Battling with Bournemouth

This blog post is going to be one of two parts about Bournemouth, as to cut a long story short, things did not go according to plan with how I had envisaged. I will discuss that in the second blog post, but in this one I want to talk about the race and how it went. It is still quite ‘raw’ for me as it is only a week since I ran the Bournemouth Marathon. So if there is anything that comes across as me feeling sorry for myself or like I am moaning then forgive me. It’s simply me trying to describe how I felt at the time.

The journey down to Bournemouth on the Saturday had been really good. The marathon festival the organisers had laid out was well done and the coastal front had a real buzz about it. The first thing that struck me was that the course appeared to be more undulating than I had appreciated from the race review. Gem and I spent the rest of the day walking around Bournemouth taking in the sights; the weather was very nice over the weekend and I didn’t realise how pretty the beach area of Bournemouth was. That night we went to a vegan restaurant and had some delicious vegetarian dishes. I then endured England’s defeat by Australia, and therefore their exit from their own World Cup, which was painful to say the least.

When I woke up on Sunday morning things seemed to go according to plan. I had a banana and a small premixed tub of porridge. Felt pretty much full and we had plenty of time to get to the start of the race. Was starting to feel my nerves, as I said good bye to Gem, which wasn’t unusual. At this point I couldn’t tell if it was nerves or if I needed to go to the loo, but my stomach felt strange. I decided I didn’t have time to go to the loo again and stayed in the race pen. The race organisers started the elites off first and then we lined up for the race with the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ soundtrack starting to blast out.

I felt good at the beginning of the race. The pace was very quick with some people shooting off at six minute miles. I knew I had to get a quicker time for the first half of the marathon, but this was way too fast for me, so I decided to slow things down. Then at about mile 3 I felt slightly weird in my stomach, like I needed the loo, but I just put this down to nerves rather than anything else. Getting near to mile 10 the terrain was mostly flat running, with some downhill. There was some wind approaching the coast, but not much at that point. Once I began to approach mile 10, or just after it, I would say that things became more undulating with there being some more wind along the course. It was at mile 11- 12 that I began to feel that things weren’t exactly right for me. For one thing the wind was becoming stronger as I ran along the coast, but there were other things going on in my head and body. Even though I didn’t feel thirsty my mouth felt dry and I had found it difficult to eat my energy balls. I was starting to feel slightly tired from the 6:50 minute per mile pace that I was keeping; was this because I had set off too quick? Was it the wind? Also my stomach started to feel funny, as it had done at mile 3. I decided to plough on and concentrate on just keeping my breathing steady, as well as my mind focussed. There was a small hill at mile 13, that wasn't great and not ideal given the way I had described how I was feeling, and clocked in at under 1hr 30 mins on the half-way mark. 

The course then went down to the coast for an out and back, including one of the piers, and that's when the race plan began to unravel. I found myself running against quite a bit of wind for miles 14 and 15, bringing my pace down to 7:10 min/miles. Even though it was windy I could still feel the heat and I decided it was time to take a gel in. I don’t like to admit this, but looking back on the race this was where I had started to panic. I knew that I was not going to be able to get under three hours, but I let this impact me far too much, and I started to let negative thoughts creep in. On the way back into Bournemouth I started to get stomach cramps; whether this is because I hadn't gone to the loo enough before the race, not putting any sun-tan lotion on, the gels reacting badly with me on the day, the food I had in the morning wasn't right or the vegetarian meal being too rich for me I don't know. What I did need to do was go to the loo, which seemed to interrupt my rhythm and I felt slightly drained from it (no pun intended).

So things were not going according to plan for me at all; it was the first time I had ever stopped during a serious marathon attempt to go to the loo and I did not feel great with just under half the race to finish. The one thing I will say about the route Bournemouth takes is that your supporters can see you on multiple occasions. This meant I could see Gem a number of times and it really cheered me up, as I ran along another pier. I also thought to myself: ‘You cannot give up when she has supported you throughout your training’. Then my next trial appeared in the form of a longer hill (just under half a mile in length) at mile 17- 18 that did really begin to tire me out. With a combination of my negative thoughts and tired legs I really began to feel the run sapping my energy. Other thoughts started to enter my head, such as did I over train? Or was my taper incorrect? Miles 19 - 20 were going down back to the coast and I overtook a runner who I had seen shoot off at the start of the marathon, he was now running and walking. I saw that he was running for the Alzheimer’s charity and cheered him on.

From mile 20 I definitely know I hit the wall. I knew I had to really access all my determination and refuse not to give up. Things became slightly more difficult, if briefly, when on a narrow part of the race on a single-path track an old woman with her child was blocking the route. The marshal asked her to move, I then asked her to move and she then told me to shut-up. Not the best example of crowd support.

From mile 21 I then proceeded for my last out and back along the beach front for the third time.  This is my only serious criticism of the Bournemouth Marathon, as there was a significant lack of water towards the end of the race; right at the time when I really needed it. Fortunately I was touched by an act of kindness by one of the spectators. They had a series of ceramic cups lined up with water and I was about to take one, when I realised I couldn’t just take someone’s property and not give it back to them. A young boy noticed that I had seen the water, ran alongside me whilst I finished the water and took it off me after I had finished. It is those acts of kindness that really keep any runner going when they aren’t feeling great or the race isn’t going their way.  The rest of the course was an out and back, with mile 23 going into the wind.  This was made even tougher by the fact that there were people out on their Sunday walk along the beachfront, meaning that at my most fatigued state I had to dodge people. These moving spectators did cheer me on, but it was another thing that was tiring me out towards the end.

In the last mile I came across a runner who had completely broken. I saw his pacers trying to cheer him up and tried to help him myself. I breathlessly tried to say the famous line from Rocky Balboa, but it came out like this: ‘It ain’t about how you hit…it ain’t about how hard you hit….It’s about how hard you get hit and keep moving forward’. It was then that I realised how tired I was, but I refused to give up at this point, and as I passed the mile 26 marker I saw Gem who cheered me on as ever.  I collected my medal, the goody bag and hugged Gem; grateful to have finished the Bournemouth Marathon in 3hrs 11minutes 34 seconds.

It was a good day out and was a beautiful course. Just think I was slightly unlucky with my stomach, perhaps the wind, the sun (will definitely use suntan lotion the next time it is a sunny day) and don't think the course was personal best territory for me. I still don’t know what to make of the race; I know it was tougher than some other marathons I have done and I now know that I had set an unrealistic target, but it is something I need to think over and write about in my next post. The main thing that I am definitely very proud of is that I never gave up running and kept moving forward.