I made it!

Noosa Marathon is done!

My time was 4:17:56

It was definitely hard, but I have done hikes that were much harder on my body. I ran out of sugar during the run but that is probably unavoidable, it was a four lap run and on the fourth lap I had to ask which way at a roundabout – my brain had run out of energy! Surprisingly though I still had energy for a race to the finish, undoubtedly pushing me to a faster time than I would otherwise got.

The Noosa course was great, very flat with nice views of Noosa River. I had spent a lot of my childhood visiting the streets that the run was on, as my grandmother lived there. After a bit through the second lap I had stopped paying any attention to the scenery and location though – it could have been a freeway !

The best part of running at Noosa is the beautiful beach and river once you finish.

The following sections are a little bit of a reminder to myself of what worked and what didn’t…

Training

My training worked pretty well, although I think I should have been running faster in the sessions, added more speed sessions and don’t stop at all on the long runs. With summer coming I’m going to have work on early morning runs not lunch time, Brisbane is HOT.

I have written about this before in more detail, but I used these plans.

http://www.runnersworld.co.za/training/training-programmes/foolproof-beginners-marathon-training-programme/

A useful stat I saw written many times is that 80% of training at low rate, 20% tempo. I think I should have done the 20% faster.

Lessons

Don’t race with the hydration pack – i only used it’s pockets, no water, but it’s still too bulky and became annoying.

For training though the pack worked well, there are some sections up to around 8km on my long runs with no water. I need to look at the little tabs to properly hold the long straps (Cascade packs have really long straps!)

Perhaps it is better to just use an ordinary training belt for the phone, I use flip belts that I love but they can get bulky). I have read many people pin gels onto their shorts waste strap – to the outside them flip them over into the shorts (add some vaseline so they don’t chafe).

In really long runs I often get a bit of an upset tummy, runners trots, which isn’t really surprising considering how much bouncing! I heard Gastro stop for this, and it mostly worked, felt a bit queasy though – one tablet is probably enough.

Nutrition

It is really hard to work out what to eat for this sort of event, I need the energy but too much and I’m going to be feeling it half way through, and your body needs time to digest it. For this one, which started at 6AM, a half fruit bagel and yoghurt at about 4AM was good. But I FORGOT to eat the banana! I need to make sure to leave all food where it is easy to see in the morning, my brain didn’t work so well then 🙂

I was REALLY looking forward to some scrambled eggs and coffee afterwards though !

After the run

I felt sick 🙁 my skin was white, lips were purple and I felt like throwing up.

I did a bit of reading around and this is apparently pretty common – it is believed it is because your legs are suddenly not there pumping blood to your brain. The recommendation solution seems to be to keep walking for a bit, slowly let the body adjust.

Next?

I’m Not sure I’ll do any more, I like achieving it but the training time just kills everything else.

Edit – well that lasted about a week – now it’s time to start looking at websites thinking about the next one! Queenstown and Fuji San look good……

Time : 4:17:56
Age Group : 15/1146