Rotten Rotterdam

Saturday, 13th April – 4.8km Easy Fartlek Run Arrived into Schiphol airport and got the train to Rotterdam which took only  25mins - great service. Dropped off our bags in the hotel and then called into the expo to collect our numbers. There wasn’t a whole lot else to see there so headed back to the hotel again for a lie-down before myself, Philip and a few Celbridge AC lads (who were travelling with Philip) all went for a run in the park beside the hotel. Nothing too strenuous, just shy of 5km with a few faster segments thrown in. A good leg loosener.


Afterwards we headed into Town to meet a few others for dinner including Joe who was aiming for 3:10. Joe managed to arrive an hour late, having forgotten to adjust his clock! Good job he founf out now rather than the morning of the race!! Back to the hotel by 9pm and even though I was looking forward to watching Match of the Day after a great Arsenal comeback, sleep won over and I was out for the count by 10:30pm!

Sunday, 14th April – 29.7km Rotterdam Marathon (DNF) 
Given the early night I was awake by 6:30am but didn’t get up til 7:30am. Had breakfast (croissant, orange juice, water, and a couple of other small carbs) and we were on our way to the start before 9am. We had arranged to drop off our bags with another Celbridge runner just about 500m from the starting area which proved very handy. While dossing away another 40mins there, I applied some vaseline to my feet to prevent any chafing. We then jogged down to the starting pens where a 20min queue for the toilets managed to fill up the remaining time! Just before race start I got chatting to Joe again where we wished each other luck with both of us full of the pre-race nerves! 

Start There was what appeared to be some Dutch cabaret dude singing “You’ll never walk alone” to the masses before the canon blasted and we were away. The first km was quite congested even though my pen (Pen D) contained only runners targeting 3hrs – 3:30hrs. After about 1.5km we started the climb over the Erasmus bridge, the only real climb of the day, although we would have to repeat it later just after half way. My first km was about 10secs off-target so I pushed it on a little as the congestion eased.

5km (22:21) By km5 I passed over the timing mat bang on target according to the pace band. I was aided with this pace by three Catalans who were wearing illuminous yellow tops with their names on their back so they were easy to spot and pace myself against (we worked as four from km3 through til km15 where we were now down to three (‘Xevi’ had dropped off earlier) and the remaining two Spaniards (Alfons & Lluis) just began to push on a little). We passed the Feyenord stadium at the 5km marker and that was pretty much the highlight of the course regarding scenery!

10km (22:32) Things continued well and by km10 I was about 15 seconds up on target so all was going according to plan. There were gusts of wind kicking up now and again but they weren’t too strong and it was still easy to draft in behind the Spaniards. Around here one of them mentioned that he was pacing his Brother to 3:15 and I mentioned that I was hoping to stay with them to the finish. That was pretty much the sum total of my chat for the day though! By 12km my feet were beginning to get a little tender from blisters. This was both a surprise and a cause of worry. I hoped they wouldn’t get much worse but it was still less than a third of the distance into the race. 

15km (22:56) By the time we passed over the 15km marker we were now about 30 secs up on target and although my HR was hovering around 150bpm (my optimal Marathon HR) I was still feeling good. That is apart from the feet which were getting progressively worse. Around 17km I let the Spaniards drift onwards from me as I decided it would be best to ease off a little to try and manage the feet. The faster I was running the sorer it became. This easing (only by a few secs/km pace) seemed to work a little. Around this time I was beginning to experience a low-spot in my running in general so the mini-slowdown managed to revive me nicely and I was back feeling good again by the next kilometre. 

By the next sponge station at 17.5km I slowed down to apply some water to my feet. They felt like they were on fire by now and needed some sort of cooling relief. It was from this point onwards I began to keep an eye out for First Aid to see if they could do anything for me but I wasn’t to see any for the rest of the race.

