1. Unusual build and how ten mile training translated into marathon performance

Summer was a 5k block, then autumn was focused on extending speed out for my first ever ten mile race, the Great South Run. Having a marathon dumped two weeks prior to this goal race was far from ideal, but you don’t give up your first opportunity to represent your country (at your favourite distance), so it just needed to be managed carefully.

Chester was never going to be a PB attempt, though, for a few reasons:

1. To hold back just enough to recover for GSR.
2. I had done literally no runs over 30km for more than five months.
3. It’s not the fastest course; not crazily hilly, but certainly not flat, and about double the elevation of London, for example.
4. I only went into this with a partial taper, since the England ‘experience’ was far more important to me than the result.

So, I went in excited and proud, but with limited expectations, and my coach and I agreed that sub 2:35 sounded reasonable. The plan was to run sub-maximally, keep heart rate low, and just see what that spat out in terms of time. It couldn’t have gone better. I barely even looked at my pace or splits, and finished in 2:32:04, less than two minutes off my marathon PB, and to my great surprise after, as the second placed M40 runner across both the England and Wales teams.

2. Running relaxed is key to performance

Given the casual build-up, the low-key expectations, and the fact that Chester Marathon is a welcome couple of tiers below the majors on the general event stress scale, I was pretty relaxed on race morning. Knowing I was running to such a sensible heart rate (keeping it below 162, approximately 85% of my estimated max) meant there really wasn’t much that could go wrong.

So I did just that, and I also had a smile on my face for a lot of it. I had family in the crowd, my England vest on, and this was an opportunity to proudly reflect for a couple of hours on how my running journey had taken me here. I was that incredibly annoying guy thanking all the volunteers and spectators, and engaging far more than normal with my fellow runners. Absolutely buzzing, basically.

The fact that this translated into such a surprising result was also made possible by my historical endurance running (i.e. plenty of previous marathons), although while the heart and lungs were very comfortable, there was certainly a bit of neuromuscular fatigue creeping in towards the end. The body just wasn’t used to going long in this block. Fortunately, the end arrived before this became a real issue, and I was able to finish with a flourish, unknowingly pipping the second place M40 runner.

So this was a big tick for running relaxed, and indeed for slightly smaller races. Sometimes it’s good to go all in for the adrenaline of a major, but sometimes it’s just a nicer and more chilled experience for runners (and spectators) at a medium sized event like Chester.

3. The importance of pack-racing and in-race decisions

The previous paragraph describes what sounds like the most serene race of all time, and while this was mostly true, there were a couple of key points in the race that helped ensure this was the case.

The first, and most important, was after about five miles. I found myself on my own and adrift of two packs; one in front and one behind me. Given the sparsely populated course and the headwind for the first half of the race, I made a snap decision to chase down the pack ahead. They were about 20 seconds ahead at that point, but I put in 2-3 quick kms and this did the job. As soon as I got there, I was blowing for a bit, but knew it had been a good decision. There were now about 8 of us all running at a similar pace, and we took it turns to lead, but generally stayed together for about 8-10 miles, which flew by as a result of this shared load. It’s impossible to quantify the benefit of a stretch like that, but I’ll try. It felt like it was worth about 5 seconds per mile, both at the time and in hindsight.

That pack eventually started to dissipate behind just myself and a Scottish chap called Ross. We introduced ourselves to each other at this point and it transpired that he once ran the marathon for Scotland in the commonwealth games. Anyway, we kept a bit of gentle chit chat going to push each other through the hilly final few miles, and generally this helped really put the seal on what was a wholly positive race experience…but this was all down to a really good bit of decision making to chase that pack down about 20 miles earlier.  

4. The pros and cons of race tourism with family

What can I say…there are definitely pros and cons to having family support at races like this, especially when one of them is an incredibly boisterous 23 month old. Here’s a quick summary off the top of my head:

Pros:

• Lovely to feel truly supported and share the experience.
• Exposing my son to the positivity of running as much as possible.
• Nice distraction from my usual pre-race anxieties and weirdness.
• That post-race beer with my wife was just perfect.

Cons:

• I couldn’t just be ‘selfish’ with my usual pre-race routines; everyone needs to be factored in (although I sent everyone to Chester Zoo for the day to get a few hours of peace!)
• This managing of everyone’s needs / travel plans / meal requests / spectator logistics is definitely quite tiring in itself.
• Toddlers don’t suddenly become good sleepers in the build-up to a marathon. Ray refused to sleep in the travel cot I had hauled up from London on the train, so I spent my two nights before the race on some cushions on the floor. Yup, not exaggerating.

5. Fuelling for sub-maximal effort (and increased hydration)

Given that I knew I would be running this one sub-maximally, I would be using a slightly higher percentage of fat than carbs per minute than in previous marathons, so I knew I could get away with a less intense carb load. I went for 550-600g on both Friday and Saturday (approx. 9 g /kg, compared with ~11g/kg in recent marathons), and found this absurdly easy to manage; I really had to hold myself back.

I also kept my  intra-marathon carb intake a little lower than usual, with approx. 210 g over 2.5 hours (84g per hour), compared to my usual ~100g/hour. As with previous races, this was a combination of a homemade carb mix drink (90g in 250ml today) and gels (3 x 40g today).

I also made more of a conscious effort to proactively drink water in the second half of the course, which is something I often neglect a bit. I don’t often feel especially thirsty and don’t like to break my momentum, but the hot and humid Big Half 2024 reminded me to reassess this, and I feel this, and my fuelling plan overall worked really well for the race plan and conditions.  

6. London 2024, cancelled GSR, and the benefit of hindsight

After a performance like this, I couldn’t help but look back at London 2024 and feel cheated. I was in such strong shape in April, for 2:29 if not more, but as I’ve written before, something wasn’t right on the day and I took myself to a dark place to squeeze another 2:30.

To cruise round to 2:32:04 in Chester, barely a minute slower than London, on a much hillier course in fairly windy conditions, having neither trained for a marathon nor pushed myself hard in the race just confirmed my suspicions that London had been out of my control.

That said, the relaxation and control piece is definitely a factor too. I was perhaps inappropriately pumped for London and can learn from Chester in that respect.

The other big old dose of hindsight going on is that, as I write this in mid November, I can sadly  report that my ten mile goal race that I had been saving the legs for, Great South Run, was cancelled at short notice due to Storm Ashley, and who knows what I might have been able to achieve at Chester if I’d really gone for it. That said, maybe if I’d pushed even five seconds per mile faster I’d have crashed and burned. Like I say, who knows.

So those are my six things that I thought worth mentioning or documenting for my own reflections, but above all, this was just one of my most enjoyable race experiences to date, and hopefully not my last opportunity to represent my country at the sport I love. Chester is also a beautiful city that we will definitely be going back to, and I’d certainly do this race again…just perhaps staying in an AirBNB with a spare sofa bed next time.

Since writing this, England Athletics have written their own blog on the day, and have mentioned me by name and my (unintentional) finishing straight battle for M40 second place!

The post Representing England at Chester Marathon (2:32): my big six takeaways appeared first on Tom Hollis.

