here goes nothing...

Slogger Jogger

asimonov wrote: »

Thanks lads for well wishes...finished in 2:58:58 on my watch. Just about to tuck into a beer :-) :-) :-)

My OH said she saw bazman and he was flying at the 30k mark. I'll post a proper report later. Slainte.

Fantastic. Well done, enjoy. Looking forward to the race report. Race reports with a good outcome are always good.

Barry did terrific. Short post on the imra forum had the following...
Barry Minnock 2:24:00 in 12th place overall
Brian MacMahon 2:24:14 in 13th place overall
Donna Mahon 2:53:00
Aisling Coppinger 3:10:00

Sosa

asimonov wrote: »

Thanks lads for well wishes...finished in 2:58:58 on my watch. Just about to tuck into a beer :-) :-) :-)

My OH said she saw bazman and he was flying at the 30k mark. I'll post a proper report later. Slainte.

Well done Asimonov...fantastic result.
I look forward to reading your report...well done again...brilliant !

littlebug

Well done Asiminov. Your hard work and patient recovery paid off. Enjoy that beer!

BeepBeep67

Great running - well deserved!

Krusty_Clown

Congrats Asimonov! Brilliant time. You must be dead chuffed.
Delighted for ya.

Abhainn

Fair fcxks to you Asimonov.

donothoponpop

Brilliant time asimonov, you deserve that result from your training, well done!

wizwill

well done, well deserved. looking forward to the report

metamorphosis

Fantastic running there -well done!

showry

cracking run asimonov

rigal

Great stuff asimonov - enjoy those beers...

village runner

He ran a negative split by 1 second. sounds a perfect race. Well done kid. I have 9 seconds to find. But i will find em. Berlin Berlin Berlin.................

tisnotover

brilliant ruuning! well done!!!

Racing Flat

Great stuff, good man.

shels4ever

asimonov wrote: »

Thanks lads for well wishes...finished in 2:58:58 on my watch. Just about to tuck into a beer :-) :-) :-)

My OH said she saw bazman and he was flying at the 30k mark. I'll post a proper report later. Slainte.

Way to spank the 3 hour mark, super running enjoy the beer

Izoard

Cracking effort and richly deserved!

Now that you've eh, mastered the marathon, time to grab the bike, don the lycra suit and follow the light down the path of righteousness:)

asimonov

Race Report: Florence Marathon 2009

I'll start by quickly filling in the gap between Connemara and
Florence. After Connemara I had decided I really wanted to do more
running, so with a wee prompt from Krusty I signed up for Dublin immediately and embarked on a training plan.

I had made a couple of basic lifestyle changes that I hoped would help me get the most of out my training. I gave up my "two a day" smoking habit, joined the local athletics club and sharpened my diet. My diet hadn't been too bad before this, I've no sweet tooth at all, it was just a case of being more aware of the types of food I ate and their nutritional content. My OH is a pretty amazing cook, and all our food is cooked from scratch, so we really just upped the amount of vegetarian food we ate and I used a recovery drink after training to make sure i got enough protein. The only other significant change made was hooking up with VR, Ike and another local runner and we did some training sessions and races together over the summer.

A review of my training will have little value to anyone as it was so
screwed up. I'm on the plane back writing this and I don't have all
the details here, I pretty much trained for 24 weeks in total, split into
two distinct halves, June, July & August and then September, October & November. The first 12 weeks went fantastically, each week included a
long run and by the end of august I had already completed a 22 mile run, 4 x
19 or 20 mile runs and a good few 16 - 18 milers, all done at easy pace.
During this time a lot of weeks included two more sessions, one of long
intervals maybe 5 x 2k's at 10k pace (6:00 min mile pace) and then 6 mile LT tempo runs around 6:30 - 6:10 pace. I normally did 3 mile warm ups and downs at either end to turn these into long quality sessions.

At the end of august I ran a couple of road races in succession and I think
this combination of long runs, workouts and races after 12 weeks of training brought on a peak 8 weeks before Dublin - way too early. I'm pretty new to running, and there's lots I don't know- but I felt a physical change over this period. When I was out running my legs felt like they
wanted to surge and push on all the time and I had an increased apetite for running. At this stage I was doing about 65 mile weeks on 6 days a week of running. Compared to some this may not seem much, but between work, family and 65 mile weeks, life was pretty full on. I had the usual aches and pains but nothing major.

I continued to run hard through this peak when i probably should have backed off and with 7 weeks to Dublin (12 weeks to Florence) I got a light tear in my calf. The mileage over the 6 weeks that followed was disastrous.

