From Sally Armitage…
I entered this race just over two weeks ago after running Spen 20 and realising I’ll never feel ready for a marathon, so I decided to bite the bullet and run one anyway. I’m glad I did. Blackpool marathon attracted me as it’s relatively close to home, low key, cheap to enter and has the option to defer up to 24 hours before the race starts.
I was amazed I actually made it to the start line, working in a primary school has taken me down multiple times over winter with various viruses. I’d half expected to not actually run on race day, even this week I was cleaning up some poor child’s vomit… My hands are raw from sanitising them every 30 seconds. So it only really dawned on me the day before that I was going to have to run a marathon. Luckily I had prepared anyway, gels bought, Revvies bought, CrampFix bought, tapered and carb loaded.
Miraculously, conditions were perfect on the seafront, no wind, cloud cover (mostly), 9 degrees. Spot on. The Blackpool running festivals have the shorter distances on the Saturday and the half marathon and marathon on the Sunday, with the half runners doing 1 lap and the marathoners doing 2. The half runners and the marathon runners were set off together but in opposite directions, we then converged a kilometre or so later, which meant a lot of weaving and winding for a short time, but we soon found our place.
As soon as we set off I realised that the elusive sub 3 finish time was not achievable today, I was running at 4:18 pace and was definitely not comfortable going any faster, so decided to aim for even splits at that pace throughout. Which was fine for the first half, there was a bit of banter between runners, lots of us and plenty of crowd support. Being a Harrier for 7 years, I’ve heard lots of horror stories about the last 6 miles of marathons so really just wanted to survive the 2nd lap. Although I had psychologically prepared myself, I still struggled when the half marathon runners left us, the entire feeling of the race changed, it became eerily quiet, the support dropped, the banter stopped and we became spread out. I battled on, watching my pace drop, yet still passing other runners who’d set off too ambitiously. I was the leading lady for the first half, actually maybe the first 18 miles, then an incredibly strong looking lady passed me with about 8 miles to go and then another with about 6 miles to go. I’m sure I finished 3rd lady, though the results currently have me as 4th. I had a good run, I remembered to fuel according to my plan, no stomach issues, no leg cramps, no niggles, a good strong run, definitely the best I had in me today. By the way, if anyone does struggle with leg cramps I would absolutely recommend trying CrampFix (basically vinegar shots), I took 3 sachets with me and when I felt twinges in my calves at around mile 15 I opened the first one, sipping each sachet slowly, they’re only tiny, until the end. The twinges stopped immediately! May be coincidence, may be the vinegar, I’ll let you know after my next marathon!
1st Lewis McAlpine (Stornoway Running and Athletics Club) 2:25
31 Sally Armitage 3:07 [Ed: confirmed time 3:07:09 which is a FV45 club record by 17 seconds]
70 Pete De Sanctis 3:35
435 finishers