Planning and prep

In some respects, planning for Valencia started several years ago, when I first became aware of it as such a rapid course. I very nearly took the plunge in one of the covid years but remember thinking that the cancellation policy looked particularly harsh given the state of the world at the time, so backed out and waited for normality to return. With London finally moving back from October to April this year, space was freed up, and 2023 felt a good bet. I booked as soon as I found out they were on sale, which, 11 months in advance, was still only quick enough for their second or third price ‘tranche’. It’s a hell of a long build up in terms of event participation.

This was my first overseas marathon for 8 years (the last being Rotterdam in 2015, when I broke 3 for the first time), and in all honesty, I found planning for it quite stressful. 2023 has been a year of strikes and travel uncertainty. As a man that hones in on detail in race week, this, plus hand luggage restrictions (how to get gels AND beetroot juice across?!), and choosing between accommodation certainty and affordability (I chose the latter), all added a layer of pre-race organisation I didn’t really relish.

Added to that was the nagging guilt of flying to a race, which, as I have posted on IG about, is something I don’t feel very comfortable with, and equally, of leaving my family behind.

Also, with international races so rare for me, it added an extra dimension of pressure (completely self-imposed, I should add), of a) getting to the start line in good health, which is challenging when all around you are coughing and sneezing their way through November, not least my little boy, and b) to smash the race and really make it count.

All this said, I got relatively lucky and can’t have many complaints about the logistics. I did get a dreaded email about flight times changing, but was then able to renegotiate more favourable times. I struck very lucky with my bargain Airbnb (happy to share details), and I somehow managed to avoid getting sick. I was here!

The event itself

The rumours are true: Valencia Marathon is an absolutely brilliant event, and I would recommend it without hesitation, whether you are chasing a PB or otherwise. Communication in the build up was slick, organisation on the day was great, and the whole city seems to be invested and proud of their race. 

One minor annoyance was the expo. Apparently this used to be in the city centre, but this year was moved to the Feria, some way out (pictured). I understand this might need to be the case as the event grows (and by comparison, the Excel expo is a nightmare to get to even for those who live in London), but getting there and back was difficult. No public transport route from the airport, for example.

The course is essentially flat, with only very minor undulations, before a slight but sustained downhill over the last 6km, which starts with a memorable, intense patch where the passionate spectators are so close on both sides that the course is only about a metre wide (very Tour de France). It all then finishes on the iconic blue carpet under bright skies, surrounded by glistening water. That dazzling blueness all around will stay with me forever…the most special finish to a race I’ve ever witnessed (even if I was absolutely eyeballs-out sprinting at the time).

Conditions play a huge part, of course, and having monitored Valencia closely for a few years, it seems it’s pretty much always perfect on race day. 2023 was no exception: sunny, cool (actually very cold initially), and barely a breath of wind. Marathon dreamland.

My training block

After London in April (2:34:30), I had my usual post-marathon month of running downtime before 2 months of dedicated speedwork, AKA a mini 5km block. This was a great plan, firstly because I got the sub 16 monkey off my back (15.55 in August), but also because I was then able to bring that improved top end into longer races. In September I went sub 33 in the 10k (32:47, Vitality 10k) and sub 72 in the half (71:40, Big Half), for the first time. 

The marathon block was 16 weeks, and generally went pretty smoothly. The exception was a freak broken toe incident at home in October, which thankfully healed in about a third of the 6 week prognosis I was given in A&E. Cross training saw me through that period, and I lost no fitness at all. I have newfound respect for the elliptical machine and aqua jogging!

As a new dad with ICU work and a business to run, free time is close to non-existent, so all but one of my runs each week are run commutes or buggy runs. Sunday early morning is my negotiated me time for a longer run, and it all just about works. 50 miles per week was the target for the first 10-12 weeks, then I was able to increase to 60-70 (a new high for me, in fact) in the final month pre taper.

Race and prep tactics:

Rather than list everything (because it gets refined each year…see previous blogs), I’ll mention a few things I did differently (and better) than previously.

1. Day to day nutrition. Even as my job, there is always room for improvement in nutrition. When sleep quality is inevitably and consistently poor, for reasons that are obvious, I needed to look at what else I could prioritise in terms of recovery, and I became incredibly consistent with pre and post run nutrition, matching this to the needs of the session. My wife and I have also made a conscious effort to improve the quality of our diet, from what was already a good baseline, especially with breastfed Ray in mind. Ultra-processed foods are at an all time low, and, anecdotally, I think it has been a big help.

2. Carb load. I hit 11g/kg on both the Friday and Saturday, which was a new high, on the back of a carb depletion at the start of race week, which takes skill to get right. 11g/kg takes practice, planning, and to learn what foods and drinks work for you, but it really makes all the difference on race day. This was one of the areas that was tougher to plan for an international race, and involved more carbs from drink mixes than usual, and plenty of snacks brought from home to reduce risk. 

3. Mid race carbs

I took 244g from gels over my 2.5h race, plus a few sips of the on course sports drink (it was in paper cups, so of course at least half of it ended up on my face), so I would have pretty much hit exactly 100g/hr for the first time. Again, this takes practice and it makes all the difference in what intensity you can sustain in the back end of the marathon. 

3. Running to HR

There’s way too much data in running and I certainly don’t get on board with it all, either as a coach or runner, as a lot of it is data for data’s sake, and prone to misunderstanding (prime example: continuous glucose monitoring in non-diabetics). Heart rate is an exception, and one of the simplest but most useful running metrics out there. My own coach, Chris, has long been an advocate of using it, and I certainly work it into my plans, where appropriate, with my own coaching clients as well. 

That said, the idea of running a marathon entirely to heart rate would have terrified me, right up until I did the Battersea marathon in October as a training run with no mid run fuel. This was done on heart rate to keep me well below threshold, and I ended up not only winning the race, but PBing by a few seconds. I was staggered, and also convinced to give this a go in Valencia, working with Chris to plan the race based on percentages of my maximum HR that I could tolerate for certain periods of time.

Battersea also showed me the importance of starting a race relaxed, especially in terms of HR management. My watch suggested I was managing this well on race morning, and it was great to meet and chat to a lovely Irish runner called Trevor (2:35 PB for him) for the final hour pre race to help ease the tension. 

Anyway the HR plan worked an absolute treat, and gave me the confidence that I could really attack the final 10k knowing I wouldn’t blow up. I went through halfway in 1:16:20, then 1:13:50 in the second half (which would have been a HM PB before this summer), with a 16:30 final 5k as I threw everything I had at it. 

I would be lying to say I was completely unaware of time and pace, and in the final 10k was trying to work out if there was an outside chance of sub 2:30. My brain couldn’t quite work it out, and from one km marker to the next, I kept changing my mind. As I approached the final straight I was sprinting, but knew I’d be slightly outside. 2:30:10. Arms outstretched, overly dramatic roar for the crowd…no part of me was anything other than elated. Another 4 minute PB and I’d done myself, my family, and my coach proud.

Could I have found another 11 seconds somewhere out there? Of course. I suspect if I raced the same course tomorrow (marathon legs notwithstanding), I’d be savvy enough to find that time. But sub 2:30 was never the aim. I am now within touching distance of a crazy milestone, but it can wait.

What next?

In the short-term: running downtime, navigating a sociable December, and repaying some favours to my wife. 

