEP for a brief respite from the climate, and funky pink compression sleeves!

I tramped across the mud and made my way to the Commonwealth Pool for a shower. The wind was horrible, I was cold and wet and on the verge of tears. Possibly an all-time low in my racing 'career' - even worse than getting lost in the 10M hill race last year.

A long, hot shower and a burger & chips later and I felt a bit better. I spent the rest of the day at a rehearsal for a show I'll be dancing in at The Pleasance in May, which cheered me up. Now that I'm warm and back in the fuzzy heart of my family (with a small girl cuddling up and saying, "mummy, you're the greatest runner", and giving me a kiss), I don't yet feel philosphical about my performance. I worked really hard and got hardly anything back, and I'm feeling really deflated and disappointed.

Marathon moaning

Today begins week 8 of my 16 week marathon training programme. My marathon training takes up the single biggest part of my brain at the moment. At the moment I have to confess that I'm getting a bit fed up of it.

When I finish my Monday run, I start thinking about my Wednesday speed training session (tempo run, hill run, mile repeats or Yasso 800s) - how fast will I go? will I manage it? how much will it hurt? Then, even when I'm stretching after Thursday's recovery run, I'm already thinking about my Saturday long run - what other workouts will I have the energy for before it? what will I eat on Friday? what will I wear, what fuel will I take? what's my route going to be?

And when I'm recovering, I'm thinking about what I'm eating (and wishing I wanted to eat things that aren't just chocolate), procrastinating about stretching, and contemplating which part of me is aching most at that moment in time - usually a choice between my hip flexor, my anterior deltoid, and my foot. Although right now my throat's pretty sore too.

Everything I do, I see it in relation to my marathon training. Does my college class in Current Exercise Trends work my legs too soon before my long run? If I work on Tuesday night, will I be able to run on Wednesday? Should I visit family the day after the tune-up half marathon race, or the day of teh 20 mile training run? It feels like I'm programming my life round my training programme. 

Last year, my marathon training only lasted for 8 weeks - this year it's 16. So I've never had to work my body for this long before. I need to find new resolve - mental strength is required, because this is something I've never been through before.

I'm not considering quitting, I still want to run this marathon (Edinburgh on May 26th) and I want to finish in under 4 hours. But unless I continue to remember that really, really want it, my body's probably going to quit on my brain's behalf.

The hideous weather isn't helping. It's the middle of March and there's been snow every day for the last week. I ran in a full-on blizzard a fortnight ago. Yesterday's 18 miles had to be run on the relatively tedious cycle paths and when I was done, I didn't feel joyous, I really  just felt relieved.

Right, that's enough moaning. The more I talk up the down, the lower I'll get! Sunday is recovery day and it's all right to feel tired today.
Tomorrow I'll be back on the pavement.
Tomorrow I'll feel better about myself again.
Tomorrow I'll try again to stop eating sweeties and chocolate like Augustus Gloop.
Tomorrow is the first day of the school holidays so hopefully I'll have a fortnight of better rest, more foam rolling and a general bit of R&R.

If you've got any tips to help me find the mental strength to get through this wobble, please share them with me!

Feeling better

I've had a better running week. At the same time I've had an excellent week at college so things are going a bit more smoothly than last week and the depressing hill race debacle.

My knee niggle's been fine, and more importantly, I decided that I just wanted to enjoy running this week, without trying to be faster.  I ran 5 miles on Tuesday, and another 5 on Thursday, when I went up Carlton Hill, which is steadily uphill for 25 minutes, with a variety of gradients. My times weren't disgraceful, and I just felt good about running.

Today was even better - 14 miles from my house to Cramond and back. It was dark when I went out, the sun rose while I ran and it was fully daylight when I got home. That's my favourite sort of run - sunrise run, even on a cloudy day. Hat and gloves required and a pocket full of jelly babies. My routes along the coast are so scenic, even if they're windy. I felt really good today and really enjoyed every step, despite starting off a bit stressed and not even sure how long I was going to aim for.

I've not been very motivated to train recently, and I heard something on the MTA podcast this morning a quote that made me think. The speaker Eric Strand said he was paraphrasing Sir Edmund Hilary when he said "It woudln't be much of an adventure if success was guaranteed." I've never failed to complete a half marathon - unlike training for my first marathon, which was a new and exciting prospect and I had no idea if it was within my capabilities.

