La Rochelle Marathon - Serge Vigot

La Rochelle marathon used to be organised by Serge Vigot, a marathon runner himself, before his untimely death in 2005 at the end of the Marakech marathon. La Rochelle was the second biggest marathon in France after Paris, but has now been surpassed by the Nice-Cannes race. Over 7500 runners had signed up for the race this year, slightly down on the 8800 runners registered last year. The quantity is there but the quality of the runners is also very high. Last year 452 runners went under 3:00 for the race or 6.3% of the finishers compared to 1009 in Paris or 4% of the finishers.

So, I wasn't going to be alone in my quest to break the 3 hour barrier. As the commentator in this year's race says quite clearly: "In a marathon, there are those who can finish in under 3 hours and they'll never forget their race, and there are those who finish just outside and they'll never forget either but for the wrong reasons". We arrived in the TGV with Nick and Laurence from Paris on the Saturday morning into La Rochelle station. The weather was lousy: a real gale blowing, decidedly cool and humidity in the air. The weather forecast wasn't showing any sign of improvement for the Sunday either. Before we checked into our hotels, we went into town to get something to eat.

La Rochelle is a lovely town, centred on the old port on the Atlantic Ocean. We figured that there must be plenty of bars and restaurants around the port and we headed off in that direction. There were plenty of bars and restaurants but they were all ful of runners who'd just arrived in town. The first restaurant told us that we'd have to wait half an hour ot be served so we left for the next. A plate of pasta later and we split up to go to our hotels to check in and then meet up later at the marathon village.

Laurence and I checked into the Mercure hotel in La Rochelle which is ideally situated for the women's start, approximately 2metres50 from the front door. We left our luggage and met up with the others at the marathon village just a few hundred yards from the hotel. We found this to be the most practical aspect of the race: everything was just so close to the course, the town centre and it was all so practical. 9 of us from the club were entered in the marathon and we all met up at the village: Nick, Laurence and I, Patrick, Patrick V, Marie-Laure, Christèle, Damaso and Marjo. Christèle had come down with some supporters: Madeleine and Norbert, her husband. We arranged with them to eat in the restaurant that evening while the others organised a pasta party between themselves.

Sunday morning started at 6:00 am for breakfast. I'd slept really badly, worrying about the race and thinking about work. Laurence and I met Christèle for breakfast in the hotel and ate as much as we were able to hold down at that time in the morning. I promptly went back to the room in order to get some more sleep while Laurence had a paracetemol for her sore throat and then had a shower. The wind was still as fierce as ever aznd our motivation was at its nadir. I really couldn't picture myself running in these conditions: dark, damp and utterly windy. The sort of day where you can quite happily stay in bed until midday with no regrets.

I lined up on the start line by myself in the cold. Laurence and the women had a different start point in front of the hotel, whereas I was lined up with the men, just behind the elite runners. I waited patiently for the gun, eager to be off and running. We waited for what seemed like an eternity, being blown about a little but admittedly less affected as part of the crowd. The gun finally went and I set off at what seemed like a moderate pace. I knew that there was a long distance to be run and I didn't want to blow it all in a mad start. I felt good and the climb out of the town centre wasn't too bad. I set off at 4:03 pace for the first kilometre and then 4:11. In fact, 4:11 was the pace that I'd set on the Garmin as my virtual partner so this wouldn't have been too bad but for the fact that this second kilometre was uphill out of the town centre.

I let other runners past me here and I was slightly depressed by this but since I was already well ahead of my average time I let them go. We joined up with the women's start after 3.5 km and I saw some veteran's (V2 and older) flying past at the junction ahead. The race was into the wind at this point so the aim of the game was to find a group of runners to huddle behind to find some shelter from the blast. This wasn't always possible though and it was tiring struggling against it. I was overtaken by a couple of women runners just before the 5 kilometre marker and I wondered just how good they were. Mireille, from the club, is one of the best club runners in France over a marathon and I couldn't help thinking that these 2 were probably overdoing it. We pased under 5 km in 20:31 or 2:53 pace for the marathon and I reassured myself that McMillan predicted a 2:52 time for me on recent performance so I wasn't overdoing it.

