This raisin demonstrates dehydration.

On the food side, the human body has enough reserves to last a couple of hours of running. After that, in simple terms it starts to dig into its emergency reserves and when it does that, lets be clear: your body starts to eat itself, you are going to feel that and it is going to hurt. You are hitting the wall. But if you have a sensitive constitution like me, then eating the wrong thing can cause terrible bloating and itself bring on nausea.

To achieve my aims, I made a number of changes to my training. I trained even more like I would race (this is generally always a good strategy). So I started my long run on a weekend at the same time as the marathon would start. I began getting up three hours before this and eating the same breakfast I would eat on race day. This meant that I was often rising at 4:30am for breakfast on race day and then go back to bed for a couple of hours. I ran different parts of the actual Zürich route in training (this being an advantage of training for a home town marathon where you tend to know the route already and intimately). I studied the route and found out where the water stops would be, for example after 5km, 11km, 16km etc. I wrote these numbers on my arm with a felt pen and would drink and refuel at the same time on my long training runs to get my body used to the rhythm. I practiced drinking out of plastic cups while running…. note, this does not really work for me, so I still use a bottle which I refill en route.

Basically, I took it seriously. Of course, I could just have naturally been a faster runner… would have been easier… but I had to work with the tools I had been given!

To cut to the chase, my preparations paid off and I shaved 12 minutes from my PB, to come in at 3:56. Around 35km I had a battle with my old nemesis the wall, with the feeling of nausea creeping in, but somehow this time I was able to push it back down, and as the final km ticked by I knew I would for the first time finish feeling in good shape. Both these things translated into a great runners high. I was literally singing and dancing as I ran back through town and up the main street Bahnhofstrasse towards the end, and in fact my final km was the fastest of the entire race! Over the final kilometers I easily passed at least fifty other runners.

Our two matching shirts, hung the night before the race, with bibs already attached

The answer is, yes I could. And my result was only 30 seconds slower than Zürich. Not bad, considering Geneva has a less flat course than Zürich. It is surprisingly picturesque, and the route travels through ten back country villages on the outskirts of the city. A really nice route.

The final 10km wheel back into town, running down from the countryside and then by the lake. I was mildly disappointed to see that they had failed to turn on the big water fountain. A late cobbled street and unexpected hill made final progress a little impeded. To my surprise, as I rounded a late corner I spotted Ursula up ahead and flagging. Turns out her lack of training had stunted her a little too. I sped past, checked that she was ok, and went for the finish. It would be the first time (so far / probably ever) that I would beat her in a marathon. Ahmet came in a little after that. A nice race, a good success.

Training run in the Jungfrau area of Switzerland

A greater challenge lay ahead in training. For our longest training run of 33km, I had decided we would run up the Rigi mountain outside the town of Zug. It would be a climb of about 1400m, so altogether substantially less and shorter than the Jungfrau itself, but still a great test. The Rigi loomed large in the distance as we set off more than 20km away from it’s base in the little town of Baar. We would run to Zug, along the whole Zugersee (Zug Lake), through some other villages, and then hit the ascent button.

It's fair to say that the Rigi practically broke me. Once we got to the base, it was a relentless and energy sapping climb. By the top, I was literally crawling (and by this, I repeat, I was actually crawling on all fours), and because it was colder than expected and I had underdressed, my old friend hypothermia paid my a little visit. I remember ending that run saying to Ursula, "It's no good, I should quit, there is no way I can climb further than this for another 10km at the Jungfrau."

It genuinely did seem at that moment to be an exercise in futility (there is some kind of pun in there). Ursula, though, in her wisdom, counselled me to keep trying… it could get better, it's not worth giving up yet. This was high summer, a month out from the mid September race date. I decided to persevere, with a lot of reservations.

Arriving in Interlaken the day before the race was exciting. We booked into our hotel and took care of the usual admin. As we normally did, mid afternoon we changed into our race gear, attached the race bib and timer, and ran a few km through town to freshen our legs and make sure that the kit and layering was in order. You never ever want to start a race and then realise for example that something needs adjusting: your bib is pinned on uncomfortably or you definitely underdressed, say.