After six weeks of rest and light training, i realised it wasn't repairing itself and with sub3 now out of the question and even running Florence starting to look in doubt, I went to see Star Geoghegan in Carlow. He diagnosed the issue as not being my calf but my ITB in 5 minutes without even having to touch my leg, and in 15 minutes he had released it ( a tad sore). Within 2 days the soreness, inflammation and swelling had gone, after a second visit 4 days later I was running again.

I managed to get 4 long runs in during the five weeks before the marathon. 2 x 18 miles at 7:40ish pace, 1 X 15 mile PMP interval session and finally 12 days before the marathon I did a one final 20 mile run. I also did 3 half marathon pace tempo runs and i ran one cross country race to try and induce some sharpness out of somewhere. The weekly mileage for September & October & November had been far from ideal 0,7, 17,37, 9, 0, 30, 44, 46, 49, 24. With three weeks to go I had mentally given up on going for a sub3 but after some encouraging words, posts and PM's of advice from a couple of boardies and one or two others i decided to give it a go and at least give myself a chance of it.

asimonov

My OH and I flew to Bologna on the Friday and took the train onwards to Florence. We arriving to bright sunshine and warm weather (such a pleasant change from the monsoon we had left). We spend Friday eating and sightseeing and i left my runners in the kit bag. On Saturday morning we went to the expo to register, most of the other runners there seemed to be Italian with a fair few Germans and other northern europeans in the mix. The race pack was good, we got a nice adidas long sleeve technical top.

Carb loading in Florence is not only easy, its delicious. I managed to eat pasta three times on the Saturday (twice for lunch and once for dinner) and then load up on bread etc. We went out running together (a very rare occurrence) that afternoon and did an easy 3 miles at 10 min mile pace around the streets of the city center.

At the expo I bought 4 Enervit energy gels to take and i had brought over a light gel flask to put them in that clipped onto my shorts. Gels haven't agreed with me in the past and I thought the flask would allow me to sip small amounts of gel through the race rather than hitting my system with 3 or 4 large doses. I also had dates for eating before the race and a pack of cliff shot blocks as back up. Back at the hotel I printed out a 2:59 pace band in KM's.

The race plan was simple:
1. Drink at every drinks station (every 5k)
2. Get to half way no faster than 1:29:30 no slower than 1:30:30
3. Get to 20 miles on target pace and go from there
4. Remember that everyone feels great at mile 18
5. Embrace the beast.

The race was due to start at 9:00. At ten to 8 i left the hotel walked the 15 minutes or so to the changing area near the river. It was there I saw I was in the 3rd category of runners. Numbers 1 - 100 was reserved for the Kenyans and the Bazmans, sub3's were from 101 to 1000 and then 1001 to 2000 was for those in the 3:00 to 3:29 pen.

It was just a perfect day for running; sunny, 14 degrees's or so, crisp, clear blue sky, no wind. I changed into my shorts and singlet, just keeping an extra t-shirt on till 5 minutes before the off. I wore my brooks launch's, which are lightweight runners but not racers, I also had brought the slightly lighter ST4's down with me to the changing area but I left them in the bag as i was worried about the impact of the cobble stones on my calf. I kept my nano with me for music until the off. I had taken an anti-inflammatory the minute i had woken up at 6 that morning and pocketed another one in case i needed to ameliorate any calf pain that might occur during the race ;-)

Once changed i hopped on one of the free buses that took us to the start up at the Plaza del Michelangelo, overlooking the city. I entered the 3:00 - 3:29 pen, and stood waiting for the gun. Nine O'Clock came and went, the start was delayed about 20 minutes for live TV i think and after waiting for about 15 of those 20 minutes, I figured I needed to switch pens, realistically I was too far back from the sub3 pace balloons and I skipped under the tape into the sub3 area. I ate my dates and pocketed the headphones and iPod and before i knew it we were off.

The race broke into four clear sections for me. All the split times are garmin times (which recorded the race at 26.44 miles between the dodging, weaving and not running tangents).

Miles 0-7
There was a lot of congestion at the start and my first mile (7:17) was very slow and the pace balloons were well ahead of me and moving further away by the minute. The second and third miles are sharply downhill, the second mile was 6:33 and the distance between me and the slowest of the three sub3 pacer had stabilised around the 20 second mark but the faster balloons were way ahead. Looking back it was nothing with 24 miles to go - but at the time it felt like a crisis. My third mile (6:43) maintained a constant distance with the pacers, and I started to calm down and run easier.

We went past the first drinks station at 5K and the gel flask dropped from my hand as i grabbed a water in a cup while running at full pelt. This was all my gel, so I stopped, went back a few steps and picked it up (while dodging other runners) and then got quickly back on pace, cursing myself for my clumsiness. Miles 4 (6:50) & 5 (6:51) went by nice and easy but the balloons kept pulling away. I had lost sight of the fastest of the sub3 pacers, and from my pace band i knew i was 20 seconds down on my target time and even though i was running on pace i was losing time. What to do? Chase the balloons and run the risk of blowing up or continue run to my own pace?

