News from South London Harriers
April 22nd, 2007: London Marathon 2007 Report
Posted by Runningclogs at 11:08 pmWell what can we say?
Most club runners and many of the charity runners disappointed with their times, but…………………
What people have forgotten is that with these long races there are two basic facts to consider:- can you cope with the conditions on the day and what preparations have you taken to cope with the conditions and what is the condition you are in?
I saw too many people with too many clothes on yesterday. In reality of course the conditions were not that different from the Dorking 10, the Dysart dash, Elmore 7 or the Elmbridge for instance. Especially the Dysart was much hotter with the street and pavements becoming a day (night) storage heater. We have run the Elmore in even hotter conditions. But they are not as long, but….
As cramp – a warning from the body that things have gone adrift - was a major factor with all the people struggling, it is clear that a lot of people are struggling with retention of body fluid salts. There are simple remedies for that but I don’t think Dioralyte was available from the first aiders – may be this needs to be brought to the attention of the organisers. As a further precaution I doused my self with the water from each water station, after drinking some of it – the lucozade did not work yesterday and gave me a terrible stitch – which I luckily managed to get rid of courtesy of RW - I think the body could not cope with the lucozade anymore in these conditions. What I found did help very much was my SIS energy gels which I took every three miles in view of the conditions.
It seems most (but not Jennie) got clobbered around mile 15 – where I slowed down considerably. – by the 17mp I could feel cramp developing in my left leg – so at the water station I used my emergency sachet of Dioralyte – wish I had taken two extra - although I got actual cramp around 21 and just before 23 I managed to walk this out by walking about a quarter of a mile.
After 23 the Dioralyte had worked and I could race at just over 9min/mile (the target) pace again doing the last three miles in just over 28 minutes – with a finish sprint in 8:33min/mile.
Mind you when Jennie who I had been running with up to 15 mp disappeared ahead of me and the cramp feelings coming on; my worst fears were beginning to realise themselves all over again.
So I am extremely pleased to have been able to finish in style.
Unlike Neil my watch thinks the red route is about 0.4 mile long!
Quite interesting around Canary Wharf where the signals must be bouncing of the buildings – the watch shows the marathon route beautifully except at Canary Wharf where it goes into “tantrum mode” with the route overlapping and being totally wrong - much like St Mary street in Cardiff – (it is sad to see that they are not doing the Cardiff marathon this year - complain as it had more finishers than the Abingdon! and would be a good alternative for a flat race in usually cooler conditions)
After our 4 months of training one would be expecting good results – but please don’t be not despondent – one does not compare the Beachy Head Marathon with the LM normally – last year I finished ahead in some of the summer races of runners who normally beat me by 10 -15 minutes! – so take 10 – 15 minutes of your time and see whether you would be happy with that – I think most of you would! – if the answer is yes than you have done as much as you could have and should be satisfied – there are always runners who have coped better with the conditions at any race ……
The training has helped me to complete the race as it certainly has given me the stamina I needed – as I missed the Reigate and Redhill run in the heavy rain – I did not see any grannies at all this year as I never passed Fanny’s Farm! – we saw plenty of nooks and hooks where we tripped over – and in january and february also plenty of mud so much so that we abandoned the footpaths early!
It’s quite unimaginable now after five or so weeks without rain now and all the path rock hard again.
We overcame – most of us – the hurdles the trains posed – by running just a few extras from East Croydon to London Bridge this year – an official complaint will go to the MD – sadly most of the runners on our train were not trainspotters as they missed a trick by going to the already full 4 car train from the coast to London Bridge – whilst I led our little group to the almost empty 12 car train which started at East Croydon for a comfortable journey!
The blues and the reds separated and I led the reds to another almost empty carriage – the one not at the bottom of the steps – even runners can’t walk anymore! We met Caroline there on her way to the green start.
We strolled up the hill of Greenwich park – became tourists and watch the view from a vantage point taking pictures – and then went into the redzone. Alarm bells were starting to ring when I decided that I did not need my dustbin bag over my vets (all I had decided to wear) as it was already hot enough at 8:45!!!! We found Richard Oliver and Su Taylor but they were in different sheep pens. Surprisingly when I left for the train in Horsham it was freezing!
