Race Report by Virginia Silio
After hesitating for long time, I decided that Manchester 2017 will be our first marathon (“our” as I’m the race organizer at home, and I knew that if I signed up for a marathon, my husband Jose would join me). Without no idea how to train for this distance, I decided to follow the plan of the book “run less, run faster”. Being injured before, I din’t want to risk another one by increasing the milage in a crazy way.
The marathon. I can’t compare with anything else, but I have to say that my experience was absolutely brilliant. I enjoy the route, the crowd, everything (maybe it was too hot for my taste-around 16C at the end). It’s also the first time I participated in such a big event.
9:00. After chatting with a Kenilworth runner situated in our same pen time, we all got prepared and runners started to make their way to the Start. For us, it took around 10 minutes and, as expected, people started too fast and running in a random way trying to get their space. My husband runaway from me and I decided to start slowly until reaching my target pace (around 4:45 min per km). It took me 3km until I felt comfortable and had my own space. I’m terrible remember routes (Kevin can confirm that), so I can only say that the first 10km went really fast and I was enjoying the views. I had my first gel (I planned 4, they are SIS gels, in theory you can have them without water). At that point they were people already struggling.
Around this part, there is a point of going back and forward where you can see the really fast runners at the front. Leaders were packed in a 4-6 people group and then there were a gap and a lonely runner in between. First lady was flying. I could say hi to David Conway that seemed very comfortable.
Running was easy until more or less 22 miles, at that point my legs started to complain more and there were lots of people walking and even collapsing, it was very sad to see it. Having to pass these thing just made the running even harder. But I remembered what Rachel Brock wrote me on facebook: “go out and enjoy and embrace the hardness of the last few miles, it makes it all the sweeter at the finish line” and I kept going.
Finish line. This was just awesome, you can see it from far and you know you already did it (I was finishing my first marathon!!). I didn’t bother on stopping the garmin/checking the time until I crossed…3:22:07. It was my target (3:20ish), so I was even happier. As usual, nice t-shirt and medal at the end.
Next question, when is the next marathon? 🙂
Massey times: (Chip)
03:20:56 Jose Luis Sanchez
03:21:59 Virginia Silio
03:33:29 Alan McDougall
05:44:30 Marie O’Connor