I’ve been very quiet on the blogging front and, truth be told , I’m still suffering from my first DNF at the Light Horse 12 hour race at then end of May. Since then I’ve only been to the keyboard twice, most unlike me. So what have I been doing for the last 4-6 weeks ?

Luckily I had the Rottnest Marathon to prepare for. This is without doubt one of the most idyllic , beautiful and brutal marathons in the West Australian Calendar. I have run this bad boy eleven times and managed to sub3 on six occasions. (The last 6 funnily enough). Over the years I been at the pointy end of the race many times and ran second on two occasions, as well as all positions upwards to 7th and a few other top 10 finishes. In my defence it’s normally a small field of less than two hundred runners as marathon runners are not big fan of hills and at Rottnest there’s four, that’s four per lap of course and there’s four laps, you get the picture!

One of the main reasons for Rottnest this year, bar a confidence booster ahead of the 2019 marathon season (which would include the Perth City to Surf Marathon for the 10th time and the Perth ‘Running Festival’ (ex-Perth Marathon) for the 13th time) , was also to take the record for the number of sub three marathon times on the Island. Currently I share this with Mark Page, both having run sub3 six times, this was to be my seventh. So the goal was a 7th sub3, age group win and the cherry on the cake would be a top 5 finish.

Jon had organised accommodation and I was staying with his family, minus his ex-Wife, the T-train and the mighty TB; that’s trailblazer not Thomas Bruins. (Although Thomas Bruins is mighty but there’s really only one TB, the one,  and only,  original Trail Blazer, Jon Phillips) There was the obligatory pasta meal, pre-race,  cooked by Jon this year due to his ex-Wife not being invited on the trip. In Karen’s absence Jon did a good job so I feel her days are numbered, actually they are well and truly finished!

The first lap was controlled with a big group of runners settling into a sub 3 bus  and moving along comfortably at around 4:10min/k pace, faster in places when gradient allowed and slower when faced with the hills. For the first lap we went through averaging 4:06min/k, right on track. We had splintered into a group of five runners by this point with Tony, and two other runners,  leaving the pack to go on and finish in the top 5.

On a side note I must add that this was without doubt the best conditions we had ever encountered at Rottnest. Moving the race from its usual October slot, which is spring in sunny Perth, so normally a tad warm, was certainly justified. The sun rising as we moved along the causeway, between the salt lakes, is an image that will go with me to the grave, it was inspiring. One of those ‘wish I had a camera moments‘, I can only hope someone did have an iPhone and took a photo because it was biblical. Normally there’s a howling wind with ‘foam balls ‘ rolling towards you, not today, it was perfect. If we weren’t racing me and Jon would have stopped for a hug ! Right, I digress…..

The second lap was similar to the first with the pack dropping down to four and Jon pushing the pace through the start line onto lap three. Again we were right on time still averaging 4:06min/k, maybe not as comfortable as last one but still nowhere near the ‘red zone‘, yet. Now if you race Rottnest you know that lap one is comfortable and you breath in the scenery and the occasion. Lap two and things are normally heating up , literally, and you’re not so bothered with the scenery just the concrete road infront of you. By lap three you are well and truly over Rottnest, big time, and dream of long, flat, courses . Lap three is what makes or breaks you at Rotto. Survive and you tee yourself up for a great Rotto, fall apart and that last lap can last a very, very long time.

On this occasion I was lucky enough to find another gear and my third lap was my fastest. I jettisoned the last two members of the sub 3 bus and was now alone with my thoughts , the bus had become more of a personalised Uber ride ? I knew I was outside the top 5 so concentrated on my sub3 finish, my primary goal. I had 3-5 minutes up my sleeve but knew I would be paying the piper sometime very soon, both figuratively and literally . My fears were realised at around the 35k mark where the legs decided they had had enough for the day and started to misbehave. I probably dropped two minutes over the last 5k which cost me a sub 2:55 finish and a top 5 placing.