McMillan is excellent for me over 5, 10 even 20 km. I still hadn't managed to beat 3 hours so how reliable was this over the marathon distance ? I kept running at 4:07 pace until 15k and then slowed slightly to 4:13 pace to the half-marathon stage as we ran around the southern and most exposed part of the course, around the docks to the south of the port. The half-marathon was achieved in 1:27:27 (a new PB for me in the process) and I set out on the second loop of the course. Once again there was a climb out of the town centre and it felt a lot harder this time around. I caught up with the 2 female runners at this point Agnès Deleume (who later pulled out after 35k) and Annick Petinon. I felt happy to be catching runners when I knew I was beginning to tire and satisfied too in my judgement that they'd gone off too fast.

I was starting to tire too now and every kilometre felt as though it was taking longer, which it was, but in terms of perception it felt a good 50% longer. I had some glucose and kept drinking well at every feeding station. The hills seemed harder, the kilometres longer, and the end as far away as ever. The worst arrived after 30 kms, now the tiredness in my legs was noticeable. It was mental before, now it was physical. I'd been running for 2 hours and still had an hour to go.

My pace had slowed between 25 and 30 km to 4:18 per km and it was all downhill from now on. At 35 km, I turned the virtual partner off on the Garmin and switched to the real time in order that I could calculate just how slowly I could still run and still make the 3 hour objective. At least my mind was working sufficiently well in order to do wome mental arithmetic and I worked out that I could run around 4:30 per km and still make it. This felt like a reasonable objective but it was so hard to keep going. I really did think about throwing the towel in several times but knew that these impressions are misleading and that despite the tiredness, I would regret making a rash decision afterwards, so I bore the pain and continued.

The final straw was just around the 40 km marker when the 3 hour flag bearer passed me with a group of runners. As he passed he tripped and fell to the ground, leaving his little group leaderless. They picked up the pace again, not waiting for him and I did my best to keep with them. I was just aiming for that last feeding station at 40.5km and some more water and a little walk before heading to the finish. I didn't mind as they pulled away as I had no energy left to try and stay with them. The flag bearer caught them up and led them away as I calculate dthat I had 6 minutes for the last 1.5 kilometres.

When I saw the barrier with the one kilometre to go sign, I knew that it was now or nothing. The loudspeakers around town were filled with the commentator pushing the crowds to encourage the last runners to go under 3 hours. I lengthened my stride with new determination, not wanting to have come all of this way to finsih outside the target again. It was all or nothing. The Gamrin recorded this last kilometre at around 15.8 km/h so under 4 minutes. I was desperate to see the finish line and thought that it would be between the twin towers to the port. As I reached these, still no sign and it was another 50 metres around the corner. I could see the clock 2:59:50 as I sprinted for the line and as I crossed the clock was around 2:59:59 or 3:00:00 - I just couldn't tell.

The end result my official time was 3:00:01 but my real time (allowing for the time to cross the start line) was 2:59:56. I achieved my objective and beat 3 hours. The satisfaction was big but not quite as big as I'd expected. I will be really satisfied when I can achieve this time without the last minute panic and run a more consistent race. But brilliant news nonetheless.

I had a massage afterwards which was most relaxing and helped get some of the stiffness out of my calves and thighs and then met Nick in the tent, sheltering from the rain that had begun to fall. He'd run 3:11:31 which was brilliant and better than he'd been hoping for (3:15 objective). I was thirlled for him since he'd been running so well recently that this was a deserved result.

I started walking back to the hotel alongside the course route in order to spot Laurence at the end. She'd was to run with Philippe who'd offered to help her to achieve her target of under 4 hours. I was thrilled when I saw her at 3:53 with less than a kilometre to go as I knew that she'd done it then. Philippe was running with her and many thanks to him for his support to Laurence during the race. She finally crossed the line in 3:57:44 - a new PB for her too.

So to sum up: great race; great organisation; hotels and showers afterwards were brilliant. Laurence would like to run this again (which she didn't say about Paris). I prefered the Paris course and didn't appreciate having to run 2 loops, but the rest was fantastic. All objectives were met and new targets will be set for next year as our marathon running experiences aren't over yet. Thanks to everyone who sent in messages of support before and after the race.