I decided it was best not to panic, it was early days still, hold the gap for the moment and mile 6 (6:45) did just that. Mile 7 included the second water stop (at 10k) and would you believe it - I dropped the flask yoke again, Idiot! could i fcuk this up any worse? Stopping again to pick it up mile seven took 6:54. The balloons were now well ahead of me and I knew I had to steady the ship or it was game over. I had to try and get positive, claw back some time steadily, (not drop the flask again!) and try and get up with the balloons before the half way mark.

Mile 8 - 13
I decided my best bet to close the gap was to increase my pace steadily and make sure not to slow through the water and sponge stations. I got a great mental boost when my I saw my OH waiting for me at mile 8 and this resulted in an injection of pace (6:36). At last, for the first time - i felt really positive and ready to run. This respite however, was relatively short lived, during mile 9 (6:34) I felt my right ITB start to burn slightly and this played on my mind. But even in two miles I had made good in roads into the pacers' lead.

In response to the ITB I eased off the pace a little in mile 10 (6:43) and managed to get the anti-inflammatory out of my shorts pocket and washed it down with a gel...yum. I picked up the pace again for mile (11) 6:36 and for the first time in the race i had managed to catch the slowest of the pace balloons. This was a huge relief yet I knew I might have overcooked it to get there (Sosa's warnings ringing in my ears).

Mile 12 (6:45)and 13 (6:50) were steady miles in the pack behind the pacers. Just head down, avoiding trouble, doing my best to run as short a line as possible. I crossed the half way mark at 1:30:04 on the clock, 1:29:30 on my watch.


Mile 14 - 20.
The third quarter of a marathon is my favourite. You can run strong, feeling good, things have settled down around you and you can enjoy the moment while preparing yourself for what lies ahead. I had arranged to meet my OH at mile 16, she had an emergency gel ready for me but
was caught on the wrong side of the street - I shouted to her it was OK, i felt great - didn't need it. Fingers crossed - please don't let that come back and bite me on the ass. I had 5 cliff shot blocks in my pocket and one last squeeze of gel left, surely that would be ok?

I ran immediately behind the middle pacer (so close his balloons were banging off my head!) as we headed back through and out of the historic town centre. The pacers gave support, handing out sponges and water as we went through the stations. The miles were cruising by 6:48, 6:51, 6:47, 6:47 for 14 - 17. I now had time to look around and enjoy the setting, a got a couple of high 5's, applauded some supporters, and encouraged a few other runners who were coming back to us. Bravo - Brava! I felt fresh and took the last squeeze of gel. As we entered the park I felt i good enough to up the pace a little.

I moved just slightly ahead of the pacers at this stage, my mile 18 (everyone feels great at mile 18!) split came up at 6:40 and 6:41 for mile 19 kept it going. This was a lonely section of the race out, with little support in the park. But the negative thoughts of the first part of the race
were well and truly gone and i felt i was where i had wanted to be, on pace, feeling good and about to head into the business end of the marathon. Time to embrace the beast.


Mile 20 - 26.2

At the start of mile 20 (6:52) we turned and began to head back into the town. This area of the run was pretty exposed into a medium headwind. I slowed a bit as i took two shot blocks and grabbed some water. A couple of hundred yards later I felt huge relief crossing the 32k marker, so only 10k to go. Even as that low, dull, full body ache starting to grow inside me, I felt I could at last race it out as best i could.

So it was head down as I hooked up with 2 Italians running around the same pace. Miles 21 - 24 went by slowly but relatively evenly 6:42, 6:49, 6:45, 6:45. I was starting to gasp for air and my quads were hurting. I ran passed my OH and didn't see her. My head was starting to roll back a little which happens as i tire and if i didn't concentrate i started to come off the pace. We turned back into the city centre onto cobblestones and on mile 25 I could feel myself really start to suffer for the first time (6:55). At 40K I went by the last refreshment table. I decided to grab some lemon segments, the tartness instantly cut through and hit the spot. I decided not to fight it, go with the flow, pick up the pace, it will be over soon, and at 6:26 i managed to eek my fastest mile out on what was recorded as mile 26 on the Garmin. In reality I still had .44 of a mile to go and I couldn't sustain that sub 6:30 pace - as it dropped off to 6:37 pace for that last bit. You don't see the finish at Florence until its upon you as you come around a corner - i took a quick look at my watch as i saw the finish, saw a sub 2:59 was on, sprinted to the line and hit the watch at 2:58:58 (2:58:59 chip time). The second half took me 1:29:29, finishing just ahead of the pacer balloons. I felt a tremendous release, I was just grateful it was over...within 10 metres my legs started to seize. We were quickly funneled out of the finish area, I picked up my medal, recovery food pack, hot tea, heat blanket. As i was walking back to the changing area I meet a guy in an Ireland singlet, pretty soon we're joined by 2 other Irish....all of us sub3 ( I was the slowest). We limped back together to get our gear.

