So, this race recap is just a little belated, but when trawling through some old photos the other day, when I got to the photos from my first ever full marathon in the Hunter Valley, Australia, I was taken back there and was caught up in my memories from this race. So, I thought it would be fun to go through more of the photos for this race and talk about that awesome (but painful!) weekend, as this race was way back in the day, way before I had this blog (yes, I know this blog is only about 6months old haha).

I went with my good friend Ruth (who sadly, we have kind of lost touch since then, but I hope we’ll meet up again in the future). She was running her first half marathon and I was running my first full. It was an exciting weekend for us both.

It is a great course: it takes you through and around various vinyards, and it truly beautiful. I had run the half marathon there the year before, so I was pumped to be back to do the full the next year. The full is two laps of the same half marathon course, and I think there is 10km race section too, if you are so inclined.

Now, I must have forgotten about how undulating this beautiful scenery was, as it was a surprise to me about those hills, one in particular, where it was quicker to try to walk/stride up rather than run, due to its incline. This hill you had to do twice if you were doing the full. Ouch indeed.

The race started off well, perhaps too well? I kept trying to tell myself to slow down, as I’d feel my pace picking up. I had my dad’s advice ringing in my ears about try to run the first half slowly and then you’ll do fine in the second half. He ran the London marathon back in the day and got a time of 4:11! So, I think I was definitely aiming for matching his time, or trying to get close to there anyhow.

The first half took me 1:46, so much too fast I think, on reflection, if I was aiming to run the first half slower than the second one. Oops. Hey-ho, on with the race. In the second half I was still feeling pretty good and was keeping pace with a couple of women who were incredible! One was running something like 6 marathons in 6 weeks and the other was using this marathon as a mere training run for another event. So, obviously I felt like a ‘proper’ runner as I ran and chatted with them.

Until about kilometre 36 or 37, that is. Hmm, here is where things went wrong. Very wrong. Or perhaps, they actually went wrong a lot earlier, but here is where I felt the effects. My legs kind of stoped working. What the?? Is this that famed ‘wall’ I’d heard so much about? Yup. It is a real thing. Was very frustrated. Had to sort of limp/shuffle/walk for the most of the rest of the way, and people who were running with me at the end where like ‘what happened to you? You were doing so well! Etc.’. Oh well. Wasn’t my day. I finished in 4:35, so if my legs had not given up the fight with just 6 little kilometres to go, I might just have got the time I was aiming for.

I gratefully limped/ran in slow motion across the finish line and Ruth and I found each other and hugged and celebrated, and I then got stuck into the post-race bananas and drinks on offer.

My legs were wrecked for ages hey. Had extremely slow, elderly ladies overtaking me on pavements as I limped along over the next few days. I remember going in to work (I worked in a pathology lab in a busy hospital) the next day and my boss congratulating me but laughing at me, kind of like ‘what are you doing here today?!’

I think a major lesson I learnt from this marathon is this: FUEL. Pre-fuel, and my fuel during the race were completely inadequate for a full marathon. I had run a few half marathons and one ten km race prior to this marathon, where I didn’t use any extra fuel during the race, so I think I wasn’t prepared enough on the fuel side of things. I think I drank mainly water at the aid stations for the first half of the race, and then would alternate water and sports drinks. However, by the time my legs had problems, and I was stuffing in jellybeans like there was no tomorrow, it seemed it was too late. Lesson learnt: re- fuel before you run out.

Apart from the pain and the slight disappointment of not actually having ran the whole way, as I had to walk for a few kilometres at the end, I was still euphoric and ecstatic at the end of the race. I had just ran a full marathon! And then promptly vowed never to do so again. Haha…

So, it was not my day for a PB here in beautiful Xiamen, but it wasn't due to my running or of that hitting the wall thing. Many things conspired to me ending up with a good 30 minutes added on to my first half of the race, which was apparently too hard to come back from to get a better time. I know, I know, it sounds like excuses hey, but let me talk you through them, as I ended up really surprised with my time being 3 minutes slower than my first marathon time, when I ran for the whole thing this time, didn't encounter 'the wall' (albeit a wall of people, but we'll get to that), and even finished feeling fairly strong and sped up for the last kilometre, and sort-of-sprinted across the finish line. So, when I crossed the line and then got my certificate printed out showing the accurate chip time of, wait for it, 4 hours 38 minutes, I was a little confused. Oh yes, then I remembered the start of the race.

Here's how it went down: about 80,000 people give or take (ok, not all in the full marathon event, but all squished in together regardless) trying to surge forward and commence a running race. There's music, there's excitement, there are the ever present cheers of 'jar yo!', and then: boom - everyone slows and stops completely and then proceeds to shuffle/walk VERY slowly for the next 1-2 kilometres. Major human traffic jam.

As soon as we were able to feel awesome and actually start jogging / prancersizing, I had my eyes out for a loo. A public one was located in the next 100 metres or so and I unfortunately had to leave the race so early on and join a big queue. Picture ten fun minutes of waiting. (Unavoidable, as apparently still suffering with a bug - almost didn't get up to even start the race this morning, but so glad I did, despite this story.)

So, it's kind of like I started running or the proper 'racing' about 20-25 minutes late. But anyhoo. On with the race. My fuelling strategy was going excellently and I was fairly confident that I was getting enough carbohydrate and water at regular intervals, but hey, you never know, especially with a stomach bug. But today, snickers were my main source of fuel, along with sports drinks at aid stations, and later, some coffee boiled sweets. I felt good running, felt like my pace was good - not too slow and not too fast (now that I could actually run).

