Catching up - Faversham marathon

It’s interesting that trail marathons that take you across 26+ miles of largely pretty scenery bore me senseless. It’s probably because I’m concentrating on where to put my feet, the time passes very slowly and it feels like I’m out there for the best part of a day. On the other hand, a marathon comprised of 40 laps of a small recreation ground in a small town in Kent passed very quickly and most enjoyably and I was finished by lunchtime, leaving the rest of the weekend clear for other activities essential for a well-rounded life: good company, good wine, and getting on a plane to the States for work (spot the odd one out).

I’d never done more than 5 laps in a single marathon before, though this reminded me somewhat of the 10 in 10. There’s something very soothing about a multiple lap course, once you’ve settled into a good pace, you can get into a rhythm that rocks you into a world without time or distance or distractions, no mobile or blackberry or emails to answer, just the same kilometre of path to cover, over and over and over. Each lap was about 50m over one k, and the clock indicated my pace was really consistent at just under 6 minutes per lap. I was really enjoying this marathon and knew it was a far better race to test my current fitness than my recent events.

The route fell into a sort of isosceles triangle – a long steady uphill, topped off by a short sharp climb, a long descent and a short section of flat. The mini hill was fine for the first 10 laps, ok for the next 10, getting rather like hard work for the next 10, knackering the next 2 and then I had 10k to go so I walked it from then on. As for the number of laps I did, I have no idea. I was very puzzled when I went through 21.1km on the nose according to the garmin and was told I’d only done 19 and my official finish clocked almost 43km on the watch. It’s more likely that running in a fairly tight circle made the garmin go a bit screwy, so my finish time was a shade over 4 hours, indicating some return to form.

I’ve hit the wall so many times in marathons, pretty much every marathon since April, and it was nice to have got a lot further in this before capitulating. Even tripping over my own feet after about 15k and ending up sprawled across the path, causing Roger to full on hurdle me before gallantly offering my a hand up didn’t lose more than a few seconds. Maybe without that pimple of a hill I would have been able to go sub 4, certainly without the extra distance that the watch logged. It was a good day.

Faversham is organised by 100 club Sid. It’s not just for 100 clubbers, but there were a lot of them making up the 60 strong field. With so many laps, you were constantly going past people, and having people pass you and it was a very social day out. I feel a bit spoiled lately after the Enigma and this, it’s lovely to feel like a real part of the marathon circuit and to be treated as one of them. Some of these old boys (and not a few girls) are legendary. Seeing John Dawson keep going after his eye op and Selina set a huge PB after hundreds of marathons among all the other inspiring people is incredibly motivating.

Sid knows what marathon runners want and had set out a very professional event with a bank of lap counters and a station laden with water, orange, ribena, lucozade, electrolyte, flapjacks, jelly babies, cereal bars and god knows what else. He then spoiled us rotten at the finish with a Morrisons carrier bag stuffed full of an energy drink, a bottle of Spitfire (brewed in Faversham), a 2 lottery ticket (along with the clause that 10% of any winnings were due back to him) and a giant trophy. No crappy old pressed tin medals here, this was about 10 inches tall with blue paint and monstrously brash. I love it. A great race with only a 5.30am alarm call, and back in London for 3.15pm, now that’s efficient marathon running.