Barcelona Marathon 2014 / English
One more marathon, one more experience, one more challenge and one more opportunity to grow as athlete & person.
Last 16 of March I ran the Barcelona marathon. It was my 4th time in a row running it. I really like this race. Organization is excellent. People in town cheering athletes boost every single kilometer you run. Race goes thru the most emblematic places of Barcelona. Circuit is not flat though.
This year was I had tough weeks at work so I was facing the marathon with slightly less focus than previous years. Any way, “let’s have fun ” I thought. That was my original goal.
However this year the weather was preparing something special for us. The day before was warm. The DAY, 8h30 am the temperature was already high (15C / 59F degrees). Thereby, I decided to slowdown from the very beginning. My original idea was to pass the half in 1h15/16 aprox. But I realized that this was not the day, so at km 6 I slowed down and adapted my pace to the situation.
The whole marathon was tough. I spend most of the race trying to keep hydrated. However, even I took it more relaxed, it was not easy at any point. I start suffering from KM 25 till the finish line. Due to my race reconsideration, I lost my group and I ran alone 36 kms. It was the first time I was running a marathon totally alone. You keep looking at the chrono. You keep thinking on the next place where you will see someone from your supporting team. You keep looking special places of the track.
That was me against the wind, against the temperature and against the little voice in your mind that is asking you to stop every single KM. I guess that thanks to my experience as a runner and my strong commitment to never give up I kept running till finish line. I have to admit that without all the family and friends supporting during the whole marathon that would have been way more tough.
At the end 2h37’’ and 29th classified.
I had some key learning’s this time:
- No matter how much you trained. You must adapt to the race conditions. If this not the day to achieve what you planned, re-consider everything. This can be a win or you can end up withdrawing.
- When you re-consider your approach give you more guard band with respect to what first came to your mind. My impression is that even I reconsidered slower pace it was not enough slow. Marathon is a marathon, so the fresher you get to the half the better. You can really bit many minutes the second half or you can lost many and suffer quite a lot.
- Hydration is a KEY factor. One of the keys that in my opinion helped me quite a lot to finish the marathon was the hydration. I spent the three days before drinking 2 liters of water and 1 liter of isotonic drink. Also during the race I drank whole water bottles in the refreshment points (Organization did a great job here).
- Enjoy whenever you ran. We are competitive by nature. However we are not professionals. Thereby, in these situations, we have to turn our passion and competitiveness against the crono to passion and competitiveness against the adverse situations and ourselves.
- It helps a lot to use intermediate goals to face this type of marathons. In my case I decided to focus on next 5 kms. If you think in all the rest of the race this will be way more complex to face. Micro objectives. Don’t think on the long way to the finish line. Focus on the next step.
Congratulations to all the finishers. Specially to my friends Pepe, Dani, Josep, Maite, Dani, Pablo, Capo, Jordi, Silvia etc.. This was not easy guys.. Good job!
Now time to rest for couple of weeks and start looking to the challenges! Thanks to all supporters in town: friends & family.
Salut & kms!
Cesc