Anyhow, in the evening we found a lovely little Italian restaurant which served very nice pasta. I recall not sleeping until a little past midnight. Race nerves were definitely present and correct. Rising early for a small breakfast, I found it impossible to go back to sleep and soon enough it was time for the off.

Race report: Ran the first 7km with Ursula, looping through Interlaken a couple of times before heading up the valley. I noted that comparatively, I wasn't feeling particularly strong already even after just the first 10km…. perhaps my poor sleep and nerves? The initial 25km of the route were an unknown to me, but I was pleased to find that it was a very nice route, often following a whitewater river up towards Lauterbrunnen. Passing a shooting range, some of the locals came out to view the strange specimens that had descended on their town for the day. I noticed one old shooter who was still wearing his special shooting spectacles, and smiled to myself that he seemed like a bit of a character. After the race, I learned that Ursula had seen him and thought the same. Such are the things you remember.

After a great reception from the locals at Lauterbrunnen at around 25km, the route continues up a stunning valley with absolutely huge sheer cliffs each side, with a number of waterfalls cascading from the top. This played havoc with my GPS watch for a few km's which meant that I could no longer rely on the distance measured: in other words, I had no reliable indicator of how far I had run and how far I had left to go. Still, I was prepared for this because I had encountered the same problem during the training run.

And bam, here comes the first of two super steep uphills. As we made our way up, I passed someone off to the side of the trail already vomiting. With 17km of the decidedly hardest part of the race remaining, I doubted that he would be making it much further. At the top of this hill, things evened out for a little while before we entered the town of Wengen (famous for it's downhill ski race), with another great atmosphere - it seemed that the whole town had turned out to applaud us through and ring the occasional cowbell.

After that, it was all up all the way, until towards the end, we made it to the final steepest 2km climb, scrambling over rocks and muddy mountain path. As is usual for the Jungfrau, there was something of a traffic jam at this steepest point which slowed us to a hurried walk. On the one hand, it's frustrating to have to slow down. On the other, it's a secret blessing along the lines of "Oh damn I have to walk here, what a shame, thank you God!"

Nearing the finish line, T shirt and medal almost in sight

Cresting a verge, the landscape fell away to the right to reveal an incredible vista of rock and ice the other side of the nearby valley, a helicopter swinging overhead as it filmed the runners on this spectacular part of the course. Suddenly, we were treated to the guttural roar and sight of a spectacular avalanche speeding down the cliff, luckily at a safe distance away. Talk about atmosphere, even the mountains were applauding us! Drifting down to me was another sound. Bagpipes. Traditionally, a lone bagpipe player serenades runners as they reach the highest point of the race. Upon climbing another hundred meters or so, I'd be on the final kilometer down to the finish line, and it dawned on me that I had the finish line in my sights. A tricky rock to be negotiated, several helpers grabbed our hands and hoisted us safely over, and I tasted a short negative incline for about the first time in five hours. Up through a tunnel to a high mountain reservoir and then a final short downhill over rocky path to the finish.

Ursula, having come in more than twenty minutes before, waited excitedly at the finish. She was very happy too see me, I think primarily because it meant I was alive! Proudly collecting my medal, I took a rest at the verge and appeared a TV reporter wanting to interview me about my experience. In case you want to see my brief interview, here is the link, you can forward to me at 5 mins 20 seconds (because the video does not in my opinion capture the truly epic scale of this event) to see me looking incredibly thin, having lost around 4kg DURING this race alone. That isn't a typo, I lost 4kg during that five and a half hours of exertion (However, just to be clear, a lot of that is water not fat, and is soon replenished).

I’m in this video at 5 mins 20 seconds :-)

So, overall it's not hard to see what makes this such a special race full of fond memories. I had just turned forty years old one week before. What a great way to start the forties! There is really only one Jungfrau Marathon. Do it if you dare!

Looking surprisingly good after 42km

At the start line, fresh as daisies.

After 45km, I felt unreasonably fine and decided to leave Josh to his plan while I sped to my finish and enjoyed a good meal and decent massage in the finisher tent. Meanwhile Josh soldiered on and eventually collected his first 100km finish late that evening. Amazing!

