2019 Blackmores Sydney Running Festival Marathon – Kim Rackemann
Race Date: September 15th Results: 2019
Introduction
Sydney Marathon 2019 was my first marathon since I started running in 2017.
Although, I have always enjoyed reading other people’s race reports, I didn’t feel I had anything special to say about my races other than the time or placing I achieved. Now that I have run a marathon and have it go to ‘plan’ I feel I can at least share why it went to plan. So it’s not just words on paper I have given my race report some structure:
That way if you just want to know about the race you can skip the training part or vice versa. I hope you enjoy.
Although, I have always enjoyed reading other people’s race reports, I didn’t feel I had anything special to say about my races other than the time or placing I achieved. Now that I have run a marathon and have it go to ‘plan’ I feel I can at least share why it went to plan. So it’s not just words on paper I have given my race report some structure:
- Training, including running, strength, nutrition, recovery and mental preparation
- The Race
- The ‘Robbo Summary’
That way if you just want to know about the race you can skip the training part or vice versa. I hope you enjoy.
Training
Many of you are probably expecting a detailed account of my training volumes, workouts etc, (sorry - you can find that on my strata account) however I believe the ‘just running’ side of training only a very small element of my marathon training program. So I have broken this section into: Just Running, Strength, Nutrition, Recovery & Mental and written a smallish amount on each.
Just Running. I love calling this section ‘Just Running’ because I know how much I can fret about the elements of a training program. Like many runners, I like to drill down into the details about types of workouts, what systems it’s working, how they relate to other workouts etc. I have read countless articles, podcasts, YouTube videos and had countless discussions regarding the nuts and bolts of a training program. After ‘detail mining’ for the last couple of years I am coming to the stark realisation that no podcast, journal/magazine article or YouTube channel has ever improved my Running as much as just consistently heading out the door and going for a bloody run.
In my marathon prep, the one workout I think was key to having a great race in Sydney was the fast finish long run - running goal marathon pace for the last 10km of your longest long run. I did two of these runs in my lead up to Sydney. The first one I did was 4 weeks out from my event and the second one I did 3 weeks out. Ideally it would have been 5 & 3 weeks out with a recovery week in between but I switched it around due to City to Surf. I found these workouts very fatiguing, so I programmed in extra recovery after the first one (dropped a speed session during the next week and had an ice bath the next day) and decided to shorten the second long run (only 30km instead of 36km with the last 10km at marathon pace) as I was doing them back to back. These workouts are great for determining race pace, practicing nutrition and getting you prepared for the fatigue in the legs in the last 7+ kms of the race. A big shout out to the Flyers, who host an excellent long run program every Sunday morning followed by brekkie at Surfhouse. A special mention to all those who signed up to some extra kms with me - Mark, Kumar, Reggie & Ingrid.
Other workouts that I probably didn’t focus on enough was long tempo workouts (3 x 3-5km with a float in between). I did one of these workouts at the end of my marathon block to help me determine goal marathon pace but I think it would have been useful to do this at least once every 3-4 weeks.
Strength. Yawn - I know none of you came here to read the details of my strength program! Don’t despair, I will spare you the gory details but to say: I have done running specific strength work for almost 12mths now with a personal trainer and it is the BEST thing I have ever done for my physical health overall. I have done heaps of different strength based activities over my life (gym based, circuits, ‘Pump’, Yoga - and if you don’t think this is strength based training try Ashtanga Yoga, Pilates and CrossFit - yes I tried the cult for 6mths & realised I didn’t belong when I cheered about the cardio stuff while the rest were crying). To make strength training palatable, I do it with my ‘running wife’ Louise Rabbitt, at a gym set up for athletes of other sports to train. So yes, they tolerate Lou and I, roaming around the gym with our weedy runners arms, trying to recall an exercise with some eastern block name, not having a clue what we are doing. There is always lots of laughing (mostly at ourselves). I don’t really believe strength training ‘prevents’ running injuries - that’s only if you are trying to sell a strength program to runners! The real benefit of strength training I have discovered during the last 10km of the marathon and during kms 13, 14, 15 of UTA 22 (checkout the race profile of UTA 22 road runners) - it prepares you really well to run on exhausted legs. I do my main strength set on Fridays so I am always sore on Saturday for Parkie and Sunday for the long run. I used to whine and whinge at my strength coach (well I still do really) but it is the exact same feeling at the end of a difficult race. Both during UTA and Sydney Marathon when it felt like I couldn’t go on, I absolutely knew I could because I do it most weekends!
Nutrition. I will keep this short, as my race report is beginning to look like a novella. I wanted to add a short section on nutrition because you can’t ask for all this work from your body without fuelling it well. Most of you know I am vegan. I am vegan for many reasons including health, environment and ethical reasons. I often tell patients and other runners ‘you can’t out run a bad diet’ but you almost can if you are a ‘healthy’ vegan. One of the reasons I was cautious about marathon training was I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up my nutrition for my energy demands. The evidence strongly supports being underweight leads to injury. I had zero interest in becoming underweight. Sadly, running is plagued with underweight runners and eating disorders. So I really focused on eating lots & lots of really good food especially post workouts. Good food = veggies!! Honestly, if you love eating every couple of hours and want to maintain a healthy weight and regular bowels, vegan or plant based diet is for you! Please don’t pm about where I get my protein/calcium/iron/B12 from - I get them from plants, it’s that simple.
