Einstein-Marathon, Ulm

I had discovered on Saturday that the hotel only served breakfast from 8am on Sundays, which was no use to me with the race starting at 9am, so I had bought some supplies during the day and had a cereal bar, an energy bar and some orange juice as soon as I woke up. I jogged the mile or so to the Donauhalle, got changed out of my tracksuit and pinned a couple of energy gels to the inside of my shorts. The start was arranged into groups by time, and I evidently should have had a red ticket to get into the first (sub-3h) group, but I had only registered on Saturday and didn't know anything about this. The steward allowed me in anyway, probably because I was wearing a club vest.

Right from the start I tried to stick to a comfortable pace. The sun was shining in clear skies but there was a cool breeze. I noticed the runner with the 2:59 balloon was ahead of me so I wondered if maybe I'd started too far back. Right in front of me was a guy with earphones who was weaving in and out of the field and occasionally slowing down to look back for somebody, which was incredibly irritating, but as the field spread out he became less of a problem. I went through the first couple of kilometre markers in 4:05/km as we headed away from the city along the Danube, and I had soon passed the 2:59 pacemaker without noticing. I thought some of the people around me were breathing far too heavily so early in the race. After we crossed the river for the first time and headed back along a twisty road through the countryside towards Neu-Ulm, I stuck religiously to the racing line to save the odd second here and there, and was surprised that nobody else seemed to be doing this.

We reached Neu-Ulm and between 12 and 13km I started being overtaken, which was a bit of a surprise as so far I had run every kilometre no more than a couple of seconds outside my early pace. I suddenly noticed that the people overtaking me had race numbers with a pink background, indicating that they were taking part in the half-marathon. We headed back across the Danube into Ulm, where the route took me close to the hotel. There were a couple of streets here with cobbles which were very inconvenient for the Newton Distance S. Then we crossed back over the Danube - the third of eight such crossings - to run a few hundred metres further into Neu-Ulm before making a 180-degree turn. We then covered the same short stretch of road for the third time and headed along the riverbank. The route in the city centre was fairly tortuous, possibly for the benefit of spectators, and with a couple of hills on the Ulm side it didn't make for fast times. I went through 16km in around 1:06 which was still inside 6:40/mile.

The course split at 20km and most of the people around me turned out to be running the half marathon. The marathon course continued up the riverbank in the direction of the start, before reaching another 180-degree turn just after the halfway mark, where my time was around 1:27:30, and heading back on a parallel path. There was one last particularly steep climb towards the centre of Ulm and then we headed out along the river towards the countryside. With 10K to go I had expected to be starting to struggle but I was feeling fine. I thought of picking up the pace and running the remainder as if it was a straight 10K, but decided to save my energy just in case. The route became slightly tortuous again a few kilometres later as it took us uphill and around Wiblingen Abbey, but once I had got over that I tried lengthening my stride to see if I could pull away from the runner beside me. This only worked for a short distance before I decided I wouldn't be able to keep it up, and as I felt my pace slipping my attention turned to finishing inside 3 hours.

I thought that even if the final few kilometres went very badly, I would still be able to manage 8:00/mile, so every marker I passed inside 5:00 took me closer to this comfort zone, and by 39km I reckoned I was safe, with an outside chance of a PB. I made an effort to pick up the pace after 40km although there were a few more inconvenient twists and turns on the approach to the final river crossing, and again within the city centre. The cathedral was in sight and I tried to break into a sprint up the main street, but as I rounded the bend I saw I still had quite far to go and eased off slightly. I crossed the line in 2:57:09, 11 seconds outside the PB I set in Amsterdam in 2001, and availed myself of the free drinks (including beer), fruit and cakes. I had wondered at first why I hadn't been handed a goody bag of some sort, but it turned out you could just take anything you wanted from the numerous stalls that had been set up at the finish, in an area reserved for competitors. The results posted in the main square later said 2:57:10, but I discovered later that they had actually rounded up my chip time of 2:57:09.5, which I don't think is best practice. This gave me an average pace of 6:45/mile and I managed to run both halves inside 1:30, which was a first. I was 28th overall, 7th M40, and apparently the only Briton in the race.

The Newtons had placed most of the load on my calves, which were feeling pretty beaten up, while my quads were more or less fine, and I was able to walk about afterwards with hardly any trouble, even after sitting around in the hotel for a while.

Weekly total: 47 miles