Injuries and Abingdon Marathon

Injury Update
A week before Clarendon marathon, I went to have a scan on my groin to check for a possible hernia.  This has been causing me some trouble with pain in my lower abs (I think) especially after a long or hard run and especially if I had a cough as well.  Not knowing what was the cause meant that I couldn't get treatment without possibly risking the injury getting worse.  I had the scan in Aldershot Health Centre and was seen quickly, covered in gloop, scanned and had the results straight away.  Good news - I don't have a hernia, and I don't have an injury to my adductor tendon either.

That afternoon I booked an appointment with a physiotherapist for the day after Clarendon marathon. Fortunately I was feeing OK after that run, being able to walk normally and cope with stairs without having to hang on to the bannisters and lower myself down sideways. Still, I was a bit wary of having Tracy at Fleet Physio dig her thumbs into my groin and inner thigh.

I was right to be a bit worried.  After an extensive catch up on my injury history after my last treatment session 2 months ago, which included admitting, like a naughty schoolboy, that I had done 4 more marathons in 5 weeks and had another in 2 weeks, Tracy got down to business with a reassessment and then painful massage of my right adductor. She then taped up my inner thigh over the adductor, which I suppose does some good, but actually the main feeling I get from it is that of having a leg wax every step I walk as the tape pulls on inner thigh hairs!

I was given a new list of exercises to do to strengthen core and glutes, work on the patella injury doing knee dips, but do the same on the right leg to make sure they are both the same strength.  I know I was there just the day after a hard marathon, but I was clearly weaker and more wobbly doing single leg dips on my right leg than my left.  I was also told to avoid doing exercises that caused me pain, the reason being that I shouldn't be be pushing through the pain all the time and desensitising myself to it, otherwise I risk ignoring the warning signs of potential injuries in future.

Abingdon Marathon is relatively flat and fast with one significant steady climb over about a mile, which you do twice. However, there is also the issue of the 5 hour cut off time.  What that really means is at 2pm any remaining traffic control and road closures are taken off and anyone still on the course has to run on the footpaths and cross one or two roads themselves without much help from marshals.  That doesn't mean that you get asked to stop at 5 hours but there were fewer than 30 finishers beyond 5 hours last year and in fact, if you are a 4 hour marathon runner, you will still be in the last third of the field.  What they are really serious about is running with headphones or unauthorised transfers of race numbers, either of which will get you disqualified (9 disqualified last year).  I can understand the headphones issue - there are several road crossings and the marshals have to be able to call you across at a safe time while holding the traffic, which is not safe if you can't hear them.

I did this run last year and had a really good run - posting a PB and my first ever sub-4 hour time.  This time, I'm still on the way back from injury and building up endurance and strength and my targets and expectations were a lot lower. I was going to go for a sub-5 hour time and hopefully nearer 4:30, which would be a significant improvement on any marathon I have done since London back in April, even the easy flat ones.

I got my kit together the night before as I had a message to remind me from SJ clubmate Leon that it was a 9am start, so no lie in for this one. I was sticking with my now trusty Hoka Bondi 3 trainers, toe socks, ankle/calf compression and knee straps to avoid patella tendonitis after the run.  I also wore a t-shirt under my club vest as I thought it might be a bit cool out.  Leon turned up at 7am and we drove up to Abingdon with no problems arriving by 8am.  There is about a 15 minute walk from the car park area, but we were in Tilsley Park stadium with plenty of time to find the changing rooms and loos before heading out to the start where we met Mark Nikki and Elizabeth from SJ.  After several goes at tying my shoelaces and finding them too tight I finally got them fixed to my liking and we were off.

Leon and I had done 4 marathons each in the last 5 or 6 weeks with Leon doing Chicago the week before, so we were both feeling the miles in our legs.  We set off together with the aim of doing a steady 10min/mile pace and managed to keep that going till about half way.  At 14 miles Leon stopped to walk/jog and sent me on my way, which worked for him, but ultimately tired me out.  I made it to about 18 miles before deciding I needed to have a decent walk break and from then on I was jogging and walking to the end, jogging for a mile and walking for 5 minutes.  At about 20 miles Leon caught me up and a few minutes later jogged on to finish just over 3 minutes ahead of me.

Abingdon marathon is a bit of a mixed bag as far as the course and support is concerned.  There are loads of marshals all doing a good job, the course is picturesque in places around the river and Radley lakes, but a bit of a drag in others where you are running along a busy road or through an industrial estate.  The parts through the town centre were well managed and there were lots of people supporting cheering us on. Elsewhere on the course the support was patchy, but where there were supporters they were enthusiastic and cheering us on well.

Stadium finish awaits at Abingdon.

It turned out to be a good day for running a marathon, with perfect weather and there were some fast times from the other SJ runners, as well as a world record time for a woman pushing a buggy (3:17:52):

SJ Results:
Sean Smith 2:59:40
Mark Fallowfield-Smith 3:04:29
Nikki Stanley 3:43:33
Elizabeth Crow 3:58:45
Leon Hicks 4:40:02
Richard Boese 4:43:31

Splits were: 9:34 9:38 10:03 9:51 9:43 9:59 9:58 9:53 9:56 9:59 9:59 10:28 10:21 10:25 10:29 11:01 10:03 11:26 14:17 11:14 11:50 12:49 12:57 12:08 12:32 11:08 1:50

Next up for me is a 3 week rest before the third in the Thames Meander marathon series where I'll be aiming for a course PB at least.