Then it’ll be a London marathon block from January, and I think the aim for that doesn’t need spelling out. It’ll be my last marathon before I turn 40 in July, and I’m not going to lie, I’m quite looking forward to being able to favourably compare myself to the V40 crew!

The post Valencia Marathon 2023: 2:30:10 (PB) appeared first on Tom Hollis.

The post London Marathon 2023: 2h34 PB appeared first on Tom Hollis.

1. Training block issues

I’ve written about my training block woes on social media so I won’t dwell on it too much here, but in short, the start of the block was delayed due to finally getting Covid, the middle was disrupted due to minor (non-running related) surgery, and four weeks out I was leaving A&E on crutches with an agonising, freak ankle injury. I also missed almost all my planned summer races, due to the aforementioned crutches and Covid, but also heatwaves and train strikes!

I will never again take running fitness and consistent training for granted. It wasn’t all gloomy though. There was so much high quality training squeezed in around all of this drama that I knew that I was in good shape…just a bit undercooked come race day.

2. Race week prep

As race week approached, the crutches went back to A&E, and I knew I was racing. I tried to focus on what I could control, and went to town on my race week prep, including a few new elements and a few which were tried and tested:

• Optimal carb load (more on this later)
• Six days of nitrate (i.e. beetroot shots)
• Monday night sports massage
• ‘Yoga’ (which is basically my set stretching routine), foam rolling and muscle rubs on Tues, Thurs, Sat
• Stretching while still warm after each run during taper week (something I normally neglect)
• Caffeine taper (with the aim of optimising caffeine impact on race day, but which seemed to have the lovely side effect of deeper sleep too)
• I was in work full time during the taper, but I took every lift and escalator available, to save my legs (this very much goes against my natural instinct)

3. Home marathons have their benefits

Being a Londoner, it’s easy to take for granted that we have an amazing marathon major on our doorstep. It is a quick enough course, but there are certainly quicker out there. However, I honestly think that being at home really helps in the precision of the race week prep (see above), and in getting to the Expo nice and early, and all this must be worth a minute or two.

4. Carb load perfection

I hit and even exceeded the magic 10g carbs / kg on both Friday and Saturday (which I struggled to do at last year’s marathon – it’s not easy). I also went bigger than before on fibre reduction and kept things particularly beige (with a little help from some specialist sports drink mixes – another new addition). Come Saturday evening / Sunday morning I was concerned I’d overdone it as my bowels were a little, er….slow, but I needn’t have worried; the strategy worked perfectly.

5. Biggest ever mid race carb intake

I pushed it to about 90g carbs / hr (about 230g during the 2h38 race), which was a significant increase on last year. I had been able to trial this a bit in training, but not as much as I’d intended to, due to some longer runs missed when on crutches. Anyway, I got away with it, and this is the way forward.

6. Elevated heart rate

I really think I needed every drop of that sugar, too. My heart rate was higher than it should really have been for most of the race – more like tempo HR than marathon HR – so I would likely have been burning through carbs at a high rate. I decided to go with it rather than panic, and maintained pace and HR. This definitely could have backfired, but again, I just about got away with it.

7. Maranoia is an ever-present

It’s a stupid word (OK OK, ‘portmanteau’, but I feel self-conscious using that word too), but maranoia gets me every single year and probably always will. Maybe I’m just on higher alert, but everyone I sat next to during my taper seemed to be coughing and spluttering, and I got a bit obsessive about a higher-than-normal resting HR, convincing myself I was fighting off or brewing something. It might have been nothing, but even sitting on the tube on race morning, my heart rate was high and I felt weirdly jittery. For this reason I decided to swerve my usual pre-race caffeine and save it for the second half of the race, and I think this was a solid decision.

8. GPS in Canary Wharf is a total joke

I already knew this, and had run London three times before, but it seemed to be worse than ever and lasting for longer than ever this year. Totally useless. Trying to ignore it and ‘run to feel’ two thirds of the way through a marathon is really challenging.

9. The weather forecast was also a joke

Obviously I started looking 15 days out, which was silly, but even in the three days pre-race, the forecast went from dry with scary headwind, to a full day of heavy rain, until race morning when it had changed to a full day of beautiful sun. Again, totally useless and not good for condition-specific prep, but there’s no doubt I will be looking at it like hawk from 15 days out again next year.

10. Like stepping out at Wembley

I don’t know if it was part of my whole jittery race day vibe (see above), but I had this weirdly serious focus throughout the race, which unfortunately meant I didn’t engage with the crowd much, aside from a few times when I came to and realised / remembered quite how ridiculous the London atmosphere is. The best example was Tower Bridge. Earlier that morning on the packed train to Blackheath, a guy was telling some American marathon tourists that ‘crossing Tower Bridge is the closest you’ll get to being a footballer stepping out at Wembley’. I absolutely loved this description and it will stay with me. It was true yesterday as well…hairs on end. Just euphoric.

11. Legs trashed more than normal

They really are trashed. Like first-ever-marathon-trashed. As I write this, I genuinely have my quads slathered in Deep Heat and my feet in a lavender foot bath (don’t judge me). It wasn’t like this last year – what happened? Is it age? Did I push it further than normal? I literally can’t do stairs today.

Next steps

Speculation is easy, but I suspect with a full training block, I’d have been not far off 2:36 yesterday. I think sub 2:35 is a realistic target for the next marathon, but this is going to have to wait until winter 2023. I have a fairly major life event on the horizon meaning some time out from structured training for a bit, but will hopefully be back hungrier than ever next year!

The post 11 things I learned from London Marathon 2022 appeared first on Tom Hollis.

I did it as a progressive tempo training run, aiming to finish in something like half my target marathon time for London in October. Naturally, I got slightly overexcited towards the end (big crowds, banging tunes etc.) and sped up a bit, finishing about a minute ahead of schedule in 1h17.

It was the first time I’d run Hackney, and while this blog isn’t intended as a race review, the atmosphere was great, and I’ll run it again one day (under my own name) – just not as a PB race. For one, the course is quite winding and not particularly flat. But most importantly, being at the end of the spring race season in late May, it always seems to be roasting hot in East London.

I watched my girlfriend (now wife) run in it in heatwave conditions back in May 2016, and it really wasn’t much cooler this year. I have been lucky that most of my target half and full marathons over the years have been on the cool side, and in fact I can say with certainty that these were the hottest conditions I’ve done anything more than a 10k race in.

On the day of the race, I posted an Instagram story about how I thought the Hackney emergency services would be in for a busy day, and sadly this was very much the case. I received response after response to that story confirming they’d seen people literally dropping like flies around the course.

In the (enormous) race village, all the pre-race chat coming over the loudspeaker had been about ‘hydration, hydration, hydration’, but besides ‘drinking a lot’, what does this really mean, and why is it so important in hot conditions? What does the evidence say about hydration in endurance sport, and how can we apply that to ourselves? It’s undoubtedly a tricky area and one that so many runners get wrong, especially when race conditions aren’t kind.

First then, why hydrate? i.e. what happens if we don’t?

Good hydration is essential, both for health and exercise performance. A quick GCSE biology recap: when we exercise, muscles generate heat as a by-product. Sweating is one of our go-to physiological responses to counteract this; the evaporation of water from the skin surface allows us to lose heat from blood vessels near the skin surface. The lost water needs to come from somewhere though, so if this process continues unchecked (i.e. without rehydration), blood plasma volume will reduce significantly (hypovolaemia) or core body temperature will steadily rise (called hyperthermia when exceeding 40 celsius), or both.