A small detail but the other memorable thing about the GUC was that this was a privately organised race whereas all the other events I have competed in have the feeling of being organised by their respective cities, with a sort of heritage that city Marathons bring. I’m not saying that this was better or worse, but it certainly felt different somehow. The catering at this event was easily the best I’ve seen with a great selection.

Also, the field of entrants certainly felt smaller. Less than 1% of the western population have attempted to run a Marathon. Ultra marathons are even much more than this the province of the rarefied few. The troposphere to the marathon atmosphere. While there are always a few in a race that don’t really belong there (and inevitably also some who look like they dont really belong but then summarily leave you in the dust!), everyone here was in good shape and you felt that.

I won't call it classic but It's a nice enough route, also rather tougher than Zürich, but I ran it in a leisurely style with 4:11… for this run I had intended to do it this way to simply enjoy it. At the beginning of the second loop, you saw the half marathoners finishing while you turned the corner and went for round two. On one hand, this is demoralising as it seems like a long way to go. On the other, I could secretly tell myself, the pussies are finishing now, lets show them how its really done. Oops, did I say secretly?

Ursula was nice enough to crew for me (keep my bag, give me support from the sideline, and look after me at the end), and it was enjoyable enough. Season finished. Now, I would take my traditional winter rest under the spring of next year….. well, or so I thought at the time……

It’s 3am Eternal at the KLF

Ursula, with a lot more common sense than me as usual, decided to just take part in the half marathon. We would run that together. Yet again, a new marathon course would provide a new experience. This time, it would be a 4x 10.5km loop along the River Limmat. I knew most of the route well enough from training there many times. Starting in Schlieren, we would run towards Zürich and turn at the Werdinsel weir. We gathered at the start line inside a gym, just five minutes remaining in 2014. At the stroke of midnight, we kissed and congratulated each other. And off we went, each runner with their head torch ablaze. Just about 150 marathoners were signed up, but several hundred more for the half and a 10km. As we came to the river, there was a heavy fog of little ice particles kicked up from the snow by so many runners ploughing through it… it was truly a surreal thing. Later on as the numbers dwindled the air cleared but at that point it was very special.

For the first half hour, we were treated to various fireworks being set off by the locals to celebrate New Year. We passed some houses with parties in full swing, nicely dressed looking people inside sipping champagne and wondering who the crackpots running past their windows were.

By the final leg of the half marathon, both of us were starting to tire. That was not a great sign for me. Still, I soldiered on, through the snow and ice for the second half. I did not dare stop, as I knew that at the best of times that would leave me open to becoming hypothermic, which quite honestly could have been dangerous at that point: the temperature was -9 degrees Celsius.

With the final 5km remaining, I was very slow indeed but kept going. There was a lot of ice on the course by this time which made slipping another real danger, and I came perilously close to falling on at least three occasions. Progress was painful and painfully slow. I crossed the finish line with 4:54.

Certainly my slowest flat marathon by far (an hour off my personal best!) but without training and in the middle of the night in those conditions I had no real complaints. I suspect that now I've done this one, I won't be signing up for it again!

My podium finish, by myself except for the prosecco

I normally never drink alcohol after a race but since it was New Years and a bottle of bubbly was handed to me at the finish line, I sat shivering in a gym at 5am drinking out of plastic cups with Ursula, and then went home and drank some more, collapsing into bed around 8am.

A lightweight drinker at the best of times, it was very easy to get drunk following all that exertion. After a decent rest, we also had some good wine later that evening to make up for missing the actual NYE celebrations. Thats why I can say, already on the first day of 2015, I had run a marathon and been drunk on two separate occasions. Quite an interesting way to start a year!

As I said at the beginning, a lot of endurance running is about adjusting your perceived limits to the event at hand. Train for a half marathon and you will put your perceived limits there. Train for the full and your perception will adjust upwards. Then just put the work in, follow a programme, and see how you go. At least, that's how I've generally experienced endurance running so far.

