Yorkshire Marathon 2023

My two marathons to celebrate turning 50 are now complete.

I got to the end of the Yorkshire Marathon this Sunday in a small PB of 5:18:29, and more importantly perhaps, an actual negative split. I’ve never before had the second half go faster than the first thirteen miles.

Granted, those first miles were quite slow, as I was attempting to keep my heart rate in the low 140s. Having been given this new posh watch for my birthday, I have been slightly obsessed with comparing my heart rate readings to my perception of effort. I’ll talk more about the mechanics in another blog because it’s now something I’m going to play with, but for the purposes of this race, I was trying to stop it climbing too much. So that meant chatting with the people around me, taking in the sights, trying to relax and breathe.

It was a perfect running day really. A cold but sunny autumn morning, and I could see why so many people pick up charity jumpers for starts like this. Having handed in my bag with my jacket, I sat shivering in my t-shirt while on one side of me, a guy was yanking down his socks to put plasters on his heels, and on the other, another guy was yanking up his t-shirt to put plasters on his nipples. I could smell Deep Heat in the air and wondered if I could find the owners and ask if they’d let me slap it on my arms to warm me up.

In fact, once we’d got going, I was wondering if my shoes weren’t on properly because I couldn’t quite feel my feet until around mile 2. York Minster, which, in various guises, has stood on that spot since 627 C.E., looked very imposing as we skirted around its edge, and fairly soon after, we left the walls of York and headed out into the Vale of York.

When I felt my first little wave of tiredness at around mile five, I had a moment of panic, but I thought to myself, what would Courtney do? Courtney De Walter is a phenomenal ultra-runner, who this year, completed three 100+ mile races in ten weeks and won them all. She talks about her ‘pain cave’ and feeling the comfort of exploring it. I knew that, at mile five, I was nowhere near her edges of pain, but I used her strategy of remembering the training. I had trained many times on tired legs and knew I could keep going for a while if I relaxed and kept it steady.

Somewhere around the half way mark there is a bit of the route that doubles back on itself, and I suddenly saw the 5:30 pacer flags quite a way ahead. The fact that they were visible briefly, made me think that I could slowly reel them in.

And I did, at around mile 21. Which isn’t bad when you consider I had to stop for three wees en route, the last at about 10K to go. That’s one of the troubles with turning fifty! The two pacers by this time were separated. The first one I reached told me that they were about five minutes apart, and if I stayed with her, I’d get in inside 5:30 hours. Well, that just made me want to reach the front marker and get near my current PB. Grabbing any roadside jelly babies that I could I see, I pushed on, and did finally pass the front pacer. There were just four miles to go and it was now a case of keeping myself calm in the pain cave, and carrying on.

I actually had a proper sprint in me, in the last two hundred yards and am really pleased to finally have a picture of me with flying feet. Normally I look like I’m walking on every official photographer’s pics but there it is, proof that I can run.

I would have really liked to be at sub-5 hours now in my marathon, but it looks like that will take a bit longer to achieve. I need to start some heavy weight training to help build up my strength and my bone density levels, given that I’m now at that age, and then next year, I will go again.

My first aim this year, aside from Cross Country, is to get my parkrun time down to below 27 minutes, which I think is achievable with some interval training. A bit of time to try and go faster before I go longer again. Normally, post-marathon, I have a bit of a slump, and it may hit me later, but at the minute, I’m buzzing. Loving my running in all its forms, loving that I’m part of such a nurturing club that keep me on my toes with all its training and races. And loving the fact that I am, slowly, incrementally, getting stronger.