The struggle this time was to get to the start line, but when I did get there I was only slightly undertrained (it had been an intense season, Surrey League XC to be sure so I was still fit); was, crucially, uninjured; and I was very well rested and confident. This much I have learned about training and marathons to arrive in this state, at the Brighton start line in 2019.
At 9:20am I sidled up the Yellow holding pen to the front near the big screen and loudspeakers. I bobbed my head to Queen along with images of Wayne & Garth as the emcee very successfully got the increasing numbers of arriving runner very thoroughly pumped up on a cold Brighton morning.
In the Red pen (3:30-4hrs) next to us (here in the 4-4:30hrs pen), I saw one of the pacers I'd met the day before in the event village, and with whom I'd had a brief discussion about what to wear for the race (thin long sleeve shirt and shorts) but, to my chagrin, he was in a faster lane than the one I'd signed up for. I watched as the 4hr pacers (there were four of them) bobbed away ahead out of sight, the Red pen having been let go about ten minutes before us. Still, I figured I could catch them without subjecting my marathon to a disastrous "too fast" start.
I managed to catch them 5 miles or so later, once we'd wound around the city centre for a while and come out on the long grassy/beachy section on the coastal part just to the east of town. From here I stuck fast to the pacers until the final five miles. And it felt like a race because of the constant jockeying for position, the pylons, the slowing runners emerging ahead of us who, when sighting the red 4hr pacer balloon might briefly rally but then slow, holding the steady-pacers back if they didn't push past.
The field was crowded for its entirety, with a constant cluster of paced runners hanging out behind those red balloons. For a while that big red ball was bouncing off my head in the constant and shifting wind off the coast, a wind that funnelled up the city sections through which we threaded our paths on the western segments in the latter half of the race.
I kept my pace steady from 5 to 21 miles, constant as clockwork, not even thinking about the act, about what my feet were doing through that whole long middle section. I was on auto-pilot, taking in the sights, and enjoying the ride my feet and legs were giving me, almost like they belonged to someone else, to a machine that was pushing me around of its own accord.
The final five miles were hard, but not as hard as you might think. I turned the final corner, and saw three of my fellow-paced running companions (as I'd come to think of these strangers, now oddly familiar, running beside me) up ahead of the red balloons, and I decided to follow them, to pick up the pace. About a half dozen of us broke ranks and surged forward, each on our own individual initiative and accord, into the very cool and not insignificant buffeting headwind of the home stretch along Brighton beach. It was, as our pacer had said just moments before (he was otherwise not chatty) "the shortest way home".
We surged again significantly into that wind, way down below sub-9min/mile pace, onward to the finish line, the absolutely manic cheering spectators helping dispel fatigue on the final push.
Here's what worked so well overall for me to achieve a time with which I'm very happy (3:54:35, a PB):
1 I actually used a mantra along the home stretch: "fatigue is a state of mind", was what I said to myself over and over running towards the dual beacons of the Brighton i360 tower and the pier. It helped a lot.
2 I held my achieved mile/km count in mind as a positive, and never allowed myself to dwell on the time remaining. So, after 15km I thought of that number; after 20miles I held that in mind (not the amount remaining). After the start of the race, I always had less than a marathon to actually run -- this made a big psychological difference.
3 The temperature was a big factor, and what I wore in relation to it. I almost wore pocketless running tights, but switched on the morning. I know now that I would've been hotter and less well-organised had I gone with those. The gloves I wore I only took off after 15 miles, and probably should've put them back on again in the last five but didn't. I was comfortably cool the whole way around, never feeling any extreme of hot or cold. It was ideal.
4 Nutrition is a factor I handled really well. I started getting low blood sugar right away, in the first mile, and drank a whole bottle of Lucozade in the first five miles just to keep the tingling out of my fingers. I'd had a relatively small breakfast of four oatmeal packets with nuts in the hotel room along with a pre-race granola bar. I staved off hypoglycaemia by eating almost constantly the whole way round: in total, 2 Lucozade; 9 jelly babies; 1 Stoats granola bar; 1 Trek granola bar; 1 Zero get provided by the race; and for hydration I also took advantage of water and/or energy drink stations at least 5 times. I came around the final cold bend on the beach energised in my core and in my legs.
"Fatigue is a state of mind" indeed. Thinking/saying this, visualising, eating, and staying positive, all these things, and the great companionship of my running club (Runnymede Runners), my wife Diane, and the cheering crowds of Brighton itself, got me around to the finish line.