Clarendon Marathon

Two weeks on since my last marathon on the comeback trail, this is one that I booked relatively late on to make up for having to pull out of Endure 24. I obviously needed some cheering up and what better way than to pick one of the hardest marathons in the south of England as a replacement?

Clarendon Marathon is similar to the Farnham Pilgrim in that it is run mostly over hilly trails and is organised by local Rotary Clubs, in this case the Salisbury and Winchester branches.  It's a charity fundraising event and not a business venture, so it is very reasonably priced for what you get - loads of marshals, plenty of water and bananas, a medal and t-shirt. It follows the Clarendon Way over most of its route, starting at Laverstock to the north-east of Salisbury and finishing at the King's School just to the west of Winchester; you just miss out running through the city centres at each end.

Preparation for this event over the previous 2 weeks had been focussed on some gentle recovery runs in the first week and then some harder tempo runs of 3 to 6 miles in the second.  I'm still getting back to fitness and slowly getting there.  On the morning, I was up at 6:30 for breakfast and on the motorbike for the ride to Winchester by 7:30.  I arrived just after 8:15 at the park and ride car park near M3 Junction 11 and parked up next to a footpath at one side of the car park.  After stowing my bike kit in the panniers, I got my Hokas on and got on the waiting shuttle bus that would take us to Salisbury. I met Sandhurst Joggers' Patrick Wadsworth on the bus and we chatted about the route and the conditions.  The weather leading up to this race had been dry for more than a week and was misty and cold this morning with sunshine on the way.  Apart from being a little warm later on, perfect conditions with great views guaranteed.

Well organised registration

We arrived at the Wyverne College near Laverstock at 9:30 with an hour to go before the off.  The set up in the school gym was just the same as at our local Yateley 10k races, with the hall busy with people keeping warm and fixing their race numbers.  After a final go to the loos and storing our bags on the bus to be taken to the finish, we made our way to the start.  Patrick was going to be about an hour quicker then me so we said goodbye and good luck and got going at 10:30.

At the start with Patrick

We headed south for about a mile before picking up the Clarendon Way and then turned east onto our first trail section and first climb up past the ruins of Clarendon Palace.  Apart from a few noodley bits to add some distance, the route follows the Clarendon Way all the way.  It  is all undulating to hilly, mostly on trails and tracks with some quiet road sections, all of which were very well marshalled with the traffic held up for runners to cross roads safely.

It's always a good idea to have a little rest at the top
to appreciate the view

There were some excellent views up on the Downs and, although I was treating any significant gradient as a walk break, it was still very much worth it to pause and take in the sights.  This kind of marathon is never going to be a PB run, and even if you come back year after year, the weather and ground conditions can play a big part in your eventual time.

At the River Test near Houghton. It looked like a great place
for a cooling dip. One to come back to.

Even the valleys were interesting with classic little English villages and pretty river crossings, especially around the Test valley. Here, near Houghton, the river has come off of the chalk downs and flows over beds of sands and gravels and it was crystal clear.  My feet and calves were saying stop a while and go for a paddle, but I had family to meet at the end and couldn't linger.

On the way up Farley Mount at about 20 miles. Nobody I saw
was running up, it was really big.

Patrick had told me about a hill at about 19 miles and even though I hadn't bothered to look at the course profile, I was expecting something fairly big.  I wasn't disappointed. You come in to an aid station at 19.5 miles alongside a field and turn your back on the hill.  Then, having glugged some squash and with banana in hand you turn to face Farley Mount, a relentless mile of steep climb and by far the biggest hill on the course. After as brisk a walk up as I could manage, I said hello to the marshals at the summit and made my way slowly jogging along the crest and down slope to the next check point and final handover for the relay runners.  I thought about the placing of the marshals and realised that there had been a marshal or two on the summit of every climb and they all cheered us on up the last few metres of the hills.  Another nice touch.

For the last few miles I was struggling along feeling very tired.  I was encouraged to find that I had managed to run well for much further than the last marathon that I did, keeping my mile pacing quite consistently in the 10 or 11 minutes/mile range.  Throughout the run there had been mile markers placed with the number of miles to the finish and the last mile marker came with me hoping for a gentle downhill to the finish. No such luck, as there were two more little stings in the tail before turning to into the road down to King's School.

At the finish with Alfred. Both Alf and Elinor ran the last
200m to the finish line with me, which made it
a wonderful finish

At the school entrance, my wife Julia and children Alfred and Elinor were waiting for me and both the kids came running alongside the course cheering me on, and then ran with me up to the finish line.  They couldn't help turning it into a little race and sprinted the last 20m ahead of me, but I was very grateful for the family support. It was something I was looking forward to and really helped to spur me on over the last few miles.

After finishing, there were drinks, more bananas (Fyffes was a sponsor), a t-shirt and medal to collect.  They had run out of medium sized t-shirts, so I went for a small and that seems to fit alright.  The medal is quite small, as you can see, but this seems to be a bit of a theme for all my hardest marathons - it was the same for the Pilgrim and Richmond Park.  I got my post race recovery underway with a buffalo burger, left the rest of the family to their drive home and got changed before the bus ride back to the park and ride.

I finished this marathon in 5:15:09.  This was an improvement on the Pilgrim (5:23:48) on what I thought was a tougher course.  However, the Pilgrim has cake, biscuits and sweets at every aid station as well as water and squash, while Clarendon has only drinks for the first 12 miles, so I may have spent a bit longer eating on the Pilgrim. Still, this looks like another improvement in fitness with no further injuries.  The next race for me is Abingdon marathon in 2 weeks time where I need to finish inside 5 hours.