As a lot of those Hackney runners found out, this can result in heat-stroke, which at its worse can be fatal. However, well before this grim endpoint is reached, evidence suggests that, although there is huge individual variability, dehydration even at the level of >2% of body weight (i.e. 1.4kg of fluid loss for a 70kg runner) can affect aerobic performance and also cognitive function in hot conditions. This latter effect might be particularly important in the context of, say, decision making about fluid intake or pacing, and exacerbate the problem. These effects all increase as dehydration worsens, and when we reach 6-10% bodyweight loss, cardiac output, sweat production and muscular blood flow can all be compromised. Nasty.

How much to drink?

So, what can we do to prevent this? In general, it’s best to start a race (or hard training session) in a state of ‘euhydration’, that being one of neither over- nor under-hydration, with pale, straw-coloured urine. Clearly, starting in a dehydrated state would be a bad idea, whereas overhydration can cause GI discomfort and unwanted mid-run toilet trips!

During the run / race itself, hydration advice has shifted in the past decade or so. The traditional viewpoint used to be that ‘drinking to thirst’ was unsafe, because if you’re already thirsty, you’re already dehydrated, with runners therefore advised to pre-empt and avoid thirst by drinking early and regularly.

However, this method has its own risks, chiefly that of overhydration and exercise-associated hyponatraemia (EAH). This is known to be very common among recreational endurance athletes, and is essentially when the blood becomes diluted (specifically with regard to sodium content), due to replacement of fluid but not electrolytes (which I will get to later). Without wanting to sound too dramatic, again, at its most severe, EAH can be fatal.

Endurance runners are now advised, therefore, that following their instinctive thirst mechanism is a useful starting point to avoid EAH. There is phenomenal variability in sweat rates (anywhere from around 300ml to 2.5L / hour), both between and within individuals, depending on conditions and exercise intensity. However, for the majority of endurance runners, a range of 400-800ml fluid intake per hour is appropriate, with the higher end applied to faster or heavier athletes or hotter conditions (and vice versa).

Again though, this range remains just a starting point. A dietitian can help individualise the plan, but an athlete should also learn through their own experience about what they need. Sweat rate and lab composition testing can be helpful, but runners can also get into the habit, from time to time, of weighing themselves pre and post run (naked, wiping off any skin surface sweat) and working out sweat losses per hour in different conditions (accounting for any drinks consumed during the session, of course).

What to drink?

So now we know roughly how much to drink – or at least how to go about learning how much. What about what to drink? Let’s kick that off with another quick GCSE biology recap by way of some key definitions. These terms are thrown around freely in relation to sports drinks, but are, in my experience, quite poorly understood:

Hypotonic (e.g. water, dilute squash)

• less concentrated than blood
• best for rapid hydration

Hypertonic (e.g. hydrogels, most ‘recovery’ drinks)

• more concentrated than blood
• best for recovery and rapid carbohydrate delivery

Isotonic (e.g. most traditional sports drinks)

• similar concentration to blood
• all-rounder: compromise between hydration and carbohydrate delivery

When we talk about concentration, what we are really referring to here is the amount of sugars and salts (electrolytes) per litre. And when we consider our drink of choice, it’s important we can understand and weigh up the options, because ultimately it becomes a trade-off between optimal hydration and optimal carbohydrate delivery.

During a run, if rapid (re)hydration is needed above all else (e.g. from a safety perspective), a hypotonic solution such as water could be prioritised. If energy (carbs) are an urgent priority (but no other options e.g. gels are immediately available), then a hypertonic, sugar-heavy drink could be chosen.

However, in most other circumstances, isotonic is the way to go during a run. The rehydration rate is not far behind that of a hypotonic drink, and you have the added bonus of a gentle infusion of carbs (to be factored in alongside your race day fuelling plan) and electrolytes. In fact, current endurance sport guidelines consider the sodium levels found in most isotonic sports drinks to be optimal during prolonged exercise, for most athletes. Again though, there is great variability in sweat composition. Some people regularly see white salt marks on clothes or have salty-tasting sweat. In such ‘subjectively salty sweaters’ (or those that have lab-tested their sweat composition), alternative electrolyte plans are likely to be needed, especially when these runners also have either naturally high sweat rates and / or hot or humid conditions.

Remind me what electrolytes are?

Before moving on, a very quick recap on electrolytes and why they are important. Sodium is the one we hear most about, but potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride and phosphate are all crucial too. Electrolytes are so called because they carry electric charge across cell membranes, and when this balance is disturbed, heart, nerve and muscle function can all be compromised.

And what about post-exercise rehydration?

One of the other important roles that electrolytes (especially sodium) play is regulating fluid balance, which takes us on nicely to post-exercise rehydration. Despite the pre-run and mid-run hydration guidance above, it is expected that any prolonged endurance exercise is likely to end up with some bodyweight fluid deficit (especially in conditions like Hackney) and the recommendations are to rehydrate with 150% of that lost weight. So, if you’re 1 kg lighter after the run, drink 1.5L.

The most efficient and optimal way to do this is with a surprisingly salty drink. Guidelines state that >60 mmol sodium per litre is optimal for fluid absorption, and it should be pointed out that this is where commercially available sports drinks really don’t cut it. They fall well below this level, because it wouldn’t be palatable to the general consumer and wouldn’t exactly fly off the shelves! So this is where my homemade special recipe comes in handy (and cheap):

• 500ml orange juice
• 500ml water
• 2/3 of a tsp of salt

…mix together and enjoy the salty smugness of optimal rehydration!

Very concise summary of recommendations:

• Pre-run: start euhydrated (pale straw urine)
• Mid-run: drink to thist is an acceptable starting point
• Most fall within 400-800ml / hour range (higher end if heavier, faster or hotter)
• Isotonic usually wins for mid-run
• Individualised plans (for volume and electrolytes) are best
• Rehydrate post-run with 150% of lost weight, and go homemade for optimal results

Right, so there you have it. Hopefully that is a one-stop-shop with everything you needed to know about hydration in endurance sport, but as ever, your friendly sports dietitian (me) can help make sure you’re getting everything right with an individualised hydration plan. Anyone else thirsty?

The post Hydration hydration hydration: everything you need to know about hydration in endurance running appeared first on Tom Hollis.

Looking back on my last one of these pieces, reflecting on London 2019, I mentioned that the next aim had to be to have a go at going sub 2:45 and achieving a London Championship place. Sadly for me, that 2:45 cut-off had become 2:40 the time I next looked…presumably a reflection of better times at the top end of the recreational level, with advances in footwear and sports nutrition probably to thank for that. Once I’d gotten over the shock of this news, I realised I was going to have to go all in for an amazing training block.

I had been keeping an eye on Spanish winter races (I was also very much up for a holiday in Valencia / Sevilla / Malaga), but with so much uncertainty about travel restrictions and mass events in general, announcements were practically non-existent, so eventually I ran out of patience and made a spur-of-the-moment decision in early June, and booked Manchester for October. I’d never raced there before but heard it was fast and fairly flat.