20km (22:57) Around the halfway point the 3:15 pacer came past with his group of about 25 runners. They were travelling just a tiny bit faster than me but I remained conservative and let them off. According to my watch I was still maintaining pace but it was no longer feeling quite as comfortable. I passed through the halfway point in about 1:37:19 so still on course for the 3:15 goal. The next few km were a real struggle to keep motoring and included a couple of brief stops to water the feet again. I scanned the road for any puddles remaining from the showers earlier in the morning but these were few and far between. Indeed by now the sun was out and the day was pretty warm at times with temperatures around 20-22 degrees. Often we’d get hit with a gust of wind, which beforehand I was dreading, but now was loving as it kept me relatively cool. Still though, I was now debating whether I’d be able to finish the race at all. There was no point quitting before we returned to the city centre as I’d have to walk back there regardless so instead I battled onwards, trying to decide what the proper decision should be. 

25km (24:11) The return journey over the Erasmus Bridge seemed much tougher than the outward. Even the Garmin data seems to suggest it was higher on the way back! Just as I was starting the climb I heard a shout out from someone I knew in the crowd and this came at a perfect time as it drove me on up and over the bridge. I continued my search for First Aid and decided I’d continue on a bit further past the city centre. A couple of times around here I stopped dead in my tracks, fully prepared to walk off the course until a second or two later and I got back going again, deciding against it. I eventually spotted an ambulance just off-course but when I approached them they made it clear they were there for emergencies only and couldn’t help with trivialities of someone who was still on their feet. 

DNF @ 29.7km (24:43 for 4.7km) I was pretty low on hope by now so continued to the next sponge station. I grabbed several sponges and sat down on the path to take my right shoe and sock off. I doused the foot and could see the main culprit blister on my sole had sliced open. I knew my race was done for at this stage and any hope of 3:15 had departed. I had been thinking for the past couple of kms that a new PB might still be on but kms 27-29 had seen me drop lots of time to attend to the feet so going by that rate for the remaining 12km would see me clocking 3:30 at best which I’d just done in a training run in Tralee a month previously. I didn’t see any appeal in simply trudging around the course for that. Never mind the extra damage I’d do to myself! 

I got to my feet to see if the most recent aid had done me any good but unfortunately I only lasted a couple of hundred metres before I pulled in to the side of the road and pressed stop on my watch. My goose was cooked!

Afterwards My quitting coincided with many of the elites passing by on the other side of the road, 2km from home so this took my mind off matters as I trudged back to the finish line. I was surprised by how many Irish were passing through with Raheny AC putting on a great show. There was 8 Irish finishers in the top 100 which was quite impressive! 

Average Moving Pace - Spikes towards the end show where time was lost due to tending to my feet!

Just before the finish I paused to watch Philip come through and knew it would be tight for him & sub 3 but fair play to him he crossed the line with 18secs to spare! Some great performances from his clubmates too but others were not so lucky. Although it was warm I don’t really think I was adversely affected by the heat but a few others obviously were with several DNF’s besides my own…definitely the highest attrition rate by far for any race I’ve ever done regarding people I know. One lad (Jonathan) made it to the final 500m before he collapsed from heat exhaustion and had to finish his race in an ambulance. Another (Dominic) pulled out earlier but couldn’t remember any of the last three miles he ran. Even some of those that finished (Joe) were way off their target time and as for the Spaniards I had been pacing with earlier: Alfons managed 3:11 but his Brother Lluis, whom he was pacing, appears to have had to walk the final few miles as he ended up in 3:26. Maria McCambridge, one of Ireland’s best female athletes, also pulled out around halfway proving that nobody is immune to a bad day!

Epilogue I was looking at this race as a stepping stone to running sub 3:10 and this came through in my thinking late in the race. I had been sticking well to 3:15 pace throughout so while it was frustrating that I had to pull out I am pretty confident that I would have nailed the 3:15 had all things been equal. So, with the focus now on getting sub 3:10 at Portumna in June it has helped me to consign yesterday to history and I won’t get too down about it. 

In the meantime my main focus will to be go out and buy several pairs of ‘1,000 mile’ socks!

Week 15 Summary:
RTW: 5 from 7 days
DTW: 60.3 km
DTY: 1,244.6 km