Jennie and I had decided to run together for as long as possible and went into allocated sheep pen 5 – and crept forward as soon as that was possible – and were over the start line at 9:47ish – ideal start as the people around us were running at the pace we wanted to do – we did not even found to much of a problem when blue joined us and we carried on at a very steady pace just over 9mins/mile – 7 miles in an hour – half in two hours – bands & crowds everywhere and were enjoying it – felt a little tired at Tower Bridge which was heaving with people running and watching – the problem we encountered was where the roads were narrowed at some points to 50 or 60 % of the average and bunging up occurred –but the steady pace really was maintained all the way to 15mp – we saw Andy & Alison Collins in the Highway and those brave marshals who were manning our crossing point.
I was amazed to find that 61% of the runners were behind me and 72% behind Jennie!
I kept walking for a while to combat stiffness which in the event was not to bad – even today – I still can walk down the stairs in a forward direction! The girl who handed me my bag from the lorry said – “you must have left home!” as I looked puzzled she said “your bag is heavy” – well just a change of shoes, clothing, and something to eat! Is that not reasonable? Or did she mean that I looked like a twenty something and had just left home?
After this I fought my way to the pub – I was very honoured by Stuart who shook my hand as did Andy Collins – although I was well over an hour in the pub I consumed the goodies out of the bag! We were wondering about so many of our runners we could not account for. A reasonable train ride back direct from Charing Cross to East Croydon, Purley, Coulsdon and Horsham brought most of us back home before dark.
I think there are two stars of the club for the LM – Sue McDonald did extremely well in the circumstances – perhaps doing some training in India was just the ticket – and of course Jennie who almost broke 4 hours on her maiden run.
Our thoughts are with those who were injured during or before the training sessions and on the day and that they will all be fit to run again soon. If your problem is coping with the heat or humidity in the Thames valley, it might be wiser to start considering a marathon in the autumn late october onwards or before april. But take on board all the lessons there are of how to train and how to run the race.
But more than anything else whatever the circumstances are, try and enjoy as much of the training and the race as you can.
Runningclogs
club results
overall gender cat
position position position
274 260 44 David Byrne, M40 2:46:30
530 499 42 Chris Phelan, M45 2:54:15
586 551 4 Ian Kitching, M55 2:55:13
625 587 ? Andrew Aitken, M30 2:56:16
736 692 63 David Ogden, M45 2:57:50
1244 89 20 Sue McDonald, W35 3:06:09
1310 1216 256 Paul Mitchell, M40 3:07:01
1317 1222 256 Mark Farmer, M30 3:07:03
1361 1258 269 Martin Wood, M40 3:07:42
2109 182 42 Clare Settle, W35 3:16:20
2239 2039 273 Peter Emery, M45 3:17:35
2484 2244 296 Glen Morgan, M45 3:19:55
2720 2443 548 Andy Davis, M35 3:22:08
3105 330 26 Christine Costiff, W45 3:25:49
6022 5171 8 Dave Newland, M65 3:44:55
6054 5196 703 Andy Davidson, M45 3:45:11
7076 1049 194 Caroline Walker, W40 3:50:39
7838 1223 231 Sylvie Kah, W40 3:54:09
8429 7077 922 Colin Young, M25 3:56:46
9475 1588 67 Jane Luxton, W50 4:01:14
9893 8207 591 Nigel Bush, M50 4:03:36
10031 1722 375 Jennie Burdett W35 4:04:18
13938 11210 166 Jake Clausen, M60 4:21:22
15394 3116 586 Marketa Martins, W25 4:27:12
15538 12377 2280 Neil Maury, M40 4:27:45
16001 3295 659 Liz Davey, W35 4:29:28
20480 15849 582 Graham Swann, M55 4:47:47
20779 4733 901 Su Taylor, W35 4:49:03
28999 21327 2552 Antonio Martins, M45 5:29:07
Posted in Road Running
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