At the start line: focused!
It wasn't that hot of a day, but the new course is very hilly, even more so than when I ran my first marathon here back in 2018.
What I'm saying is: they've added hills since then. And it was really hilly back then.
After completing the marathon this year, with all its delights, including 4 times over Itchen Bridge, Strava told me that the course (two times around the main loop) had 1050 feet of elevation gain.
One thing I will say is: it felt like it!
Psychologically this is an interesting course. You got a loop within a loop, and you have to do the main loop twice if you're running a marathon. That's four loops, which is why you cross the bridge that many times.
Some will say, the bridge isn't really a hill. I beg to differ: it really is! It's not as big as that REALLY big hill later on, but the bridge is not flat. It looks like a mountain when you're running up it, and it goes on for a good long while. It's hard!
Powering across Itchen Bridge
Photo: Colin Mitchell
Now, I had some strategy going into this race, though technically, it was a training run for me in preparation for my 10 July 2022 Xterra Ultra Snowdon race. With that said, I spent at least five to six weeks doing marathon-specific training, using the training plan provided by Southampton.
Just past halfway, feeling great!
The photo above shows me just past the halfway point, feeling great. My strategy was to maintain an 8 minute mile pace throughout the race, with even pacing. With that said, my watch reads in km, so I told myself not to ever go faster than 5 min/km as a rule, so as not to go too fast (which I inevitably would).
The first mile was slow, and then they got a bit too fast, but not by too much. Splits were around 7:58 mins per mile at times in the early going. Later, the first time up the hill for example, I told myself to pace it out, and dropped down to maybe 8:30s.
I knew the second mini-loop, on the east side of Itchen, would be possibly the toughest psychologically. This is the 15-19 mile zone. It was hard, but not that bad. A big boost came when I crossed Itchen for the last time, and actually this was a nice spot because the wind had a big cooling effect, and the temps were creeping upwards.
At mile 20, just past the stadium (which we ran through, and was a big boost), the pace dropped just a bit. This is where in my first marathon in 2018 I had decided to walk. Not this time. I didn't walk once during this race.
To mile 22 I was fine, there was a breeze, and some bands were playing really excellent music. It was a nice day for a sunny run. Then I turned the corner for the final hill and the wind completely dropped away, there was no shade, and I was surrounded by concrete.
At the same time as I hit a 10min/mile pace, so did everyone else around me. We were, at least, in sync, and I wasn't being passed. Through the university area we finally got some shade, and there was great support through there too.
I switched from Soreen/Lucozade power mode (one quarter of a Soreen mini per mile maintain up through mile 20), to Lucozade and water only (though I did power down a big block of Kendal sugar bomb). The water was the key thing as I had dutifully kept my energy stores up, and now just needed to sweat.
I was sick of Soreen, but cool due to having taken water at at least 10 different stations. There were a lot of water stations, and a lot of water to be had at each, not in little sippy cups either. These are proper sack/bubbles, with more than enough to quench the thirst.
The support was excellent, it was fun, and the course is amazing, with a lot of variation. I would run it again, actually. It was my Personal Best marathon time (that is, of ALL TIME, FOR ME), at 3:52:44, beating my previous best by a couple of minutes. This despite the fact that I took a wrong turn at the (very silent, unsigned) split point where the HMs carried on to their own finish line, and we took a left for our second half.
For a training run, I'm super happy with this. I had trained to go faster obviously but as all marathon runners know, nothing ever really goes according to plan on race day, and you take the good with the bad. Actually there was very little of the latter, nothing bad to report (just that unclear split point), and I love every aspect of this course, which has helped in my ultra training and racing to come.