So, no 'hitting the wall' as I was worried about, BUT at about 12 kilometres in, when the route takes everyone along an elevated underpass (one way in, no escape off the sides, sort of like a tunnel), disaster struck. Not joking here, was seriously worried for my safety. For some reason the front of the giant crowd had decided they had taken a wrong turn and were trying to force everyone back the other way, amidst more and more runners piling on in. You hear about people getting crushed to death and trampled on in concerts sometimes, and I have a fair inkling of how easily this could occur. Scary shit, I won't lie. But then, one lone soldier proferring a pointing finger gesturing us back into the melee of which we'd just escaped, signalled that we were going the right way in the first place and after some minutes (felt like 10, was prob nearer to five for the whole time, but who knows) we were free again and running along an amazing stretch of road that takes the runners over the sea and around to the Southern tip of the island. Seeing Xiamen from this beautiful angle soon got me over my near-suffocating experience, and it was on with the race.

Until disaster struck AGAIN. Luckily not too bad this time, but was probably worse for the ladies involved: Two women became entangled due to us having run on top of each other because of the numbers and they both went face first on the tarmac. Only ONE other runner stopped and together we helped them up. They said they were ok. Phew.

And then it was on with the race. The rest of the race had no hiccups, albeit my excellent new Garmin ran out of charge at about 30 kilometres. Damn. Must get used to charging it the night before a long run or race. Up until then, it was working like a dream, and it was fun (if a little distracting) to keep checking my pace and finally find what my comfortable pace really is. It ranges between 5 and 6 kilometres an hour, in case you were dying to know.

So, as I said before, I finished strong and felt great about the race, which is why I was surprised at the time, as in my previous marathon I spent the last 9 kilometres in pain and definitely the last 5 in agony and walked/limped to the finish line. So that versus non walking (except in and out of drink stations, oh yeah, and about 25 minutes plus at the start, lol), with a speedy finish? This is why this race is a running PB for me - not in terms of time, but in how I felt strong and good, and DID NOT HIT THE WALL! Yay! It is possible! So, very glad I did get out of bed this morning. Even better, I had this beautiful, amazing man waiting for me at the finish line: my beloved husband, coach and support team, what would I do without you H?! If you're reading this: thank you for all your support and love: I love you so much. (This is entirely appropriate too - all the banners along the route today said 'Run for Love'.)

Seriously, he went above and beyond to help me carb-load before the race last night. Check it out - was considering calling this post 'Fuelled By Jiaozi' (not sure if the photo's clear, but there were something like 64 dumplings that arrived at our hotel door - Champion H!):

The rest of the day pre-race yesterday was spent soaking up the beautiful beach scenes of Xiamen, riding around on a comedy tandem bicycle, and eating lots of rice, tofu and veggies and drinking a couple of carb-loading Tsingtaos of course:

Oh, and I better put a couple of race shots from today on here too, so here you go, enjoy!

Just got back from a longer run - 19km at an easy/slowish/comfortable endurance pace. Took 1 hour 35 minutes. Ahhh, an hour and half ish of beautiful sunlit mountains as a backdrop behind the river I've been using as the core scene of my runs. What a great start to a weekend (as I've said before - going for a run is the 2nd best way to start the day!). I read some advice recently about running your long runs nice and SLOWLY, as you've got other days set for speedwork (so true), so I took this approach this morning, and feel pretty good and not at all exhausted (as per other long runs) now.

I also used this morning's run to trial out a new fuel experiment. I'm not very good (ok, I'm rubbish in fact) at fuelling during a run, other than the hurriedly-try-not-to-choke-as-I-attempt-to-drink-on-the-run gulps of water and sports drinks at the aid stations along the way of most races. (I am excellent at pre-fuelling, post-fuelling, and all throughout the day fuelling though.) However, I think this is definitely what let me down in my first (and only to date) full marathon back in 2008, where I learnt that 'the wall' is not mythical and that mid-race fuel is to be respected and consumed early enough). So, am aiming to do a whole lot better this time around, on January 2nd, and thus this morning's trial was more for that race's training than for the Shanghai half (where the water and sports drinks should be enough).

I took a pack of Skittles with me, as I've read on another runner's website that this works for her (and being a relatively small city in China, I am yet to find any sort of specific running shop or outdoor shop that sells those fancy energy gels such as Gu). Now I know, yes, yes, Skittles and other sweets are not the same fuel per se as glucose gels and lollies, and the nutritionist in me should know that I'm choosing sucrose over glucose, and thus initially would surely have a slowing down/detrimental effect as the initial insulin response takes effect, etc etc. HOWEVER, they seemed to work pretty well! I was worried about eating on the run / choking / feeling sick etc. (if I eat usually anywhere up to 3 hours before a run, then I get bad heartburn and feel like I'm going to vomit during the run, so again a reason why I'm a fan of early morning runs) but this didn't happen and they were easy to chew whilst running (slowly). 

Does anyone have any other great fuel tips/advice??  

Maybe it was the skittles that gave me a great run, or maybe it was the beautiful (if you don't look too closely) river that I run beside most days. There is just something about water hey. Whether it be a river, an ocean, or a big lake - I seem to yearn for it and seek it out: to run and mediate-on-the-move beside it. There is something really calming, restorative, and even powerful about a body of water and of running alongside it I think. This is the river that I will soon be running alongside, if only for a short section of the race (which starts on The Bund in beautiful Shanghai): 

I am so excited! Can you tell?! :)

Also, stay tuned for more 'beautiful China' photos, coming soon! Think I need to add a page to this website just for beautiful China photos, for those who may have stumbled across this actually looking for information about CHINA and not just what so far has seemed to be mainly me rambling about running training. So, as ever, slowly slowly with this technology malarkey, as a power nap (crawling back into bed) is now beckoning.

Hope everyone's weekends are fantastic, and good luck to a few that I know who have races tomorrow! (You know who you are). :)