Well done, rest up and get better.
Strava isnāt working for me 
Yeah. The whole platformās down
Great effort for all of you finishing today. Iām tempted to have a crack at a marathon after reading this thread and Manchester is an option
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Brilliant work all, fantastic running!
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Well done all.
Marathons eh! Bastard things, not sure why we put ourselves through them
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Bugger 
Thatās the tracker - āTwas saying 3:28 for you.
Blame the porridge 
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Good effort all
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Well done everyone. Another good day at the office. 
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Never again ā¦. Till the next time!
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Good work everyone. Marathons are beastly things. Donāt know why, but they just have this ability to f*#k s*!t up.
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My quads are in pieces 
calfās and hamstrings are fine though 
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Iām so sorry I didnāt get to see any of you throughout the day. The tracking being completed fecked along with the trams being way more rammed and slow than anticipated meant I barely got to see any of the race at all.
I mostly went to watch my training partner who helped me with my build up to London, who I missed at mile 5, then the tram was too slow to get me to mile 11 or mile 15 in time and then he pulled out just before mile 20 where I was stationed to see him again! Useless
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Iāll try and keep this fairly brief.
Pre race day build up was all good, quiet evening in the airbnb the night before and made some spag bol for myself and the other two lads and got bed, didnāt sleep all that well but no surprises there. Next morning had my usual breakfast and coffee and wandered over to the start area which was a nice short 10 min walk, I had taken an old hoodie to leave but the weather was so nice I didnāt need it. Did a short 600m warm and grabbed a bottle of water to slowly sip on. Now time to wander to the start line quite a lot of waiting around here. I must have been for a pee 5 times at least. It started late must have been about 10:45 I reckon.
Set out with the plan of holding between 4 and 4:05 km and that Iād take a gel every 30mins. First few km was very crowded and quite a lot of traffic. Was tough getting past the pacers who had started in front of me as there was a large crowd all running with him and taking up the entire width of the road. Started having a few tough ish spells but they came and went and something Iām totally used to. Started to feel the stomach being unhappy around 23-24km and thought maybe I could just go to the toilet and it would sort it. Quick stop at a portaloo but nothing was happening, pressed on for a few more kms with it only getting worse and wondering if I could endure the pain and discomfort. Stopped again for the toilet. Nope. At this point I knew I was going to be in for a rough finish. From about 33 km it was going to be run walk and death march. A 3hr pacer eventually came past me along with most other people as I trudged along. The walking would allow my stomach to stop hurting and then soon as I started running even incredibly slowly it would come back again within a few hundred metres. I bargined with myself, run 1km and you can walk, the run portion of this bargaining got less and less. Next the (a?) 3:15 pacer came past me probably with 5 or 6km to go, at this point I started having thoughts of sacking it off completely and hit a real low mental low but managed to have a word with myself. I didnāt know what my time was likely to be at this point as I had forgotten to turn off auto stop on my watch so the 3 times I had tried to go to the toilet would need to be added on. 2km to go and I was dying for some water, grabbed a mostly full but discarded bottle from the floor, at this point the thought of catching something was far from my mind! Told myself I had to run the last km, the sight of the finish line spurred my on and I crossed the line with the clock showing 3:19, I was pretty pissed off. Sat down and soon got the timing text with 3:15 which improved my mood slightly. Support was amazing and I had plenty of random strangers cheer me on shouting my name, I just wish Iād been able to run the last 10 km properly and enjoy the support a bit more. I know my legs and fitness could have kept me going even if the running pace was well down if the GI issues hadnāt happened.
Km splits below with HR (wrist)
So onto the real point, why did I have such stomach/gut issues? I can only presume I ran with my heart rate too high for too long, thus my stomach stopped being able to digest or process anything? Or do I need to train it better to do this? Run at a slower pace so my heart rate is lower for a longer period of time? Its not something Iāve experienced before.
Now onto Oxford Half on Sunday. Do I try and go for a sub 1:20 PB? I donāt feel all that beat up at allā¦
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Jesus man 
Are you @gingerbongo ?
Whatās your MaxHR?
And whatās your half marathon PB HR look like?
My MaxHR was 193, RHR was 48 when I ran the below.
Pace only ever really goes above 3:50/km when the road goes up (bit of extra timber for this one!)
I started at just over the previous weeks parkrun pace and held on for another 16km.
If you do that at Oxford, youāll be grand.
I did say Iām a revver 
MaxHR during this training block has been 195, but Iām sure Iāve hit 200 in the past 18 months.
Half marathon 1:20 PB below. No structured training for it and it was 350m elevation as well which meant a bit of HR recovery ish.
Soā¦you ran a marathon at the same HR as a half?
I await @gingerbongo to comment, as I couldnāt comprehend such things
Bloody great time with that elevation 
Also,
Your HR takes about 5km to get up to speed, are you warming up properly?
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3:15 is a good time & marathons are tough bastards.
There are some freaks among us that knock out an unbelievable time on their first attempt but thatās far from the norm, most fast long distance runners have years and many many long distance miles training the body to endure & fuel for those races.
What works can be individual also and just take some practice & experimentation.
It could be that you were dehydrated, that can give you stomach problems especially if your adding gels & it was on the warm side. If you only add water and not salt then the body needs to lose more water to maintain salt levels.
I personally work well on a sugary drink with lots of salt.
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@Poet well it was the pace Iād trained to and it honestly felt comfortable enough. I truly believe my legs, engine and head had it in them to keep going with usual expected drop off towards the end. That half course was a bit a grim, double out and back with the out being a very gentle but long incline (old railway line cycle path).
Warm up. I read that little is necessary for a marathon and there was little option due to it starting late and everyone getting quite crammed in for the wave start.
@Doka It was only water and gels on course, there is the possibility I was dehydrated but I did take on water at every opportunity. Maybe some salt/electrolyte might be needed.
Appreciate the advice everyone, thank you!
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I think it was definitely warmer than a lot of people thought and the aid stations were 5K, I was definitely dehydrating towards the end, itās rare Iāll be wanting a stop.
The fluid does help digestion though.