Date of Race: 19/02/2023
INTRODUCTION
I decided to run my first ever Marathon in Seville for a few reasons. Firstly it would still be a nice temperature in February compared to England, and secondly, the date of the race worked out better for me rather than doing one in April like the Manchester Marathon. This was because I wanted time to recover for a few weeks before building fitness back up for the track season starting in April/May time. And finally, I liked the idea of running one abroad, and Seville has always been on my to do list to visit.
SEVILLE
Seville turned out to be an ideal location for me to run my marathon, not only because it is an amazing City, but because the route was almost entirely flat! I have done other events (like half marathons) before that have described themselves as flat, and only Seville has been fully true to its word with that claim. I am not good in endurance runs on hills so this was a big help.
Above picture is the Plaza de Espana
It is one of the best cities I have been to in Europe and I was amazed by the architecture and wealth the City must have once had. I went to Lisbon a few months later, and even though that impressed me too, it didn't seem to have quite the same class to it as Seville in my opinion.
SEVILLE COURSE INFO AND REVIEW
On the morning of the race I jogged 5 mins to meet one of my friends from home who was also doing the race and then we jogged over to the starting area. The start was located in the Paseo de las Delicias, in the intersection of the Glorieta de Buenos Aires. This is nearby to the Parque de María Luisa (Maria Luisa Park).
The temperature was around 12 degrees when starting off so a nice comfortable temperature and I managed to run the first half of the race in a good time. My aim was to try and run under 3 hours but this was my first ever Marathon so knew it would be a tough ask. The splits I was achieving for a large portion of the race were well within 3 hour pace so for most of it, I was confident I could achieve my aim.
I felt strong for most of the race and wearing the Nike Vaporflys felt like they were helping me to run at a decent pace and not tire as easily. It was only towards the last 5K or so when I really started to fatigue and slow down.
Photo above shows me carrying the small bottle with Lucozade. See below about this.
STRATEGY AND HELP WHEN RUNNING
During my training I had experimented carrying a drink in my hand, and I had found that only a small bottle that I bought from Sainsburys would be suitable for size. I had taken over a Lucozade Sport from home and I filled the small bottle up with this which I drunk at set stages within the race. I have always found carrying a bottle to be annoying and off putting except for this small bottle which I had already tested in training.
Obviously each time I drunk from it, it meant that it went lighter and I ended up binning it when it was empty with about 2K to go. I am sure more experienced Marathon runners have other strategies but I found that this worked for me. At the sections that I decided to have some drink, I would run slightly away from the group and walk for a very short period to take a drink.
The other thing I took was glucose tablets that I had bought from Tesco. I have found that I have issues with the texture of things like gels so they wouldn't have worked for me. The tablets are easy to carry and easy to intake while on the run.
I carried a set amount - I think around 6 (from memory) in a small bag in my pocket. Each time I wanted to have one, I would stop for a very short period while I got one out of my pocket and put it in my mouth, and then I was able to continue to run whilst chewing on it at the same time.
Each person's strategy will be different but this is one I found that worked for me. In hindsight though, I think I would have used a couple more glucose tablets if I ran it again as the fatigue did catch up with me towards the end.
FATIGUE AND THE FINAL PART OF THE RACE
As mentioned, Seville is a fantastic City with amazing architecture and in the early part of the race, even as far in to it as reaching the Plaza de Espana, I was enjoying the atmosphere and admiring the City as I ran through it. However, towards the end of the race, understandably this is when I began to tire and the race became a real mental and physical battle. At that point I was no longer admiring the City and was hating the run!
My splits had been well on target for what I wanted to achieve originally but as I reached about 38K, I started to slow down considerably and I was struggling to keep up the pace needed. One thing that I was naive about due to it being my first marathon was monitoring the splits based on my garmin watch too much as opposed to the race km markers. Each time my garmin watch was telling me my km pace, I noticed that the race marker for that km was about 50m-100m further on.
As a result, when I got to the last 2K or so I realised I was probably going to miss out on my sub 3 hour target because the Marathon isn't just 42K, it is a bit further, more like 42.2K and the way you run it may mean you run slightly further. Having looked at the splits, I can see that the last K actually cost me the sub 3 hour time as I dropped to 4:52/km pace so if I had ran more like my average pace i'd have got sub 3 hours.
That said, I genuinely couldn't have ran any quicker when I got to the last 5K or so. I even got cramp in my hamstrings and one groin which at the time (2-3K to go) I feared was going to cause me to have to walk to the finish!
SPLITS
My average pace for the whole race was 4:15/km.
CONCLUSION
I finished exhausted in an official time of 3 hrs and 32 seconds. I barely had any energy crossing the line and just wanted the run over with, but as I slumped against the barrier for the next 5-10 mins, I was extremely happy with the time I had run for my first ever marathon. It also gives me something to aim for now in future to hopefully achieve a sub 3 hr marathon next time.
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