Barcelona Marathon 2013
So there I was lying in my bed having a wee cry. I had done the Dublin Marathon a couple of months before and had a brilliant day with lots of familiar faces in Pulse colours lining the streets of Dublin to cheer us on. A big gang of Pulsers had done the race that day and everyone finished which was absolutely brilliant. There was a great atmosphere in O’Donoghues afterwards – pints were had and stairs were cursed. Enda Kelleher had beaten me by only 18 seconds, but you know what, he’s a better runner than me and had trained harder so I had no excuses, I was really happy for Enda, genuinely. On the day. But as the days passed that 18 seconds began to irritate me a bit, almost as much as Enda irritated me by bringing it up at every possible occasion!
“That’s it I’m doing another one!”. I sat up in bed, grabbed the laptop and signed up for Zurich Marato Barcelona 2013. 42.2kms around Barcelona on St. Patrick’s Day…sure what else would you be at.
I had a plan this time, I was going to train properly, eat properly and surround myself with the right people…yeah, well I was going to lay off the chips a bit, tone down the booze a smidge and definitely do at least 1 run beyond 22k this time. I had notions of training a with Orla Jordan (3:16), Shona Keane (3:05) and Liam McFadden (3:02), but then I realised that if I was shot from a cannon with my arse on fire I still wouldn’t be able to keep up with them. Right, I’ll just ask them loads of questions, yeah, questions will get me fit!
The training went ok and I was building up the distances nicely. Got up to 25k one Saturday and was really happy with my pace and how I felt. The next Saturday, on the exact same route, I had to get a taxi home from Milltown! Luckily I was going to dinner that night in Caroline and Enda’s so I knew I would get lots of sympathy and encouragement. Oh that smug little fu…
Right, there was one goal and one goal only – 3:36:56 was the target time, exactly 1 second faster than Enda’s Dublin time. Yes it’s a different course, yes it’s a different time of year and yes it’s INCREDIBLY petty, but that was the target. I’m not proud, but that was the target.
With a week to go the training was done so the only thing to do was to go to Cork for a couple of nights on the wild tear for Liam and Noreen’s wedding. Pints were had and shapes were thrown – I now know where Enda gets his fitness from, Jesus he never left the dance floor. The next morning Niamh Oman and myself went for a wee run to try and sweat out the excesses of the night before, but it was never going to work, although we did nearly see our breakfasts on the way back up the hill to the hotel. What a weekend!
Ok, time to get serious now, pack the bags, get to the airport and off to Spain with me. It had always been in the back of my mind as a dream goal but now I thought it was becoming a bit more realistic – 3:30 was doable if everything went to plan. My mate in work who is a 2:49 runner advised that I just go for it from the first kilometer as it’s too late to decide to push it with 5k to go. That was the plan and whatever happened happened.
Arriving late on Friday night I checked into my hostel and pretty much went to bed. I had decided to do the breakfast run the next morning as it covered the last 4k of the 1992 Olympic Marathon and finished with a lap of the Olympic Stadium. It was a beautiful morning with brilliant blue skies, a slight breeze and 2000 eager runners wearing flags, costumes and club gear from all over the world. It was a fantastic atmosphere with everyone just jogging around the 4k, taking pictures and generally having a laugh. Thoroughly enjoyed the run and it really got me in the mood for the main event, I just wanted to get going now. So after registering and taking a wander around the expo for an hour I made my way home.
After doing a few long races in the last year I’ve learned that the day before a big race is immensely boring. You want to stay off your feet so as not to tire yourself, but you also need to occupy yourself for the day somehow, distracting your mind from the pain that’s on its way. Luckily it was the last day of the 6 nations so I strolled over to an Irish bar and parked myself in the best seat in the house directly in front of the big TV. Couldn’t believe my luck getting that seat and was surprised how quiet it was just 10 minutes before kickoff in the Italy vs Ireland match. Ah feck, stupid time zones messing me up, I was an hour early. So I just sat there drinking alternate glasses of coke and water for the next few hours. Dull. The Irish match, depressing. Right, find somewhere serving pasta and order something bland…I mean something that won’t upset my stomach. God I’m bored! Finally got back to the hostel and at that point I realised that despite being bored out of my mind all day I hadn’t got my race gear together at all. Ah the joys of a run versus a triathlon – runners, shorts, top, food, bed!
So it’s at this point that I meet the people I’m sharing a room with – 5 American kids studying in Spain and spending “spring break” in Barcelona. They were nice in fairness, but my god one of them was wasn’t blessed in the intellect department…
“So what brings you to Barcelona?”