I figured this gave me just enough time for a decent block, and I wasted no time in enlisting the help of Chris Bird as coach (Team Birdman). I’d never used a coach before, but had already spoken with Chris in May, and I liked his mentality and approach. I realised that for the first time, I needed some proper strategy and structure to my training.

I am not going to go into detail regarding his methods (because I wouldn’t do it justice and it also does a disservice to people that pay for it), but in a nutshell, there is an emphasis on quality over quantity, monitoring of stress, and specificity of training around goal marathon pace. So with that in mind, my training was based around achieving the frankly terrifying target of sub 2:40. I didn’t have enough time for his ideal full marathon block, but enough time to see serious benefits.

And those benefits came along faster than expected. One of the great things about training for a marathon is that you’re in such good shape that you can pick up PBs at shorter distances almost by accident. In mid-July I took over two minutes off my (admittedly out of date) 10km PB at Battersea, then a month later on the same course, I went 40 seconds faster again, taking the PB down to 33:54.

Fast parkruns were mainly off the menu in this block, but I took over half a minute off my PB at my hilly local (Finsbury Park), finishing in 17:02, before then taking my 5km PB on the track down to 16:34 in September. Sadly I didn’t have time to squeeze in a half marathon in this block – it would have been at the expense of a key workout, and with eyes on the prize, I prioritised the latter.

It’s worth mentioning as well that since I last ran a marathon, I have become formally qualified as a Sports Dietitian, and set up this business. I take pride in helping others towards their goals, but also in practising what I preach in terms of running nutrition. It is never about being perfect, but instead getting into good habits and doing the right thing the majority of the time, to get the best from your training, and of course, race day. I’ve got absolutely no doubt that this was another key factor in my training block.

With the pandemic interrupting 2020, this has been my first proper marathon season with private running clients. It’s been a busy one, and the past three weeks have been dominated by ‘race booster’ sessions. It’s no secret that carb loading is king in race build up (and this forms part of these sessions), but most runners don’t get anywhere near where they need to be. I’m not ashamed to admit that this previously included myself; I assumed that since my diet was already high carb, I just needed to increase my portion of rice or pasta on the days leading up to the race and that would be job done…nope.

10g carbs / kg of bodyweight / day is a good target for 2-3 days pre-marathon, and this is a goal I discuss with clients. However, it’s not until you try it yourself that you really experience how challenging that can be. The method I used for myself was not to plan out each meal (especially as I’d be away from home for some of it), but to keep a rolling carb tally. I used to say carb loading was one of my favourite periods, but not any more. I don’t want to see another crumpet or fruit loaf for a long, long time.

Even during that short trial, I learned as I went along and got better at it. I hit about 9.5g carbs / kg on both days, but it felt harder and more uncomfortable on the Friday than it did on the Saturday. I took 2 tupperware tubs of sweetened overnight oats (100g carbs per tub) with me on the train up to Manchester and these went down very easily – definitely one to remember for next time.

On to race day. It was much sunnier and therefore a bit warmer than the forecast, but I’d still say conditions were in our favour overall. However it didn’t really feel that way when we were made to wait an extra 15-20 minutes in the starting pen (we’d already been there nearly an hour) due to an unspecified delay. Standing there crammed in in the sun did nothing for the nerves, nor for the pre-race fuelling timings (carbs, caffeine and nitrates) or toileting strategy…

And I have to admit that although it was generally a well organised and fantastically supported event, that start pen situation was one of a number of areas where it felt inferior to London. In the build up to the event, the details of the on-course nutrition varied depending on where you looked (and this stuff matters to someone like me), and the tracker website on the day was a total disaster. My friends and family had no idea how I was doing, and my poor wife must have been worried waiting at mile 19, especially with that delayed start.

I started the race with two others from the coaching group. Our plan was to start slow and build pace each mile until hitting a steady 6:04 / mile. On the whole I think this strategy worked (and there is logic to it in terms of fuel use), but it always needs to be balanced against leaving too much to do in the second half / final quarter. Negative splitting is not easy.

I went through halfway in 1:20:40, which was about 20-30 seconds off what I’d planned, and it then dawned on me that I pretty much needed 1:19 dead in the second half. Speeding up wasn’t a sensible option, especially with the next few miles being the hilliest section of the course (not that I’d planned for this – it was definitely not as flat as I’d anticipated), so I kept things ticking over with 6:04 miles.

By this point, I had had a couple of other dramas. My left shoe felt perfect but the right was much looser in the toe-box, and the foot was moving around far too much. Stopping to fix that would have taken ages so I just had to try to ignore it, which I managed, periodically. More importantly, I had to completely change my gel plan after 8 miles. My first Maurten 100 really didn’t go down well (that unusual texture felt even thicker than normal somehow), so I decided it was not worth the risk of continuing, and I moved over to relying on the on-course SiS. The Maurtens in my belt went untouched. They seem to be a firm favourite for so many runners now, and I would say around 70% of my clients use them, but at this stage I have to say I’m not a huge fan. Maybe I’ll go back one day, but in the meantime, I now have plenty of spare sachets for sale!

I ended up going for an SiS every 3.5 miles, and this just about did the job. As I went past my wife at mile 19 I thought I still had a chance of sub 2:40, but then had the quickest of chats with another guy aiming for the same, who said ‘this is exactly where I fell apart last time’…not what I needed to hear! Strangely, I met him again on the train back to London and it turns out he lives round the corner from me.

I went through 30km in 1:54:35 (average pace 6:08), and then with 10km to go I realised I was going to need to speed up at some point soon. The official splits show that I did the last 12.2km at 6:00 pace, but this doesn’t tell the full story. There might have been a very slight uptick in pace at that point, but really I was just spending the next half an hour doing mental maths to work out if it was still on. Quite a big part of me wanted it not to be on, as I was really suffering and the mental demons had well and truly arrived…it would have meant an excuse to drop the pace a touch and maybe even enjoy the last 15 minutes. Sadly it was never that clear cut.

Of course, a marathon is meant to involve a fair bit of suffering (it’s kind of the point and what makes it such a great and humbling distance), but even now on my sixth one, I always forget quite how deep you have to dig.  With 2.2 miles to go, I got my maths wrong and suddenly thought I was comfortable with a minute to spare. Then with a mile to go I realised that was wrong and I needed to step on it again. With half a mile to go I was going at my 5k pace (5:25) and the long finishing straight was the most agonising, eyeballs-out sprint that I could muster, with my heart rate allegedly peaking at 190 bpm. My face in the official photos tells quite a story.

My watch showed 2:39:56. Ten minutes later I got the confirmation text saying 2:39:57, and I couldn’t control my emotion. It’s been a seriously hard few weeks and months for a variety of reasons, and it all just hit me in that moment. But then, that’s one of many reasons why I love running; there aren’t many things in life that will bring that emotion out of me.

I finished 54^th out of 13,849 finishers, which is a stat I’m still trying to get my head round. And the fact that it all came down to 3 seconds is just ridiculous. I would never have classed 2:40:xx as a failure, but this really feels like a major milestone and achievement for me, and the culmination of so much effort in training and everything that goes alongside it. I think when it comes down to 3 seconds out of 9,600, Dave Brailsford’s marginal gains theory feels pretty valid.

