Last week, I travelled to Edinburgh. I flew up on Wednesday night, then taught two classes on the Thursday and Friday. Both classes were very busy and filled with fabulous people, mainly lovely Scottish people, but also a couple of people from Germany, Iceland and Spain.
As well as the classes going well, I do love Edinburgh. I love the architecture, I love the people who are so friendly, and I was staying in a hotel right on the Royal Mile, so everything was near to me.
On Saturday, I was able to do a little bit of shopping (presents for my wife and kids, as well as a rare chance for me to buy some new clothes) and I also got to go the the Edinburgh marathon festival hub. This was at the Dynamic Earth centre, which looks a bit like the London dome (now the O2 arena) except for it having very cool statues of dinosaurs at the main entrance, which is where I met for a drink and interview with one of the Edinburgh marathon festival PR team (very lovely man Chris Broadbent). Edinburgh and Bournemouth marathon festivals are run by the same people and have the same PR team. I met up to talk about my own Bournemouth marathon challenge later this year when I will be running all four events one after the other.
After that, I watched the Scottish (felt very sorry for Falkirk) and English cup finals, ate well and had an early night.
Sunday was the morning of the marathon. Runners had been sent emails from the Edinburgh marathon team the day before stating that the weather was going to be bad and to make sure precautions and right clothing were taken. I actually ran Edinburgh marathon back in 2012 when it was incredibly hot and people were out in their front gardens hosing us runners down with water. I was actually quite relieved that this time around it was going to be grey and a bit wet, that suits me and my sensitive complexion. That morning, it was grey, with light rain, but no way near as bad as I thought it was going to be and after a big cooked breakfast, I bought my race day dose of Costa Coffee (very rare caffeine intake for me) and strolled out to the start area.
I was in the red start zone and having handed my bags in, made sure I’d used the portaloos enough times, and got wrapped in my bin bag, I managed to get to the front of the start zone. This meant I got an eagle eye view of the elite runners including Bournemouth’s own Steve Way, the eventual winner Peter Wanjiru and last year’s winner David Toniok. It was a bit chilly, but huddled in with the other runners, getting some camaraderie going and clapping the elites getting their introductions made it all much more enjoyable and I was ready to go.
The start of the race leaves the city centre and goes through some lovely parklands and has some beautiful back drops.
I ran with a fast bunch to start and clocked a sub 19 minute first 5km and although working hard, slowed down a touch but still ran the first 10km in 40 minutes. I felt good, despite looking very shagged out in all my photos from the first half of the race. I really enjoyed the sections of the race along the coastline on the outskirts of the city.
And…
I clocked a 1hr 27min first half of the race and was feeling in great shape, I kept that pace up and was really certain I’d clock an impressive time up to the 17 mile mark. It was at this stage that the course route headed back in a different direction to Musselburgh and all runners had to compete with an incredibly strong headwind. From there my pace just dropped right off (the winner even dropped his pace quite significantly too!) and all the runners and news regarding the race have commented upon the winds.
For me from there, it was simply a case of getting to the finish and no longer about clocking a personal best or getting an impressive time. I used a lot of mental strategy in the closing parts of the race to help me push on through the pain.
I suffered in the final few miles as I really struggled to cope with the wind, but crossed the line in 3hrs 09mins. I was in position 252 out of the 16,000 runners, and was 43rd in my age category. All in all, I am very pleased with that, and feel very confident of building upon that too n the next year.
I got a shuttle bus back to the City centre and got sat next to a very Scottish runner and we chatted. He said to me “A’m pure spent noo, man” this cracked me up, I really enjoyed his company as well as all the other runners who I had a few beers with in the bar after I had showered. 70% of the thousands of runners (30,000 in all 4 races across the weekend) come from outside of Scotland, so it also has a very mixed, netropolitan and wonderful atmosphere; in my hotel were a group of Italian runners who were just such good fun and made for a lively time of it.
My flight home was yesterday, I got to catch up with my wife and children and get back into the office yesterday. I am having a full week off running. The first full week off running in what seems like forever. Then next Monday my next training schedule starts and I will be back here again sharing my ongoing toils and sharing with you the latest methods to use your mind to help with your running. I’ll leave you with a two gun salute, back soon! Happy running.