Recovery. Fortunately my marathon program had a 3 week training cycle followed by one week recovery. This recovery week consisted of reduced volume and intensity but still had approx 60% of your peak training volumes. As you know, life can get in the way of our training programs. Stress is stress, so if I had a stressful day at work, be it long hours or mentally draining, I would try to move my workouts to allow my body to recover. Sometimes this would mean skipping a workout altogether for a dog walk or sleep instead. Inadequate recovery (from life) definitely increases your chances of not getting to the start line. All those hard interval sessions and long runs count for nothing unless you give your body a chance for recovery. This includes sleep - if I didn’t get 7 or more hours sleep, I would just do a recovery run. If I got 6hrs or less I wouldn’t run and prioritise sleep instead. I think this really helped me get through the marathon training block without injury or illness. There were niggles, for sure, but all managed by physio/massage/ dry needling. And I used to tell people running is a cheap sport!
Mental. As runners, we spend a lot of time in our heads. To run marathons or any endurance event you really need to get your ‘head game’ straight. I honestly think people who hate running just haven’t learnt to enjoy their own company. The one reason that Eliud Kipchoge has won all but one of his marathon races, holds the world record and is probably going to break the 2hr barrier in the marathon next month is because he is the absolute master of his own mind. After watching ‘Breaking 2’ I was inspired to do a marathon because I could see it was about discipline. The discipline of training, the discipline of pace, the discipline of thinking, the discipline of trusting the training. If you ever need an Eliud quote for inspiration - I’ve got them all.
To prepare for Sydney mentally, I mostly developed mantras for the types of negative things that tend to pop up during difficult times in a race. I won’t bore you with the lurid details of all of them but give you one poignant example. During my time working in Paediatric Intensive Care at the Westmead Children’s Hospital, I cared for a beautiful 8yo girl, Ada who lost her fight for this life due to liver failure. I have cared for many children who don’t necessarily win the battle for this life but Ada’s battle touched me so deeply. I have cried a river about Ada, but nothing like the ocean her parents have cried since losing her. Although Ada’s last days were horrendous, she travelled through them with a real sense of grace. It’s hard to describe how graceful she was during those tragic last weeks. So whenever I am in a difficult mental spot in a race, I reflect on Ada’s grace during that time and how she never got the chance to run a marathon or how her parents would have run to the end of the universe to save her life. It’s a powerful antidote to any ‘pity party’ I find myself in.
Race
Finally, I get to the race part! I was fortunate to have my running wife and number one training buddy by my side for the event. Louise accompanied me to Sydney the day before the race and we stayed in North Sydney. It’s tricky deciding where to stay - close to the start or finish. There are pros and cons of each. I like to keep my stress minimal prior to the race and happy to ‘suck up’ catching public transport back to your hotel post-race.
After the obligatory pre-race pasta in Lavender Bay (amazing pasta at Piato Restaurant), I had a reasonable pre-race sleep. I don’t have any answers for this problem, there are just so many things working against sleep - unfamiliar room, pre-race nerves, pre-race hydration making you want to pee every 3hrs!!
Got to the start, at about 40mins prior to the race, hoping I wouldn’t need the facilities. Gentle 1.5km warm up to the race dashed those hopes and I joined the toilet queue thinking it shouldn’t be an issue as they had to cater for the larger half marathon 1 hour before. Seriously, what do people do in those f&*king toilets. I reckon they should be for nervous wees only, maximum of 3 minutes each with the door automatically opening. Oh well, the rest of my warm up took place in the toilet queue.
Took a couple of quick snaps and then headed to my start gate - argh - it was closed and I was told to proceed to start gate B. Short of jumping the barricades, I decided to just head to start gate B and head up to through the crowd. Fortunately, a younger well-built chap (girls think Chris Hemsworth) had the same problem but he was politely moving his way through B into A and I just followed his nicely muscled arms - sorry I mean lead to the front 2-3m of start group A. I thanked him for his valiant parting of the people and wished him luck for his race.
I had decided prior to the race I would sit behind the 3hr 15min pacing group until at least Centennial Park. This is what I love about racing - plans have to change sometimes and I enjoy the challenge of problem solving whether it be in a race or on a training run. So the pacing group went out way too fast. They were sitting on approx 4.15-4.20 for the first few km. This made me nervous so I hung back from them in the first 4-5km. Eventually, I joined them as they slowed a little and I stayed with them until Centennial Park. Pre-race, I thought I would stay with the 3.15 pace group until we headed back to the city, knowing that Centennial Park would be tough mentally as you run in there from 5-25km. After the dodgy pacing early on, and as I started to feel relaxed at 4.30 km pace, I decided to push on ahead of the pace group. A few others joined me, so we chatted for a bit but some of these dropped off the pace (or maybe they just didn’t want to chat) so there were only a few of us left by the end of Centennial Park. One great thing about Centennial Park is you do get to see lots of other runners and spectators which helps distract you from ‘when do we leave this bloody park’. I got to see the lead men and the lead women and they looked like they were in a 3km time trial. I also got to see a few other runners from my running group, up the front and looking strong - well done Russell, well done Ingrid! I got plenty of smiles and cheers from the back of the packers too. Hats off to the guy carrying a model of the opera house on his shoulders, the man carrying a tennis bag and tennis racquet and the guy dressed in footy clothes carrying the footy.