So what next? Well, having been my proudest PB a year ago, my half marathon time of 1:17 is probably the one most in need of a refresh now, so perhaps that’s the plan for spring. And looking beyond that, although the thought of another marathon is just horrible right now, realistically I’ll be making the most of my London Championship place in 2022 and the opportunity to start alongside the elites!

The post Manchester Marathon 2021 appeared first on Tom Hollis.

Time:  2:51:29

Halfway: 1:26:57

With: John

Conditions: Freakishly perfect. Sunny and cold again

Fresh from breaking 3 in Rotterdam, I waited eagerly for the London Marathon Good for Age entries to open in August 2015, and secured my place for 2016. I’d been living in London for 8 or 9 years by that point, had been in the marathon crowd most years, and half-heartedly applied (unsuccessfully) for a ballot place a couple of times too. So, this definitely felt like my home race, and a big moment.

I was working in central London by this point too, and was clocking up most of my training miles either running to or from my hospital in Paddington. Looking back at Strava, what strikes me is how little training I was doing. I’m sure it felt like loads at the time, but it’s amazing how perception of training mileage shifts so dramatically with time. In January 2016 I covered 176km, and just 127km in February. Having said that, February also included a two week trip to Sri Lanka with friends (the freedom!) which not only meant that plenty of surfing and cricket but very little running took place, but also that I returned home with a tropical disease. I never had it fully diagnosed but the tropical diseases centre narrowed it down to either dengue fever or chikungunya. And whichever it was, it was the sickest I’ve ever been: debilitating aches from head to toe and drenching my bed with sweat for a week. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

So there was no training at all for three weeks, other than one loosener before the Bath Half in mid-March. To my surprise, I PB’d there in 1:23, and it looks like this gave me the confidence to ramp things up. As per previous training blocks, all runs were done at maximum effort, close to 4 min/km. I ended up clocking 182km in March, and 120km in the three week taper in April.

Enough about training – on to race week. I went to the expo at the Excel Centre after work to pick up my race kit and goodie bag, and as always, absolutely loved this bit and allowed myself to get ludicrously hyped up.

The day before the race, my then new girlfriend (and now wife), Holly, accompanied me for a 5k shake out around the block, and my parents came up from Somerset for the weekend too.

I remember feeling full of pride as I met up with John (who’d also qualified via Rotterdam – see blog 1) in the Good for Age pen, although in reality it was just another field in Greenwich with perhaps slightly shorter queues for the portaloos.

As usual, the race itself is something of a blur, although I remember being staggered by the size, consistency, and noise level of the crowds. This was a totally different level to Berlin and Rotterdam. I also remember getting my biggest ever runner’s high when Champagne Supernova came on my shuffle as I ran past Cutty Sark.

I went through halfway in 1:26:57, and must have been feeling good at this point, because I sped up and finished with a decent negative split, covering the second half in 1:24:33, and a big PB overall of 2:51:29. There is no doubt the cool, sunny conditions had been kind again, and that I got a huge boost from the crowd in the second half, not least from Holly, my family and all the noisy Prostate Cancer UK stands (as I was wearing their vest).

Looking back at my splits, this has to be one of the best races I’ve ever run. Once again, a ridiculously happy day in the sunshine followed – once we’d got the dreaded first meeting of girlfriend and parents out of the way, obviously.

4. London, April 2017

Time:  2:53:54

Halfway: 1:25:43

With: Solo

Conditions: Sniffly

I duly booked my Good for Age place again for 2017, although knew that my winter training was going to be pretty different this year, having arranged a sabbatical from work to live and travel in Argentina and Uruguay for four months with a couple of friends. This had been arranged before meeting Holly, but she whittled me down to four months from the original six. A fair compromise, I would say.

They were four truly incredible months, as we covered 8000km on a month-long road trip, helped on a conservation project in Uruguay and spent much of the rest of the time eating and drinking far too much. The running trainers came with me everywhere, but in all honesty, didn’t get used much. That said, there were some unforgettable moments, and some of the solo runs in Patagonia were the most beautiful I’ve ever done. I covered 80km in each of October, November and December, but by the time we got to Christmas in Cordoba, it was over 35 degrees Celsius every day, and those runs will also live long in the memory, for all the wrong reasons.

Uruguay in January was fresher (relatively speaking – probably still close to 30 degrees), and I got a bit of rhythm with 143km in the month, before coming home in February…to snow. February was productive, with 176km, before 193km (my biggest ever month at the time) and a Bath Half PB of 1:22 in March.

Logistics on race day couldn’t have been much easier, as I stayed with my brother who lived within walking distance of the start, but annoyingly, I had a cold. Particularly annoying as I get them about once every few years. I felt fine, but it was one of those when my nose was a tap that couldn’t be turned off. I made light of it at work, but I remember my ICU colleague on the Friday asking whether I should really be running. It didn’t cross my mind not to, but in hindsight, having now worked on ICU and seen plenty of runners (mainly men, and mainly at the faster end of the recreational spectrum) push themselves too far and end up in one of our critical care beds, perhaps I should have listened.

Anyway, I got lucky in that nothing serious happened, but I can see that my pace dropped off quite significantly in the second half. I went through halfway in 1:25:43, but got slower with every 5k split thereafter, and ended with 2:53:54. Perhaps it was the cold, or that I’d left too much to do after very little running in South America, but this was the first time I’d not PB’d at a marathon. It was no disaster though, and I seemed happy enough when I wrote about it in this blog.

5. London, April 2019

Time:  2:47:30

Halfway: 1:21:22

With: Solo

Conditions:  Battling

Looking back on this blog in 2018, it seems that those last couple of months prior to London 2017 had really taken it out of me (hardly surprising when I was still running every training run flat out), and I’d made the early decision to skip a year in 2018.

And I got lucky. That race day I missed in April 2018 was unseasonably hot, and knowing me at the time, I would have stuck stubbornly to my target pace, and probably suffered massively.

However, I soon had the running bug back (thanks in part to a belated discovery of parkrun), and in autumn of 2018, signed up for London 2019 again and also joined my local running club, London Heathside. As I have previously written about, I had arrogantly assumed that I wouldn’t benefit much from a running club, as I pushed myself hard enough in training anyway.

Needless to say, I was wrong, and besides some healthy competition on the track, I also learned so much about how to pace different training sessions to get maximum performance benefit. Not only that, but I was surrounded by loads of clubmates who were also building up to London, and sessions were all geared specifically towards this.

Looking back to Strava again, the year started steadily enough, with 159km in January, before (I think) my first ever 200km month in February, and 241km in March that included a first sub 80 half marathon in Bath (1:19:37). This felt huge at the time, and proved to me that the training was paying off. 200km more were squeezed into the first three weeks of April, including a 22 miler along the Thames that one toenail has still not recovered from – not even joking.

On to race day again. After a year off marathons, I was more hyped than ever as I walked up to the Good for Age enclosure from my brother’s house again. And while this adrenaline is normally a good thing for me and something I can channel into performance, I let myself get carried away and broke the number one golden rule. With my tapered legs feeling amazing, I set off far too fast. I went through 5k in 18:44, which was not far off my actual 5k pace at the time, and this laid the foundations for what would be a horrible race.

