The Perth City to Surf Marathon was my 42nd marathon and first this year after my calf tear in March. With only 7 weeks training since the injury I really was putting my sub3 streak on the line but was confident I could make it. In the last few weeks of my 7 week training block I could feel some form coming back and decided that on the day I would go out with Jon and Mark and hang on for as long as possible at 4min/k average pace. This was probably way too fast but I figured if I could get to half way in around  1 hour 25 minutes it would give me 1 hour 35 minute to get to the finish, a nice 10 minute positive split.

The day was perfect and as expected I managed to run with the boys to half way and went through in 1 hour 24 minutes and change. The race then enters Kings Park and as you can see from the graphic above there’s a few hills, two good size ones to be exact. I managed to negotiate these and move out of Kings Park unscathed. I have ran this marathon the last eight years and if you can come out of Kings Park strong the last 10k isn’t that bad. This year the organisers put on perfect conditions and even supplied a tail wind for the last 10k. This was embraced and I was caressed home maintaining the 4min/k , or thereabouts. average pace. I finished in 2 hours 49 minutes and 23 seconds according to the offical timing, just about a perfect split considering the second half contains more hills than the first. So for the first time in probably 42 marathons I may have finally ran the perfect paced race.

The splits ,above from Strava, (remember ‘life is Strava, the rest is details’, http://www.strava.com ) show my 5k splits as 21.10, 19.45, 20.13, 20.04, 20.54, 20.50, 20.00, 21.11. This has got to be my best paced marathon ever so have I finally found the answer to running marathons ? Probably not, I may have been underdone but with perfect conditions and a tail wind maybe, just maybe, I had something left in the tank. That is a big maybe because all marathon runners, when reflecting on the race, feel they could have gone harder but , trust me, at the time it was a whole different story. I think with experience comes the ability to know what is coming and prepare mentally for the ‘pain train’ heading your way at around the 32k (20 mile) mark. Experience may allow the mind to release the ‘central governor‘  enough to make the last third of a marathon a tad more bearable. (Google Tim Noakes and the Central Governor theory) I, like Noakes, believe we are capable of so much more but are restricted by the mind to protect the body. This way we don’t all run to exhaustion and blow a head gasket resulting in a seized engine, you get the picture. The mind puts on the hand brake using fatigue and slows us down, bringing down the heart rate and protecting the body from any damage. Can we release the central governor, I believe we can, just a little but enough to make the second half , and more importantly the last 10k, of a marathon bearable and dare I say enjoyable (in a masochistic type way ?) 

So do you have to run 42 marathons to get to this stage in your marathon running career, hell no ! Mark C. went through halfway with me and then finished in 2:48.42; an even better split and it was only his 4th marathon. Mark though is well read in the way of the mental toughness needed to complete marathons and has digested many Matt Fitzgerald books in his short career. He even brought a tailored Fitzgerald plan for the Perth Marathon and this helped him to a 2 hour 55 minute finish, right on the button. We discussed this race and he admitted he felt he dropped the ball in the last 10k and let himself down mentally when he could have ran faster. As I said earlier all marathon runners put themselves though this ‘what if‘ conversations but on the day I’m sure most leave nothing in the tank. Mark was determined to put his mental demons to bed in the City to Surf and with the help of another Fitzgerald book about mental toughness he achieved his goal. Mark learned quickly about the mental side of running, it look me ten times the amount of marathons and probably 7 years longer, never said I was the ‘brightest cookie in the cookie jar’ ‘(Is that even a saying? I think it may be but really , intelligent cookies , sorry people but that is dumb? I digress….)  A good read on mental toughness is “How bad do you want it” by Matt Fitzgerald, it worked for Mark and I enjoyed reading it. I have read a lot of Matt’s books and have never been disappointed.  Can reading alone make you mentally tough, sorry no, as with all things running you also need to put in the hard years. Training and mental toughness combined produce results, you need both to succeed. That’s running , there’s no short cuts just short courses. Right,  the Rottnest Marathon is calling, marathon number 43, can I produce another perfect paced marathon, probably not but that’s not the point really is it?