“I‘m doing the marathon tomorrow”
“OH MY FUCKING GOD THAT’S SO AWESOME!!! Which one are you doing?”
“Sorry?”
“Which marathon are you running?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah which one?”
“Madrid. I came to Barcelona to do the Madrid marathon”
“Really, that’s so cool. Wait, wait a minute, are you being sarcastic????”
If you have to ask love…
So I got about 4 hours sleep, my head was racing and I was really looking forward to the race. It was a very different feeling to the night before Ironman Frankfurt or the Dublin Marathon. For those races I was properly shitting myself and wasn’t sure I was able to finish. Now I knew I could cover the distance, I knew it would hurt, but I would get there. I was excited more than nervous as I really thought 3:30 was there for the taking. So at 6am I got up, ate the now soggy roll I had bought the night before (must plan breakfast better in future!!), packed my bag, wrapped myself in the tri colour, it was Paddy’s Day after all, and headed for the metro. 7am…Jesus I’m actually going to be on time!! It was sunday morning at 7am in the heart of Barcelona and the metro was a fantastic mix of lycra clad runners, buzzing with excitement and hammered people making their way home still buzzing on whatever party pills the kids are taking these days. A great mix and everyone in great form.
7:30am and the rain starts – the spaniards shit themselves! It was drizzling and pretty cold and they weren’t happy at all. Meanwhile you could hear the odd Irish accent saying “grand soft day”. The music is pumping and the nerves are now really kicking in – to the portaloo Batman! In the queue I occupied myself by looking out for the old lads wearing white shirts…every race you see them in their brand new, Daz white tops prancing about at the start but those shirts look more like Japanese flags by the finish. That reminds me, Vaseline!! Feck, rookie error – no toilet roll in the loo! Luckily I still had my bag with me with a spare pair of socks, that’s all I’m saying! Bag check-in was very quick and straightforward and I was now ready to go.
I had put 3:35 down when I registered as my target time so I was put into the 3:30-3:45 section at the start but managed to sneak into the 3:15-3:30 section. I had an old t-shirt on to keep warm but once in the packed start it got really warm so I threw it towards the railing. Before it got near the railing, a little Spanish guy jumped up, grabbed it and put it on…the poor locals were freezing, but conditions were perfect for me.
The gun went to the sound of “Barcelona” by Queen and there was a massive buzz – 20000 runners, loads of supporters and a stunning location to start the race, it was going to be a great day. The start was really well managed and each section was let off about 1 minute apart. Once you got to the line there was hardly any congestion and you could get up to pace straight away, very impressive. I was aiming to go at 4:45 per kilometer and hang on as long as I could.
The race itself is a bit of a blur of sweat and exhaustion, but it all started very well. The pace was where I wanted it to be, the support was excellent and there were a surprising number of Irish flags about yelling and roaring when they saw my pasty complexion. There are a number of events during the first half that stand out in my mind though. At around 10k into the run we had just passed the Camp Nou when a guy ran past me wearing flip-flops! He had fashioned some piece of string to hold the sole to his heel, but they were flip-flops…and I couldn’t keep up with him. Feck.
Shortly afterwards a guy decided that he was going to cross the road with his enormous suitcase – don’t worry about the thousands of people streaming down the road, you just truck on there buddy, a warning of things to come.
At around 14k I passed a guy running and pushing his son in a wheelchair. The kid had cerebral palsy and the smile on his face was savage. Everyone that passed was cheering and made a point to to go over and pat the guy on the back, high-5 the kid or just generally offer some encouragement. Absolutely brilliant and inspiring to see and he was doing a good pace too. Some people are just incredible.
At 19k we were going up a little drag and my legs were just starting to feel tired for the first time. I was following 2 guys who had been running at my pace for the last few kilometers and we were going along nice and steadily. Then out of nowhere a guy decides he’s going to cross the street right in front of me. He stepped into the bunch of runners and straight into me knocking me to one side and into a little spin. What the fuck!! I didn’t quite fall over so I tried to gather myself and get going again while also remembering every Spanish swear word I knew. I needn’t have bothered as a guy running behind me had my back and started screaming at the prick with some of the best insults you can think of – “ME CAGO EN TU PUTA MADRE, CONJO”….I shit on your whore mother you C-U-Next-Tuesday! The whole thing threw me for a while though and my heart rate soared. It was the shock of it more than anything that got to me, but eventually I managed to get things back to some form of normality. We doubled back on ourselves shortly afterwards and came to the half marathon point with a band belting out Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing. All smiles at this point now as everyone around me was on the same mission, aiming for 3:30 and if we maintained the pace we were on target for 3:28. Happy fucking days, I’m flying here now, 3:30 is in the bag…oh how naive!!
