Marathon du Beaujolais

The marathon distance is certainly my bête noire. This is the 3rd time running the Beauj (Nov 19) and this is the 3rd time it has kicked my ass! This time I dropped my expectation down to a 12kmh, a speed I thought would be easily attainable.And as ever I did not get there. It started well I had no problem with the goal speed for 25km. It got a bit tougher after that until the hill at the end.

I managed the hill, maybe 5km of low gradient, but could not maintain the decent. At the bottom of the hill I lost the plot. I recall 37km was when I stopped, but looking at the garmin it says it was 40km.... Just imagine not having enough juice left to do 2km. 


On reflection Gareth got it spot on by saying I did not have enough energy in the tank. It did not feel like that, but it is a distance I have no knowlege off. There was a horrible stomach cramp to deal with also. (At 40 km) at this point I just hoped it was not a recurrence of the troubles I had earlier in the year.


I found out when trying to see Gareth over the line (he was doing the half) that it was simply the shits. Maybe brought on by eating too many apricots or just from running the  Marathon. Either way, I hit the porto-loo with gusto. With there being only 2 loos for 6000 runners, understandably there was no paper left. I had to smear my bottom with a corner of the space blanket that was draped around me!


We had a pleasant evening with Gareth and family afterwards. We missed Karl who ducked out to bury his dog Baxter.