I wasn’t sure how I would approach this race. I originally entered Zurich Marathon in 2020, which was moved to 2021, 2021 was also cancelled and became a virtual event and entry was defered to 2022. The problem was that I had raced Challenge Salou the previous week, and wasn’t sure how well I would recover.
I had 2 aims for Zurich Marathon, first was to get a GFA time for London… now that I have aged up to 50-54, GFA is 3:15, so I recon any time sub 3:05 is pretty likely. Second was to try for a sub 3 marathon… I have a 2:56, but that was a Zurich Virtual Marathon last year.
The week preceding Zurich, the weather was awful, sub zero temps, snow, sleet and wind. However, the forecast for race day was ideal, sunny, reasonably light wind, 3 degrees at 8am warming to 10 degrees by 11am.
On Sunday morning 6 friends met to catch the 7am train from Zug. Myself, Sam and Jerome all looking to do sub 3 hours, and Cecil looking for sub 2h40. Everything was very Swiss and fantastically well organised. We were all in Pen A with the faster runners, and arrived about 10 mins before our start at 0815. I had several layers of old clothes that I took off a few minutes before the race.
The gun went off and I crossed the line 45s later. The first couple of kms were busy, with lots of jostelling and trying to pass slower runners, but after 10mins or so, the road was clear and I was running with a couple of others. We settled into a really nice pace around 3:56-3:58/km My heart rate was around 160-165 and effort level felt really sustainable.
I used my usual Ironman fueling strategy of one gel every 4km, at this pace 100g carbs (400 cals) per hour, on top of this I was taking a cup of ISO at each aid station, approx every 5kms. This was a bit of an experiment as my HR would be higher in a Marathon than it would be in an IM, so wanted to see if I was still able to digest the amount of carbs - the text book would say that I was taking too much, but I have trained with high carb intake, so was confident that I would be OK.
On the run I went through 10km in 39:45, and felt like I was flying. The next section was 14km down the lake running into a light headwind. I was running with another guy who was looking to do a 2:53, soon we caught a group of 8 runners, and I recognised Nicola Spirigg. For the next hour we kept together, doing turns on the front, but staying in the draft as much as possible. Its really amazing how much difference the draft makes, RPE is significantly easier when in the pack then on the front. I crossed the half Marathon Distance in 1h23:45, not too shabby
At the Turn around point (km 24), Nicola Spirigg decided to up the pace, and our group split. I decided to go with the group of 4 faster runners, which was a bad choice, the pace was just a couple of seconds per km too fast, but I was burning matches to keep up. After a couple of kms I decided to ease off, but was now in no mans land, with no one to draft. By km 28 my pace had dropped to 4:15 - 4:20/km, this felt completely sustainable, and I would continue at this pace for the rest of the race. A few runners passed me, and I passed a few people who were begining to struggle. with 9km to go, my friend Sam passed me, and 4 km to go the group I ran with down the lake also passed me (I should have stuck with them I think). It was only in the last 2kms that it started to get painful, but being so close to the end, I continued running at 4:15/km
Garmin recorded my Marathon time as 2:53:25, but my official time was 2:54:55, I measured the course as 42.55kms
Nutrition strategy seems to work really well. After my Gel at km 20, I decided to take a gel every 4…5km rather than 4kms, and had my last on at km 38. I suffered no GI issues, and after run my stomach seemed to work fine.
It was a great day out. Cecil ran 2h39:37 to come 3rd in 50-54, I was 13th in 50-54, Sam and Jerome both got new PBs
Would be really interesting to know what I could run without racing a 70.3 the week before. I recon 2:48 would have been possible.
Anyway, they added on a half as well and there ended up being 65 or so on the day.
and was unable to up the effort when I needed to. Hence I probably should have manned up and hung on to the pack as there was a slight headwind on the out of the laps that was not helping. Anyways… excuses excuses…
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