Buff Furzton Enigma

This was another set-off-too-fast effort, effectively a training session to get used to running bravely at the start of a marathon and also to get through to the finish once the legs have gone, so again, the overall time was unimportant.  It was a great pre-race atmosphere, a few of the regular multi-marathoners gathering on a cold, wet Wednesday morning in Milton Keynes to do what they do.  Talk was of recent exploits and achievements; Traviss having won a 100 miler in the USA and Rik achieving a UK record of 147 marathons in a calendar year being among the more outstanding, but in fact everyone was in the process of achieving great things in their own individual ways.

The main course for the day was 17 laps of Furzton lake on decent footpaths and reasonably flat, a format I like a lot, each lap is long enough to be interesting but short enough to whizz round if you're in the mood.  After the first lap I found myself in the unusual position of being towards the front of the field.  The fast lads had gone off together and there were four or five of us forming a second pack a short way behind.  A little way into the second lap I decided to push on from this group on my own.  Again I was well aware that I wouldn't sustain the pace but I was prepared to accept the inevitable pain later. 

This time I reached halfway before significant slowing and even then I was able to keep moving better than I had been at Portsmouth.  I suffered with a weird cramping across my pectorals in the last hour or so which got pretty uncomfortable, not something I've ever experienced before and a bit surprising as I didn't think I had any muscles there!  I was encouraged by a brief chat with Traviss on our penultimate laps as he confirmed that he had been through all sorts of suffering in the latter stages of many races on his way to improving his PB by an hour using the 'suicide pacing' strategy.

I'm not going to employ the 'Traviss method' in every marathon I run, but will continue to pick a few at which to give it a go, mixing up with more traditional pacing and others which I will jog round and enjoy.  

Next up Quadzilla!! 

Gulp!

15th January 2014  Furzton Enigma   4:38:18  #25