As for the rest of 2015, I have no fixed plans so far, though I do have a few things in mind which I am keeping a low profile about. Anyhow, I’ll update this site if I do anything else that is interesting. Thank you for taking the time to read about my running life!

With big sister, Norks.

How would I fare in the second race one week later?

Seven days later, on the start line for Zürich, my legs were still clearly not feeling 100% but I concocted a plan to try and run the first half at a 3:50 overall pace (i.e. 1:55 for the half marathon) and just see how I felt for the second half. To be brief, I went for it, and even pushed a little harder than my plan. This could have been foolhardy, as in the past it has led to disastrous nausea and general wall hitting.

By km 33, I was suffering but could live with it, and pushed on. I began to realise that if I was ever going to do a sub 3:50, it would probably be today. The remainder of my running this year would be ultra training or mountain training, where fast times are not the focus. So I resolved to try my best and pushed on with a mounting sense of elation as the kilometers ticked down and I found myself back on the outskirts of the city.

I’m pleased to say that it worked. I once again surprised myself by crossing the line with 3:46:31. A great result for me, of which I’m really proud. I had expected to be slower than Brighton after only a week to recover, and in fact I posted my best ever time!

In addition, I raised about £750 for the WWF, something I’m also proud of.

Completion of this meant four marathons in a month, one per weekend.

Conditions blustery and sometimes wet. I had a good first 20km, following the 3:45 pacer, with distant dreams of a third personal best in a row. Twas not to be. By 28km my legs began to suffer and the pacer became a rather distant figure ahead, although still in sight.

Wind and rain did not help, and my legs began to tighten badly.

This time Geneva FINALLY turned on the water fountain for us, visible once coming back into the city. In my pain though, it took forever to get to it and was more of a bane than a tonic. By the time I crossed the line, in 3:53:31, my legs were truly worn out, and more stiff and tired than I can ever remember after a race.

For the next several days, my legs remained quite useless. I’m not sure if this was because of the wet colder weather, or because I did not stretch after the race, or failed to eat something appropriate to recovery, or because of overtraining.

Whatever the cause, my shattered legs remain the defining memory of the marathon, even though it was my best Geneva time!

I went through the following week in a state of mild panic. After all, the big test… a 72.7km Ultramarathon in Germany on Saturday coming, and my legs more or less in pieces.

Looking surprisingly good for 72.7km!

Kevin and Coach at the finish!

My finish time was 12 hours 32 minutes. Afterwards I found a spot to lay down on some concrete in the shade for a few minutes. Never in my life has being flat felt so good. Later, I hobbled over to collect my finisher shirt from an adjacent building, ate a sausage and limped back to my hotel a while later. It was now Saturday afternoon and I had not slept since Thursday night. Even so, I only managed about an hour of sleep back at the hotel. I am not really sure why I could not sleep for longer. We then got up and went to a very nice Thai restaurant in the old part of town. Before eating, we stopped for an aperitif in a local bar. Proudly wearing my finisher T Shirt, I had two drinks and was immediately pretty drunk!

Physically, I was clearly exhausted after the race. However, while some had speculated that a 100km would ruin my feet and that I would need to tape them up like some kind of Egyptian mummy, I correctly predicted that in my case I would be fine on that front: I ran with normal shoes and socks only and did not even suffer a single blister. Thank you feet! And the day after, I even felt “relatively” fresh, all things considered.

I suppose what is left to say is, would I do it again? All during training for that Ultra, I have said that it is a one off thing. Ultra training is really brutal, there is no two ways about it. Running marathon+ distances week after week, and back to back long training runs. And there was a lot of the actual race that I just could not enjoy as much as I wanted, because it was of course hard and I was not in peak form. Nevertheless, I am writing this two weeks afterwards, and once or twice I had the merest flicker of a thought that perhaps I could revisit it to see if I could enjoy it more next time.

Probably my favourite picture of myself during a run

On Sep 12th 2015 we participated in our third Jungfrau. I felt quietly confident that I would have a shot at a personal best, having completed so many races this year. Additionally, our traditional summer training runs on the Rigi and the upper part of the Jungfrau course had gone well.