As I crawled up the last few hills I was handed a gold coin which you then have to hand to the pipe a few hundred metres up the road, this is a WAMC tradition and one I always look forward. Paying the piper means you have less than 4k to the finish and, with my experience, there’s no way I ain’t finishing that close, it’s just a case of what state I’ll be in.  A top 5 finish was there if I could have kept my pace for the final 5-6k but today I was just beaten by the hills. I predicted somewhere around 2:55 so two minutes over was acceptable. I had gone through half way in 1:27:30 so a positive split off less than three minutes , on Rottnest , is just about perfect pacing.

So,  after paying the piper,  I held it together to finish just under two hours and fifty eight minutes with a 4:10min/k average. (The course measured 42.7k on Strava  http://www.strava.com. so the average reflects that.) Mission accomplished, sub three number seven on Rotto, 31 overall , and my sub streak moves to 28 in a row, a perfect day really. To say I was stoked is an understatement. This may have been my 44th marathon but given the last two years of injury it meant as much as my first in 2003. Overall I had ran a ‘controlled’ race with only the last 5 kilometres between me and a perfect finish. I’m not too overly bothered about dropping the ball , slightly , over the last 30 minutes as I’m sure with more training I’ll get my finishing kick back. Remember ‘distance unlocks your running dreams‘ and I just need to run more, simple really.

So lessons learnt for all you sub3 runners.

• Do the hard yards first, and that means distance and plenty of it. Research Phil Maffetone (the running bit and the diet if you can stomach a diet with very little carbs, initially?) , Arthur Lydiard and Matt Fitzgerald. Theses three preach the distance is king mantle before adding the turbo charger that is pace before finally fine tuning to your chosen event.
• Indicator races are a valuable source of confidence. Coming into Rottnest I had ran 10 three times in 2019 , each time faster than the previous. I managed a 36:17, 35:55 and 35:38 in the weeks leading up to the marathon and these times gave me the confidence that I could sub3, even on a hilly course. Add in a 1:22 and a 1:19 in my two half marathons this year and I knew I could go out at 4:10min/k pace comfortably.
• Trust in your training. If you’ve done the hard work you will get the reward. There is no secret to doing well at races, it really is about putting the work in,  with your training,  for the pay back with a bib on your chest. No surprises. This is another mantra I live by and I use sometimes when I am deep in the pain box,  questioning the way forward.
• The race is your time to shine, don’t be afraid of it but instead embrace it. The final part of your training is the race itself and this is where all that hard work pays off. The final 42.2km’s of any 12 week training program should be the most enjoyable. This is when the previous 12 weeks of hard work is suddenly worth the price you pay, sacrificing your social life, family life and work life. The race itself is pay back for all of this, enjoy it. !
• After you finish and achieve one goal,  start on the next. Without a goal we become joggers and start saying things like ‘ I don’t run with a watch, I run by feel’, ‘I just run because it makes me happy’; you’ll be hugging trees next. We run to challenge ourselves to be a better person today than we were yesterday,  and even better tomorrow. The only person we are really racing is ourselves and you need to continually work to better the old you , or get as close as you can to the old you as Father Time starts to add seconds to your race times and pace.
• Search the runbkrun website for my Golden Rules. These are my nuggets of information that will help you bring down your times. Not real surprises here but just good old fashioned advice from someone who knows, or at least thinks they do ?

After the obligatory warm shower it was off to the pub for the awards ceremony, I told you Rottnest was a magical place. After being presented with my 50-59 age group medal by my good friend Visna Jareb it was onto another one of my goals for the weekend, to drink the pub dry of Guinness. This sounds a lot harder than it actually is as the sub only serves Guinness in cans and one year there was only five and I managed to drink them all, hence the street goal every year since.  This year I saw there was eight cans so had to get my good mates Zac and Steve ‘Twinkle toes’ McKean in to help me. I put in a good effort by demolishing three cans but that was me done. I staggered down to the 4:30pm ferry and back to the mainland I went. Bye bye Rottnest, as always it was a blast and I’ll see you in 2020….

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