Enigma Track Marathon race report

When I entered this many months ago it was my intention to go hard at it and see how fast I could go, knowing that if I blew up and couldn’t finish, that I wouldn’t be stuck on a course miles from the finish line. After seeing my physio for a sports massage this week, I had decided to just run it at a comfortable pace and pull out if I needed to. This was due to him having to release all the trigger points in my lower back, hips and glutes as my body was completely twisted to the left (the first time and hopefully the last where he has made me yelp in pain). He has no idea what had happened and neither do I… I suspect I pulled/twisted something in my 20 mile run the week before and made it worse by finishing the run.

Anyway, I set my alarm for 6:45 so I had time for a brew and breakfast before going to pick up a fellow runner that was also crazy enough to be running around a track for 105 laps. It was a bit rushed as I hadn’t been very organised and needed to get my gear together. I picked up my friend (only 5 minutes late) and we headed off to Milton Keynes. When we got to the running track it was a little disorganised as the caretaker had only just turned up to open up the security gates. This resulted in a delay to the start time of 15 minutes but it gave us plenty of time to change and get our race numbers and chips. Everyone huddled around the changing room building as it was a bit brass monkeys outside. It was perfect running weather for me though, about 5C, dry and no wind to speak of; it also made the choice of top easier, I’d been struggling to decide between a t-shirt or long sleeves… very glad I went with long sleeves and gloves!

We headed outside to place our supplies on the outside of the bend following the finishing line, I did a few stretches and then it was time to start. Everyone lined up (more mingled) at the far side of the track to do the extra 195m required over the 42k (105 laps), the bell was rung and we were off….

Now, I expected this to be as mentally tiring as physically, but as it turned out, it wasn’t as boring as expected. I got into a comfortable rhythm and chatted to a few people as we went about ticking off the laps. I’d decided to aim for 1m54s laps as this worked out at about 7:40 min/miles and see how far I could get before I started to feel it. I’d also decided to split my energy gels evenly to one every 20 laps. I was wearing my Garmin, not for distance measurement as they are notoriously bad at that on tracks, but so that I could hit the lap button every time I crossed the finish line. After taking my first energy gel at lap 20, I grabbed my mp3 player when I set down my water bottle the next lap and settled down to some tunes. The next 50 laps were pretty uneventful, I took my next 2 energy gels on schedule and there was a diversion to the changing rooms at half way for a toilet pit-stop, I could have held on probably but as I wasn’t going for a PB or anything I thought I may as well be comfortable. Even though I wasn’t trying for a PB, I was still knocking out 1:50ish laps and was still feeling good.

Although 105 laps of a track sounds daunting, having a marker to tick off every 400m, rather than every mile on a road course, kept things moving along nicely. The downside was constantly turning left and seeing as I’d had the problems my physio had sorted out, it wasn’t ideal.

As such I started to feel my left glute tightening up from lap 70, so when I took my last energy gel at lap 80 I decided to walk backwards whilst consuming it, it took the pressure off of my left side and after 100m I broke into a backwards jog. I’ve never run backwards before but I’ve seen others do it in marathons; it’s surprisingly easy and it did seem to stretch out my calves and hamstrings. I don’t think it’s something I’d try on an uneven road course, but around an outer lane of a flat track, with no danger of running into anyone and the lane lines to keep me straight, it was good. I did another backwards lap for lap 96 and I was only 30 seconds slower than I had been going forward. I heard a few grumbles from the runners I was passing though, haha!

Running forwards… not sure which lap but obviously hadn’t spotted the camera!

As mentioned already, I had been meaning to do this as just a run, not race it, but I had just gotten into a rhythm. The last 25 laps were slightly slower, around the 2 minutes a lap mark, but my core strength seemed to hold on well and I didn’t hit “the wall”. The main reason for my slowing was that after my backwards lap to ease my left side tightness, I just didn’t want to push it and pick up an injury. I think I could possibly have pushed myself and kept the quicker laps up, but I’ll never know now.

Coming up to the finish line with 2 laps to go I thought I’d shout out to the lap keeper just to check and as they looked down at their laptop they realised I was starting my last lap, I was given the bell and I thought I’d finish in style, flying round the last lap in 1:33 (it felt like flying at the end of a marathon :)) I crossed the line and immediately asked to make sure I’d definitely finished as my lap counter on my Garmin said I still had a lap to do… after checking later it turned out that I must have forgotten to start a new lap around lap 60 as there was one that was double the time of the rest around it, oooops! 🙂

When I stopped my Garmin it stated 3:23:38! What! A six minute PB!! No way, there must be a mistake, I feel okay, I wasn’t pushing myself. Turns out my official finish time was 3:25:27, but thinking about it, my Garmin auto paused a couple of times when I pulled over to pick up a gel and it didn’t kick back in instantly; it must have also stopped when I went for a toilet pit-stop. So I’ll have to just settle for a 4 minute PB then, haha.

If I’d not had to stop at the side of the track to pick up gels; pick up/set down my water bottle; gone for a pit-stop; pushed myself in those last 25 laps; I may well have troubled the 3hr20 barrier. But then I also may not be sitting here relatively unscathed for my efforts. I’m happy with my new PB and I live to run another day! 🙂

A very nice triangle shaped medal, with centre spinner, was the reward for my efforts. A bit different… I like it!

Race bling

Would I do another track marathon?? I’m not sure to be honest! There is obviously massive PB potential; I found that a track is not as harsh to run 26.2 miles on as the road (probably why I didn’t seem to tire as much); as something different it was good, how many times can you do 105 laps of a track before you lose the will to live though?!; it’s not great turning the same way the whole time as you end up running a bit lopsided… unless I get as quick running backwards, then I can alternate laps, haha! 🙂