With perfect sunny weather, we started quickly off the line, perhaps a touch faster than I should have, at about 5:25 per km. As usual, Ursula was a bit of a rocket and I paced her but thought to myself, lets see where this goes, perhaps I can handle it.

The course loops around Interlaken before heading gently up the valley, following a mountain river, until Lauterbrunnen at 22km, by which time Ursula had pushed ahead. Arriving there, my stomach was feeling unsettled. I told myself not to worry, I would have time to loop around the valley and then would come the 2km super steep power walk, where perhaps I could recover a little. Many people find this power walk to be very demanding - it is, and I have seen people drop out of the race there - but personally I sort of see it as a rest from running. At the top of the walk, I gave myself a full minute of standing still to try to recover. From there, it is about 11km of upward running until the steepest 2km of the course looms above you.

Profile of the race, with power walk shown at the first steep part.

Unfortunately, my nausea increased to the point where, above Wengen (around 32km into the race), I decided that my best course of action would be to try and make myself throw up. I’d like to point out that I have never properly vomited or made myself vomit in a race before! In fact, I had not felt quite like this since my first ever marathons.

Fingers down the throat produced retching and a cold sweat, but try as I might, nothing came up, so I decided to race on. The next km felt slightly better, so I thought perhaps it had helped. Annoyingly, it came back strong and while I could run, I could only run quite slowly and in suffering.

Lets just say, it’s not much fun to run 20km in that condition, especially when it is all uphill! I did what I could, even still forcing down a few gels, a strategy which had helped in the past, but to not much avail.

The tremendous, kilometer high north face of the Eiger on the left, and Ursula with her medal below

Before the race, I had been quietly hoping for 5 twenty something. Ursula made 5:20 exactly, very good as usual. I crossed the line with 5:48, so eleven minutes slower than the year before. In some sense, that was a victory considering how I was feeling.

What went wrong? As typically seems to be the case with me, the cause is difficult to pin down. Perhaps I went off the line too fast (though I have run flat marathons at that pace before without issue). Perhaps I drank too much too early (this is my current favourite diagnosis). Perhaps my running belt was too heavy or too tight (I carried quite a lot of gels to see me through). Perhaps the meal the night before had not been ideal. Maybe I did not pay the mountains enough respect. Perhaps, it just was not my day to shine. Fair enough, considering my other achievements this year.

So on the one hand, disappointing. On the other, at least I made it and did not give up. By tradition, we had a very nice Cafe de Paris steak with some Ripasso in the evening, followed by one of those post marathon nights of twisting turning uncomfortable sleep, that seem especially prevalent and related to running up mountains!

No matter what, the Jungfrau marathon remains my favourite race. The combination of training beforehand, the scenery there, alphorns playing beautiful soulful music at the start, the crowd support, helicopters swinging overhead to film you, a bagpipe player at the peak of the final climb to serenade you. The whole majesty of it. It is Switzerland’s #1 marathon for many reasons.

and now a video from the race, this time showing Ursula….

Just great scenery on the Lausanne Marathon

Over the last few years, I have come to treat my late October marathon as a sort of end-of-the-year-run to bring my running season to a close. Normally, this meant Lausanne, but last year I decided to try Lucerne instead - both are always held on the same day.

Both are also rather on the harder side for “flat” courses, making personal bests unlikely. So that is why I treat them as events to try and enjoy, before taking a well earned few months break from running in general.

Lucerne was good to try and had it’s own highlights, but Lausanne is hands down one of the most beautiful routes I have done, with wonderful views of steep vineyards, Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) and the Swiss and French Alps beyond. And of course, it also holds the distinction of being my first marathon - and you never forget your first marathon!

With this in mind, plus the fact that Lausanne made a big effort to advertise itself throughout the year, I decided to head back and support it once more - making it my fourth Lausanne. Ursula had signed on for the half, but when she found out that it did not start until mid afternoon (and started 20km outside Lausanne) we had a discussion about whether perhaps she could think about doing the full, even at such short notice. Because she had completed the Basel half four weeks prior, and ran a few longish distance fun runs in between, we jointly decided she would be in good enough shape to try the full distance, so she changed her registration at the expo.