I went through halfway in 1:21:22, but remember even at this point knowing I’d overcooked it. Inevitably, every 5km split after this point was slower than the last, but I was desperate not to let it unravel completely. As I wrote about in this blog, I really didn’t enjoy much of this race at all, and it was essentially a non-stop mental battle where I tried to work out how much I could afford to slow down and still PB.

As ever, the crowd (and particularly family and friends) kept me going, and I covered the second half in 1:26:08 and with a four minute PB of 2:47:30. If this ends up being my lifetime PB, then I wouldn’t be too unhappy, but I’ll also know that I was capable of more if I’d not been such an idiot with my pacing!

That concluded my trilogy of London races. If you’ve got this far, then thanks for indulging me with my trip down marathon memory lane. Two years later and with the pandemic settling down (and having written this blog), I’ve got the itch to go 26.2 again. I haven’t been to the club track in well over a year, but I’ve kept myself ticking over in the background and I’m ready to give it everything again. I haven’t got a place in London in October, but I’m keeping a very firm eye on a few Spanish races (and travel restrictions) this winter. Watch this space.

The post Marathon memory lane part 2 appeared first on Tom Hollis.

I have full respect for ultrarunners, sprinters and middle-distance runners, but for me, the marathon is the holy grail. The ultimate test. The perfect combination of pace, endurance, and mental strength.

This is why I like to space my marathons out, and have only chalked up five in eight years. Every time I take on the distance, I want to commit fully to the process and know that I’ve given it the respect it deserves. I know how much the marathon training block takes out of me, so once every year to 18 months has always seemed about right to do it justice and keep it feeling special…and keep it from taking over my life.

The drawback of this approach is that it places enormous (some might say unnecessary) pressure on that one day, but all I can say is that it has given me five of the best, proudest, and most memorable days of my life! So, I thought I’d take a quick trip down marathon memory lane, for anyone who likes reading about this sort of thing, and for me to look back on when I’m much older and slower, but hopefully still running.

1. Berlin, September 2013

Time:                    3:10:44 (PB!)

Halfway:              1:34:31

With:                    Andy

Conditions:         Perfect (sunny and cold)

Other:                  The world record was also broken on the course that day

I’d completed a couple of halves since starting running in 2010, but remember thinking when I’d finished them that the prospect of doing the same distance again would be laughable. However, as I’m sure is the case for everyone on their first time, a rush of blood / confidence / idiocy (delete as appropriate) got the better of me, and I remember booking Berlin during a lunch break during my final hospital placement as a student dietitian. What’s more, I managed to rope in my friend Andy for his first, and as yet only marathon, too (although fast forward eight years and he’s slowly warming up to the idea of his second).

This might have been the final year that you could just buy a place (no ballot, or at least not that I can remember), despite it being one of the marathon majors. I think it was this, plus the ingenious idea of combining with a trip to Oktoberfest in Munich (after, obviously) that made us opt for Berlin.

Berlin 2013 remains to this day my only ever non-spring marathon, and training through the summer was tough, as it was a particularly hot one. I was in Bedford for my first post-registration Dietitian role, and was undoubtedly pretty anti-social in my hospital accommodation. With precisely zero Bedford mates, I spent that summer running solo and flat-out through local trails in the blazing early evening heat. In hindsight, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, had no concept of varying my pace, and the overall mileage was probably quite low as a result, but at the time I thought I was smashing it.

Going into my first one, I knew (i.e. everyone had told me) that the marathon can chew you up and spit you out, so as we flew out I tried to keep an open mind, but was hoping for anywhere from 3:15 to 3:30.

I remember so clearly walking to the start line from our flat, posing for a photo under the Brandenburg Gate, then getting the most incredible waves of adrenaline and excitement as they put on the cheesy motivational tunes before the start gun. For better or worse, Wake me up by Avicii (RIP) will now always have a special place in my heart.

I actually remember almost nothing of the race itself, but the records show me that I went through halfway in 1:34:31, and finished, with pretty even splits, in 3:10:44. I do remember feeling blown away by that, and got my medal engraved with the time, as I didn’t think I’d ever be beating that time.

I also remember the aftermath. Andy’s parents had travelled to watch us (well, him), and had made the incredible gesture of organising a post-race spa and massage for us both. This, followed by beers in the sun in Alexanderplatz, made it a perfect day. The next three nights spent camping in the freezing cold and embarrassing ourselves at Oktoberfest were considerably less glamorous.

2. Rotterdam, April 2015

Time:                   2:59:23 (PB)

Halfway:              1:28:32

With:                    John and Nick

Conditions:         Euphoric (Cool at the start, hot at the end)

A year and a half later, I’d managed to drag two other friends (John – his first marathon, and Nick – his second or third) to join me in Rotterdam. I think we chose this race one because a) it was supposed to be fast and flat, b) no ballot, and c) we fancied another European jolly.

I remember much less of the training block for this race, but I do know I still had no real idea what I was doing and ran every training run at full pace. I also remember plenty of the immediate build up. We’d arrived in our AirBNB a couple of days before the race, and found ourselves killing plenty of time playing Pandemic: the board game. Looking back, it feels very odd that one of my friends would bring a board game on holiday, and the game itself was disappointingly poor preparation for 2020. It didn’t even mention banana bread.

I was in charge of organising the team nutrition, and I’d like to think we got the carb load and overall strategy spot on, notwithstanding a period of rising panic when I couldn’t find any sugar tablets (I hadn’t discovered the magic of gels just yet).

However, later that evening, John announced that the drink he had been knocking back literally litres of to ‘help him relax’ was green tea. He hadn’t realised that it contains a fairly hefty dose of caffeine, and reports having slept maybe 1-2 hours that night. Luckily he smashed the race anyway and we can look back and laugh (and I definitely do), but it was an early insight for me to leave no stone unturned with my sports nutrition clients!

Onto the race, and I think I went into it knowing that if things went my way, I had a decent shot at sub-3. I hadn’t slept brilliantly either (painting a picture of a really nervy household here aren’t I), but other than that, I’d had a pretty good build up and was feeling good.

Again, annoyingly, I can’t remember much of the race itself, but the records show I went through halfway in 1:28:32. I do remember doing a lot of mental maths in the second half (only very recently have I progressed beyond my basic Casio watch), and then approaching the finishing straight knowing I’d done it, putting my arms aloft, and quite possibly roaring. I finished in 2:59:23, and I have to say I’m very proud of my pacing that day. It goes without saying that I had to buy the official finish line photo.

By the time the race ended, we were bathed in hot sun, and I just remember feeling utterly euphoric. We spent the vast majority of the next 72 hours celebrating wildly, in beer gardens, our balcony, and wherever else would accept three giddy, sunburnt, and probably quite annoying medal-weaning Brits.

Having broken the 3 hour barrier, I not only had the marathon bug in a big way, but also a Good For Age qualifying time for London. Take at look at part 2 of 2 in a week or so, where I cover my trilogy of London races and think ahead to this winter.

The post Marathon memory lane appeared first on Tom Hollis.

It’s now been a week or so since I staggered over the finish line on The Mall, and I’ve been enjoying not breaking out of walking pace since then (I couldn’t have if I’d tried for the first three days). But while I’m just starting to think about lacing up the trainers again and getting going on the next challenge (nailing my 5K PB this summer), I think it’s a good opportunity to reflect on the big day and what I learned from it.