I clicked through the first 14km comfortably, slowing down to take in a mouthful of water at each water station (5km & 10km), spacing my nutrition 1-2km after and before. I was ahead of my goal time, so I new I could just relax and enjoy the next 14km. I wouldn’t normally drink this often but it was a dry day and I knew it would warm up later in the day, so I didn’t want to hit the back half of the race too dehydrated. During the Gold Coast Half earlier this year, I didn’t slow down during drink stations and I felt really taxed coming out of the drink stations trying to keep up my pace and not aspirate the water. Slowing down just a fraction, while costing me a few extra seconds in the race, had me feeling fresh and ready to run again, so much so I found I was mostly faster than target pace after each aid station.
As I weaved my way back through the city, my watch starting giving me crap pacing data. I had experienced this during the Half Marathon a couple of years ago. So I tried to relax and ignore the pace and run from perceived effort. I probably pushed a little too hard here as I started to feel like crap at the 27- 28km mark. Little did I know I had just run a sub 4min km then a 4.15 min km. After the initial panic of ‘Oh shit is this the wall’ - I pulled it together, tried to relax, took some nutrition, and slowed down as I knew I was well ahead of my target 3.15. I am always so surprised when I tell myself to relax, rate of perceived effort drops but my pace seldom changes.
Pre-race, I had identified the Pyrmont section to be tough mentally as there would be little crowd support and there were a few hills with plenty of twists and turns. I just kept telling myself to relax and enjoy the last 4km of the warm up until the final 10.2km race. It started to hurt around the 33km mark and I began to look longingly at the spectators thinking how much I love spectating. There were a few others around me but to be honest, from 35km on they were dropping like flies. A Japanese runner who had pushed on ahead of me in the city was now walking, a fellow flyer was walking and the mood on the street was grim. I encouraged them to keep on going - I wanted to yell ‘no one quits a race in a chair’ but unless they listened to Trail Runner Nation podcast, I would just seem like some crazy woman. This is where pre-determined race mantras are so useful. I knew Ada, my beautiful patient I lost, wouldn’t complain. My legs hurt a lot but not as bad as they had in UTA and I still made it up Furber Steps.
Yay - no Furber! I knew this would be hard and I had prepared for it. Another fellow runner seemed well prepared for the battle ahead and pushed on with me past the carnage of the marathon, trying to cheer on his fellow runners. We passed back under the bridge and I could see the Blackmore flags. I turned and said to him, we have just got to get to those green flags and we are done! I didn’t really care about my pace during the last 7-8km, I just pushed as hard as I could to the finish line. The last km is such a blur of joy, excitement and relief. I was going to finish my first marathon. I saw plenty of people in the crowd from my running clubs of Newcastle, my running buddy/running wife Lou all cheering me over the line.
Yay - no Furber! I knew this would be hard and I had prepared for it. Another fellow runner seemed well prepared for the battle ahead and pushed on with me past the carnage of the marathon, trying to cheer on his fellow runners. We passed back under the bridge and I could see the Blackmore flags. I turned and said to him, we have just got to get to those green flags and we are done! I didn’t really care about my pace during the last 7-8km, I just pushed as hard as I could to the finish line. The last km is such a blur of joy, excitement and relief. I was going to finish my first marathon. I saw plenty of people in the crowd from my running clubs of Newcastle, my running buddy/running wife Lou all cheering me over the line.
As I crossed the line I was intercepted by one of my work colleagues who was the medical director with a big cuddle and then I spotted one of my fellow Flyer runners and she had smashed her pb, gone sub 3 and was named the Australian Marathon Champion - amazing Ingrid Cleland.
Other Flyers, Robbo and Russell also smashed out a sub 3hr marathon - well done gents!
Reflection
Overall, the Sydney Marathon was a fantastic event, great weather, great scenery and great support along the course from the crowd and fellow runners - who said road runners aren’t friendly! I was really pleased with my time but I was mostly pleased with my race execution. I stuck to my pacing plan, I drank and ate as planned (even if I didn’t feel like eating), I didn’t panic when I started to feel crappy but used my mantras to redirect my attention.
As Eliud Kipchoge would say ‘It was a beautiful race’.
'Robbo Summary'
- Marathon: #1
- Sydney Marathon: #1
- 237th overall, 23rd Female, 1st Kim.
- 1st Half: 1hr 34min
- 2nd Half: 1hr 36min