I'm not sure what I'll do next week, if I'll do more speedwork - after all the race I'm training for is in 2 weeks. But I'm so happy to be enjoying running again, especially since last week everything seemed so bleak.

15 hours to go!

Race day is tomorrow.

I've made it though the last eight weeks without getting a cold, or getting injured. I've completed my training programme, and I've enjoyed it. I've got my running kit and fuelling sorted out. I've planned how to get to the start line, and packed my post-race bag. After 10 hours sleep last night, I've spent today resting, not getting dehydrated and stretching. Later on I'll load up my ipod with podcasts and eat my last two, carefully planned post-race meals.

Today's been more about mental strength than any other day in the last 8 weeks. 

Change in the Weather: The last week has been sunny and hot, which is extremely rare in Edinburgh. As I run before 7am, I'm not accustomed to running in warm weather - in fact, this week was the first time this year I've run without a jacket!  Where I live, by the coast, sunny days are usually preceeded by a good few hours of haar before the sunshine kicks in, so early runs are invariably cool, even in summer.

Today: When I woke up at 7am today the sun was beaming through the house. I went from asleep to hysterical in about five minutes flat. I couldn't think about anything else all morning - how the hell was I going to cope with running in those conditions? I was panicking. When I got some time to myself I did my best to distract myself (recollecting my most amazing night at Club Bellydance on Thursday night!) and trying to surround myself with postive thoughts instead of panic.

The Bright Side: The forecast for tomorrow is for early fog, and the temperatures are not as warm as today, only 16 degrees. Most of the marathon course is coastal so there should be a nice breeze (in different weather I'd be more worried about the wind!) There's going to be loads of water stations, and I'll take my running bottle with me too. I've run in heat before - last year's Haddington Half Marathon was practically mediterranean, and I survived that (although it wasn't a pretty sight!) And I bet lots of locals living along the marathon route will be spraying us with their garden hoses - they did that last year and it wasn't even all that hot!!

My goals: I want No Negative Thoughts to creep in, and I want to Stay Positive throughout. I was hoping to finish in 4 hours 30minutes but if the weather makes me slower, so be it. I'll aim for 9m45s/mile.  I want to keep running the whole race and I want to finish strong. I'm going to be thinking of how good I'll feel when I cross that finish line, and how amazing it'll be to meet the other Leith Primary School runners in The Parlour later on, having completed my first marathon. I'll be thinking of pizza later, and fish, chips and icecream with my daughter (which we've promised ourselves as a post-marathon treat for weeks!)

The Pep Talk: I have what it takes to run this marathon. I have trained and prepared for this marathon. I will give this race all I have, and leave it all out there on the course - no point in taking anything home with me. It will be hard, but I've done things that are hard before, and succeeded.

Bring it on!!

Marathon Training Programme

This is the marathon training programme I'm going for. It comes from the Edinburgh Marathon Festival site and I think that 4 runs per week will work better for me than the 6 that my friend Luis recommended to me! It is their "First Timer Option 1" schedule, no tempo or pace runs, which makes things a bit more straighforward and a bit less daunting. If I'm finding it too easy (which I doubt!!) I can always step it up a bit to one of the other programmes.

I'm a bit disappointed that tomorrow is a rest day - I'm desperate to get started! But since this schedule is designed for a Sunday race, I'll stick with this programme. Maybe a bit of stretching and some weights tomorrow instead. After all, tomorrow is the first day of the Easter holidays, which means that I'll have an 8-year-old and a 4-year-old at home all day with me. I will need to do all I can to keep my sanity intact and a workout will be a good start to the week!

9	W/E Apr 8	Rest	4m run	8m run	4m run	Rest	16m run	Cross Train
10	W/E Apr 15	Rest	4m run	8m run	5m run	Rest	12m run	Cross Train
11	W/E Apr 22	Rest	4m run	9m run	5m run	Rest	18m run	Cross Train
12	W/E Apr 29	Rest	5m run	9m run	5m run	Rest	14m run	Cross Train
13	W/E May 6	Rest	5m run	10m run	5m run	Rest	20m run	Cross Train
14	W/E May 13	Rest	5m run	8m run	4m run	Rest	12m run	Cross Train
15	W/E May 20	Rest	4m run	6m run	3m run	Rest	8m run	Cross Train
16	W/E May 27	Rest	3m run	4m run	2m run	Rest	Rest	EMF Marathon