Well, I did it. Last October I came across the couch to 5k thread and thought I would give it a go. It got me running a full 5k for the first time ever. Today was the annual Canberra Marathon. I trained for it, and managed to complete it.
I didn’t set any speed records, my overall time was a bit under 4:33. I did the first half in under 2:01, so there was some severe fade over the second half. It seems I made the rare mistake of going out too fast.
The in-hindsight-too-fast-start was more due to overconfidence than excitement: I had recently run 10k in under 50 minutes, and the various calculators suggested that a 4 hour time was possible. Even Hal Higdon’s suggestion of “10k time times 5 for first time marathoners” suggested a time of 4:10. I think we need a factor for “overconfident first time marathoners who missed some training runs through injury”.
I was planing to join the 4:00 pace group, but I got to the start only a few minutes before the starting gun (damn toilet queue) and couldn’t get through to them. I eventually lost sight of them, and I knew I was fading badly when the 4:15 group passed me, and later the 4:30 group.
Still, I’m very happy to finish in one piece, although my legs are complaining a fair bit. And I have a target for next time: train better and break 4:00. I’ve also now got my first race t-shirt (what, doesn’t everyone do a marathon as their first race?)
Life’s a funny thing: running wasn’t anywhere on my radar, then one day I see a thread on the Straight Dope and seven months later I run a marathon. I think I’d better avoid any threads on skydiving or mountaineering…