I’m feeling ok’ish now but the pace isn’t quite as easy as it was and my heart rate is starting to rise so I’m worried that I’m gonna pay towards the end. From memory I went through 30k in 2:27 / 2:28…basically I knew that if I could hold 5 minute kilometers, a pace I know I can manage, I’d do 3:30. Piece of piss eh?
BOOM! Yeah that wasn’t in the plan. Oh I don’t feel great, I’m VERY tired. I’m a wee bit dizzy, I’ll just pull over for a sec. Small wobble on the side of the road. Come on Karl, get your act together, take in some water, get the heart rate down a touch and get cracking. Right, back to it.
Now 5:20 / 5:30kms was a struggle and I was in bother. The 3:30 pacers passed me there which completely took the wind out of my sails. At the time I was thinking I was totally exhausted and just couldn’t do any more, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that I let my head drop, especially when I saw the pacers go by, and that was the big problem. As soon as you start to doubt yourself and the negative thoughts creep in you’re screwed. Still if I could even muster a jog for the last bit I was still on for a time I’d be very happy with and knocking a good chunk off my Dublin time. All in all I lost over 5 minutes in the 8 kilometers between 32k and 40k which was a disaster, but that wont happen to me next time. Even with 2k to go I was doubting I’d make it, but when I passed the 41k marker I gave it welly…relative to the pace I was doing at that point that is.
Right Karl, shoulders back, tits out, run like you’re being chased! I could see the big red inflatable thingy marking the finish 1km up the hill…like you’re being fucking chased Karlie!! Just about made it to the red thingy (what are they called anyway??) delighted with myself that I pushed hard at least for the last bit. Wait why isn’t everyone stopping?? Bastard…42.2kms!! Around the corner and another 300m to the actual finish. Some tanned, handsome prick with a microphone went to high 5 me with about 50m to go…think again shit head, a high 5 would be enough to stop me dead at this point. Crossed the line and to quote Erik Lithander from a cycle last year…”if I didn’t stop immediately I was going to die!”. A nice man from the Catalan equivalent of the St Johns Ambulance came over to me and checked if I was ok and I tried to explain that while I was 100% sure I was dying that I was also reasonably confident that if I was left to have a wee sleep there on the ground for a bit I’d probably be ok!
So I finished in 3:33:54, forever to be known as 3:33 flat! I was 7 minutes slower in the 2nd half than I was in the first – the exact opposite of my Dublin marathon. Happy?? Yeah definitely, despite missing out on 3:30 I was fairly happy with how I’d run the race and I knew with a bit more training I could definitely get down lower. More importantly I had beaten the real target of 3:36:56 🙂 Over to you Enda, 3:33:53 is your target!
So the lessons learned from marathon #2:
- Spanish people will cross the road whenever they see fit. Police, road traffic or thousands of runners won’t stop them
- I would pay good money to watch angry Spanish people swear
- The “find a nice ass and follow it” approach to running is all well and good, but in my experience the really nice asses tend to be quite fast, so I’d suggest changing that to “find a fairly nice ass and follow it”. Hopefully by the time October comes around and the Dublin Marathon it’ll be “quite a nice ass” and I’ll get sub-3:30!
- If you’re going to walk during a race, make sure you don’t do it at all the points where they’re recording the race video!
- The difference between how fast you think you’re going and how fast you’re actually going in your “sprint finish” is beyond hilarious.
So that was Barcelona. I’d definitely recommend it for anyone looking to do an early marathon. It was cheap to enter and the flights into Barcelona were very reasonable. It was very well organised and good fun throughout with people from all over the world running. The weather was very Irish which suited me just fine for me, but they were prepared for the heat so I wonder what it would be like in much warmer conditions. Everyone was very friendly and as usual there was a real sense of camaraderie amongst the runners. It is a bit of a challenge training for a marathon in March as you’re doing your long runs in cold, wet weather in January and February and there aren’t many people to train with for long distance at that time of year.
If you haven’t done a marathon, then get on it! It’s a brilliant event and it’s very doable with a little training and the sense of accomplishment afterwards is fantastic. I’m a very happy man having achieved my goal and shut Enda up for a while at least. Sorry, what’s that? Alma did what in London?? 3:33:28????? AAAAHHHHH FOR FUCK SAKE…Dublin 2013 anyone??
Written by: Karl Gohery