Well I ran a right dogs dinner for a race that’s for sure, big disappointment. My wife the same in the 10k, in training she could run under 55 mins, race day 57:32. Lack of sleep didn’t help, despite asking for a quiet room in our hotel we were placed in a room on the 8th floor. This was located on the outside area of a huge dome that overlooked the lobby area. Here the main 24hr bar was located, the noise spiraled upwards until 2am when it quietened down. We also had Mr & Mrs lets have a domestic when we’re drunk in the room next door. We couldn’t change our room for a few days, before the marathon I was awake until 2:30am, getting up again at 5am. Breakfast was some white bread and honey before boarding the bus to the start. I was blurry eyed, unenthusiastic and tired but I figured I would fire up when the race started.
The timing was on gun time so I got a good position near the front to avoid loosing time at the beginning. I planned to start at 4:15/k and see how I felt, settle in and pick it up a little. Weather was about 68°F and a good crossways breeze from the sea. The course is straight out along the coast to the turning point and back along the same way. A 40m gradual ascent over the first 7k with some views of the sea, then a drop back down again to sea level by km 8. The route was then in a straight line along one half of a coastal dual carriageway with uninspiring views of building sites, hotels and waste ground. The refreshment stations were every 2.5k offering water, powerade occasionally, slices of orange and apple. Spectators and drums were at the start and some small tourist groups outside of hotels.
Bang goes the gun and off we go, picking up the coast road out from Antalya. I felt ok and just stuck to my own pace. Past the 2k point I noticed a turkish runner was alongside me at the same pace, with a mix of english/german we communicated, we had a similar time goal and agreed to run together. I set the garmin to record 5k splits so here they are with a few comments.
1. 21:15, spot on, no problems, settled in, slowly overtaking runners who’d shot out at the beginning.
2. 21:08, sun is out and it is warm, the water was given to us in ½l bottles which I found far better than the usual cups, felt ok.
3. 21:21, slightly too slow, already finding this harder than I should have, try and pick it up a little bit.
4. 21:20, again too slow, at about km17 we’d clapped the Kenyan runners on their way back. They look strong and with a long stride length that eats the ground up. Just after km20 my fellow turkish runner taps me on the shoulder to tell me he wants to slow down now which was a real shame. I hit the ½ way turnaround in 1:29:54, slower than I wanted but I still thought I could run under 3hrs.
5. 21:15, running on my own for the last 5k, the straight stretch is monotonous, each km taking seemingly forever to complete. Upto now been drinking the water that was offered, at the drink station made a dive between the helpers to grab a powerade bottle off table, unfortunately knocking some bottles onto the ground.
6. 21:44, km27 is where I started to loose it, I could see the pace slowing to 4:16/k, I sped up (so I thought) and was shocked at the 28km marker to see I’d actually gotten slower. I kept telling my legs to go faster and there was no response. At the km30 point I was feeling despondent, I’d ran faster to this point in training.
7. 23:28, getting worse now, I was running at my usual easy run pace, I didn’t feel out of energy, no wall, just slow and I couldn’t change gears. I tried and tried to bring the pace down to 4:30/k to bring me in under 3:05 but it didn’t happen. The one good thing was I reached the ½ marathon turnaround point at 31,5k, their race had started later so I was suddenly surrounded by runners that I was overtaking, that helped.
8. 23:26, still on easy run pace, feel sore and tired and looking forward to finishing.
9. last 2.2k, same pace. Entered the football ground where the finish was, here there was a crowd to clap everyone in. I managed a smile but I was well cheesed off with myself.
Past the finish line got my medal, a plastic bag containing food and drink (good idea) and met my wife to commiserate each other. Queued for about 40 mins to retrieve my bag in a packed narrow corridor full of jostling runners smelling of sweat and vomit. They couldn’t find my bag and I had to dig it out myself, just what you need after you’ve ran. Bus back to the hotel for some grub and a lovely 9 hour sleep.
Well what can I say, my training over the winter had gone really well, I was fully confident I would run under 3 hrs, no excuses. Time now to forget about this and work towards the next one.
No of finishers. Marathon – 347, Halfmarathon – 724, 10k – 362. No of toilets 6.
Men’s marathon was won in 2:16:13 by Philip Muia (Ken)
Womens marathon in 2:42:54 by Kristina Loonen (Ned) | 