The Marathon day

Well the day arrived and i was very relaxed as i felt unusually confident as i did all the training so i got up at 6:30am and had a large bowl of porridge. i didn't sleep great, but i wasn't expecting too.

So after breakfast i relaxed in bed until before 8 and got ready. Put on my normal running gear which i was slightly concerned about because the weather was a bit hotter than i am used too, but i stuck with it. Got photo's with my family and headed to meat Cathal Daly in Debanhams. I could sense the excitement around the street and i was still fairly relaxed, which was very unusual for me. We went for a run to stretch the legs and then took our place in the starting line.
I decided the night before hand that i would go with the 3:30 pacers as i based my training on that pace. As the race started i felt comfortable and gradually made my way up to the pacers. I stuck with them and felt fairly comfortable and was enjoying the run through my local streets.

my first few miles went as follows

m1 7:46, m2 7:45,m3  7:56, m4 7:48, m5 7:51

m6 7:51; m7 8:08 m8 8:16 m9 7:55 m10 7:42

this was just under 1h 19 min for 10 miles.

which was probably a bit too fast and with the weather getting hotter it proved to my downfall.

the second ten miles went as follows,  with 2 miles over 11 minutes proved disastrous
m11 7:54 m12 8:04, m13 7:56, m14 8:18, m15 8:13,
m16 11:12, m17 8:00, m18 8:40, m19 12:42, m20 9:04

the remainder of the race was a blur, just wanted to get to the finish line and lie down and cry!!

m21 9:53 m22 11:19, m23 9:11, m24 8:41, m25 8:47, m26 10:13

last 400, 3:33 minutes

total 3:50:30

The original plan should have been thrown out the window in the morning of the race and i should have removed half my clothing and gone with the 3;45 pacers or even gone on my own. It was a hard way to learn how to run a marathon , given the amount of training i did. During the race i was thinking to myself that only a month before it i did 22 miles in 2 hours 53 minutes and the first 20 in 2hours 38, so to hit the wall at mile 16 was a big dissappointment. However i struggled to the finishing line. At mile 19, i broke a toe nail fairly badly and the foot was sore, but i new if i took off the shoe it wasn't going to go back on.

So a lot more negatives from my first marathon than positives, the one big positive is that i crossed the line and finishefd in a sub 4 hour mark, given the heat and humidity it was a good result. But the main negative for me is hitting the wall at mile 16 and struggling and stopping on so many occasions!
This will fire me on for Dublin in october where i will go with 3:45 pacers or myself, and hopefully the weather will be better for me