1. Setting off too fast

Training had gone well, tapering had been sensible, and the weather was looking fairly kind – cool, dry, just a bit breezy. There was no doubt in my mind that I was hunting for a PB, especially on the back of one in the Bath half marathon (79 mins) a month earlier. However, what with it being my first full marathon for a couple of years, I didn’t want to get too cocky at the start and end up clinging on grimly again (as was the case in Bath), or blowing up altogether and DNF-ing.

Sadly, I ignored all of this and set off like I was at my local Park Run. Yes, I had recently learned that mile three was largely downhill, but I think I overplayed this fact in my head, and all of a sudden I was through 5K in 18.44, equivalent to 2h38 pace. Obviously I felt incredible at this stage, and with all the adrenaline flowing through me I did feel like I was running in a controlled manner. But I didn’t grasp that this really isn’t the point – you need to be thinking about how you’ll feel not now, but in two hours’ time. You don’t suddenly become a sub 2h40 runner because you’re having a good day, and I really paid for my over eager start later on.

I came through halfway in 1h21 and still felt reasonably good (as you really should do), but shortly afterwards I started to flag, and it became a huge physical and psychological battle from then on. Looking back at my splits, I pretty much slowed down with every passing 5k from that first one, and this fact doesn’t surprise me at all. I’m really proud to have held on to record a four minute PB despite my terrible race tactics (2h47), but if I’d been more sensible, I would have enjoyed the day more and perhaps gone a touch faster. Regardless, this is one lesson that I do not need to be taught again!

2. Mind games

Like all sport, running is part physical and part psychological. In fact, I’d always enjoyed this side of the challenge – sticking to a gruelling winter training schedule and dealing with the highs and lows on race day is a huge but satisfying test of mental strength.

However, London 2019 definitely took things to a new level for me on this front…as a result of my stupid start, the thought of stopping altogether crossed my mind every five minutes or so from about the 15 mile mark onwards; something I had never had to deal with in a race before for more than a fleeting moment. I just about managed to keep these thoughts at bay, and kept myself occupied with constant recalculations about how much I could afford to slow down to still get a PB. I had my wife, family and friends dotted along the last few miles, which was also a useful distraction but inevitably also ramped up the intensity of my emotions and left me feeling pretty fragile!

Into the final two miles, I realised I’d been desperately gripping an energy gel in my right hand for some time. I had no intention of taking the gel (far too late for that), but suddenly I felt that if I chucked it aside, it genuinely might disrupt the very delicate rhythm with which I was running, and I may not be able to keep putting one foot in front of the other. So, it was passed from hand to hand as my stress ball until the finish line, and until I burst into tears in sheer relief shortly after – another thing that has never happened to me before! Perhaps I’m getting more emotional with age, but I prefer to see it as dealing with and overcoming the toughest mind games of my life. It’s incredible to think that 40,000-odd others were overcoming their own mental battles at the same time.

3. No headphones required

I had spent weeks thinking about my marathon playlist, but I shouldn’t have bothered. In my four previous marathons I’d always listened to music, but in this one I just ended up with the headphones round my neck and the mp3 player untouched in my shorts for 26.2 miles. The London crowd was nothing short of sensational; definitely the loudest I’ve ever heard at a race, and there was barely a lull on the whole route. It’s definitely gone up a notch in the two years since I last ran London, and I now totally understand why hardly anyone other than me had headphones in the ‘good for age’ starting pen.

There is still an argument to say that music can be a welcome distraction to help you zone out and let a few miles pass without much thought, but in the case of my race, the crowd were nothing but a boost, and I would have stopped running long before the end if they hadn’t been there. Much as I love preparing a motivational playlist, I won’t be bothering next time.

4. There’s always someone faster and a target to chase

No matter how well you’ve done and how much you’ve smashed your PB by, there is always someone who puts your achievements in the shade. Whether it’s 84 year old Eileen Noble, or the guy in the wedding dress who swapped places with me every couple of miles, there are so many inspirational performances to choose from. For me though, Hayley Carruthers was the one. I read that she only started running three years ago, but crawled over the line (literally), in 2h 34m, before going back to work the following day to her full time job in the NHS as a radiographer. Just awesome, and made me feel very self indulgent with my day off on the Monday!

My point is, it’s all relative and you inevitably compare yourself to those ahead of you. Even multi gold medal athlete Mo Farah has to deal with the undisputable greatest marathoner of all time, Eliud Kipchoge, looking a class above at the very front.

And for me, I think it’s all part of the fun. I like to measure myself against others (running club has been great for this) and set myself targets. Now that I’m reasonably close, my next marathon goal has to be to go sub 2h45 one day and be able to start alongside the elites and championship runners. I never previously thought I’d get close to that mark, but it would be rude not to give it a good go…

5. Never underestimate it

As with all things in life, you can take a reductionist approach if you wish, and think of a marathon as just a bit of running. The reality, however, is so much more than this. The emotion and excitement of the London marathon in particular just elevates it to always being one of the very best days of the year, and its significance in the sporting calendar should not be underestimated. It means so much to so many people and makes me very proud to be a runner and a Londoner.

Also not to be underestimated is the enormous impact this event has for charities around the world. This year’s race saw the £1 billion mark exceeded in fundraising over the event’s history – a figure that no other mass participation event comes close to. Staggering.

And finally, the physical challenge of the race itself should not be underestimated. As I’ve documented above, I found this year’s race immensely tough, and saw several people pulling up, vomiting or crying their eyes out on the way round. Then, at the extreme end of the scale are those that end up in intensive care. We always have at least a couple on our units, and this year was no exception. It just makes you realise that it’s a fairly ridiculous distance to try to cover, especially at pace, and should always be treated with respect.

Roll on 2020? Maybe…

The post Five lessons from London Marathon 2019 (including how not to run it) appeared first on Tom Hollis.

Most people are familiar with the phrase ‘carb-loading’, and I always take this pursuit almost as seriously as the training itself, particularly in the days leading up to the race. Food basically becomes just fuel during this period, as I put my Dietitian hat on and think about meals solely in terms of macro and micronutrients. I more or less double my (already high) carbohydrate intake, reduce fat considerably, and keep protein about the same (approx 100g per day). When coupled with the steady reduction in training in the weeks of ‘tapering’, this all helps to boost muscle glycogen reserves so that i’m bursting with fuel on the day.

Race day nutrition is perhaps even more important. The golden rule is to stick to what you know and not try anything new (to avoid ‘accidents’ on the course), so my staple breakfast is 4 to 5 slices of wholemeal toast with jam or honey about 2.5 hours before the start, then 2 or 3 ripe bananas in the next hour or so. I’ll have a litre of isotonic sports drink slowly throughout the morning, then drink about another 1.5 litres of these isotonic drinks on the run – or more if it’s warm (I don’t bother with the water, personally).

Then come the carb & electrolyte gels. I used to dismiss these as unnecessary fluff, but I was completely wrong – i’d be considerably slower without them. I take between 7 and 9 of these 60g gels during a marathon, which works out at approximately 1 every 3 miles or 5km. They are a life saver.

But right now, the day after the marathon, I can think of nothing better than indulging in an enormous pizza and well deserved beer or two, so that’s how I intend to spend my day off work…if I can just manage to hobble to the high street.

The post London Marathon 2017 appeared first on Tom Hollis.