The expo itself is always quite well put together and the goody bag stuffed with some useful items. We made the traditional visit to the boat moored in the harbour for the pasta party in the evening. I’m ambivalent about a lot of pasta party’s - for a start I am not convinced that the actual pasta that they use is good quality, so I generally look elsewhere for carbs on the night before a race, but Lausanne has such a nicely located party that I like to join in. Migros (the supermarket) sponsors this race and they always do a really good job with the organisation and food available. Tasty apple for dessert! After that, we retired back to our hotel, somewhat up the hill at Riponne for a long evening of watching TV and relaxing. We were also treated to an extra hour in bed due to the clocks changing that night.

The route follows the lake along to Vevey and then broadly turns back on itself. Weather conditions were fantastic for the time of year, hovering around 14 to 15 deg C and sunny, making a change from the continuous torrential deluge we had slogged through two years ago.

In brief, I ran with Ursula for the first 7.5km and then she edged ahead in typical fashion. I enjoyed the running and felt reasonably strong, but was under no illusion that the second half of Lausanne is always tough. The statistics say that it is just a few hundred metres of climb, but I don’t know - Ursula and I always talk about how tough the second half seems. Lots of rolling hills, nothing steep, but continuous, and draining.

At 26km though, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. My legs felt reasonable, my stomach was behaving, the sun was shining, crowd support at Lausanne is always pleasing, and I had a few good songs playing on my iPod nano. I experienced a really decent runners high, triggered in part by a great song and by looking back at what a fantastic running year I have had this year - 13 marathons, my two personal best standard marathon times, and two successful Ultramarathon’s at 73km and 100km respectively.

I’ve never run a sub four time at Lausanne, either because I got sick or because the return leg sapped my strength. This time though, it looked like a possibility so I aimed for it. Around 34km, I had an average time of 5:36m per km, which was under the 5:42 needed for sub four.

I figured that this time I felt reasonable and I had a good chance. This confidence was increased when I looked back every now and again to see if the four hour pacemaker was in view behind me, and could not see him. I was dimly aware that I was slowing with every km, though….

Listening to music and pushing on I reached 37km - with 5km left. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me… the sound of a lot of footsteps. Even before looking around, some part of my brain already knew what it was… the block of people who follow the pacemaker, meaning that he must be close by. Yes, I looked around and there he was, surrounded by people and almost close enough to touch. Shit! Where had he come from???

Well, I sped up because I did not want to get behind him, and realised right there that I had a fight on my hands. I was losing energy, but would have to up my pace for the whole remaining distance if I was to come in ahead. This coupled with a developing stitch in my side and my stomach starting to feel quite unsettled in general. On the upside, around 39km I saw Ursula up ahead, and while I knew that I would not catch her this time, it still gave me some added energy.

Well, I fought the good fight and this time came out ahead. I had hoped to have done the hard work earlier in the race and cruise in smoothly for something just sub four. In the event, I had to battle for 5km but kept ahead and crossed the line with 3:59:12. Ursula was one minute ahead of me. After recovering with a bouillon and water, we headed off for a cheeseburger at the port entrance … very tasty it was too.

When I wrote my last race report for Lausanne, I wondered aloud if I would ever reach a sub four time for Lausanne, and I had. While 2015 has been a challenging year personally, this was a fantastic way to cap off an incredible running year. Time for a rest.

A brief race report. It was really thrilling to line up on the Champs Elysee with so many other people awaiting the start gun! The Arc de Triomphe not far behind me… the whole of Paris ahead of me! I’d been to Paris three or four times before the race, and was surprised how much of the city I covered in the race that I had previously covered as a tourist, even outside the centre in the parks region where previously I had rowed aimlessly with the Wife on a summer afternoon. Another memory is one of the tunnel underpasses was given over to ambient music which was quite atmospheric.

It was not to be an historic performance, coming in at 4:04. The last couple of miles had a lot of cobblestones which were not conducive to a rapid finish. I think it’s ticked off the list now.