I'd really recommend Florence Marathon as an autumn marathon and definitely as an alternative to Dublin if you get waylaid with injury. The setting is near perfect, its a fast course, really well supported, great aid and sponge stations and a beautiful city to spend a weekend away in.

I'm now going to take a small break and not think about a marathon for a while and set some new goals for 2010. Thanks to everyone on boards who has knowingly or unknowingly helped me along the way.

thirstywork

great review,seems like everything didn't go according to plan but you kept positive and hit your goal in the end.
Have you mapped out your next race or marathon?

Macanri

Congrats. Great review. I was engrosed. Comical first section. Glad you got in under your goal. Fair play.

donothoponpop

Fantastic report, and great comical moments. I'm going to take a note from you, and try slapstick in my next marathon, to take my mind off the pain...:)

--amadeus--

An excellent report and an excellent race - well done on mastering marathon running even if your yo-yo skills need some work

Krusty_Clown

Fab report, you really captured the spirit of the marathon, worthy of your achievement in the race itself (which was just ok).

BeepBeep67

Epic read - I was with you all the way - where can I buy the book for Christmas?

DustyBin

Fair play - is that only your second marathon?
Great commitment in the training
Well done on a fantastic run

misty floyd

Absolutely brilliant stuff. Really enjoyed that read. I almost cheered at the end. Well done.

Sosa

Well done again Asimonov...great running.
Enjoy the break now,you deserve it

I'm mad jealous but delighted for you.

ecoli

Congrats on the achievement. Now that the psychological barrier of the 3 hour mark is gone i can see you going good bit quicker (maybe wear a magnet for your gel flask lol)
Enjoy the well earned rest

Slogger Jogger

Brilliant read. Brilliant run, particularly after the ITB setbacks beforehand. You make Florence sound very inviting. Cheers.

When you set your targets for next year just think of what you could do if you had a solid and uninterupted base of training. :eek:

village runner

Great read. Was hoping you would go sub 3 but not sub 2.59.08. You can lead the speed sessions nxt summer.

Killerz

Great read - well done. And who knows how dangerous you'd be if you didnt have to stop and pick up energy gels!

asimonov

thanks lads, i definitely need to include some kind of manual dexterity work in my next training plan.

thirstywork wrote: »

Have you mapped out your next race or marathon?

Thanks thirstywork, the county senior xcross country in late december is the next race. The only other think marked in the diary is an entry for the conn ultra, but right now i'm not sure if i'll do that, in fact i'm pretty sure i'll drop back to the full or half. I'll have another pop at a marathon next autumn i think after i've built a solid base. Might give the galway marathon a miss though

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

Epic read - I was with you all the way - where can I buy the book for Christmas?

now with free gel flask..:)

DustyBin wrote: »

Fair play - is that only your second marathon?

Thanks DustyBin, yep that was my second, i did connemara halfs in 06 & 08 (both in 1:46) and then signed up for connemara full at the start of november last year as my first full marathon.

Sosa wrote: »

Well done again Asimonov...great running.
Enjoy the break now,you deserve it I'm mad jealous but delighted for you.

thanks sosa, you've a marathon in hand on me now, it's just a matter of how far below 3 you go next time.

I'm going to finish off the log now and as above, thanks to everyone for their advice, comments and motivation. I hope i can return the favour. I'm going to pick some new targets for 2010 and start a new log soon enough.

Abhainn

Great read, asimonov shows you what a bit of work can do for you when you have come form a 1:46 half in 08 to 2:58 marathon now.
See you were real happy when you crossed the finish line :)Congrats again

MCOS

Super run to match your progress to date! Well done and nice report to boot

lecheile

well done! Brilliant result and race report. Big question is next marathon target? Fancy sharing a sub 2.50 in dub next year?

OI

Sh!t momma, I can't dance - totally missed this one mate. I knew you would do it, great performance and I enjoyed the read. Well done mate.

aero2k

OI wrote: »

Sh!t momma, I can't dance - totally missed this one.

Hi asimonov, I missed this one too - Amadeus's "Hall of Fame" thread reminded me to have a look. That's a terrific report and a great performance - you coped very well with the flask incidents - that kind of thing would have driven me mad!
Florence sounds like a good one.