LE DIFFERENCE by Graham Henry
La Rochelle Marathon for the 3rd time on Dimanche 27 November 2005. Not an expert on marathons as I have only run La Rochelle and Dumfries but this what it is like and you can get an idea if you want to do it next year.
Right you thrifty bunch. If you enter by July it costs £20. You get the following package:- Box of 24 Oysters Class 4, windproof jacket, this year free entry to the Aquarium, high quality medal, certificate with your split every 5km, tea/coffee at the end with chocolate etc. Also a bag of extras incl a small rice pudding tres bon. The course is a flat figure of 8 with 2 laps which goes through the Old Town, Zone (That’s Niddrie Equiv), Marina. There is an organised competition between the different districts for providing the best support and atmosphere. The Zone will win. You had women hanging over the balconies making a great beat with their sauté pans. The kids were on the pavements giving it high fives etc. The men were keeping the kids at the side. Managed to get the two flights for £80 return incl taxes so thanks to Easy Jet and Ryan Air for being on time.
7600 entered the race so it is a huge event but is organised very well with two different start points and I was started after 30 secs. It is a big money eve
nt, winning time 2.12 mins, by a 19 year old Kenyan who will probably be world champ one day. You can check it out at www.marathondelarochelle.com and it is a fast course subject to the weather.
This year there was no wind and it was sunny although only about 2 degrees at the start but it was perfect for me as it gradually got warmer. I have listed my splits and the miles etc because everything apart from the half marathon point is in km and your brain works in miles so just in case you do a marathon in Europe you may find it useful. Spoke to W Jarvie this morning and he did Paris and you can make a mistake. I thought 35k was 22 mile so at the time I thought 2nd best time for Edin to Nth Berwick. Nearly a costly mistake but one runner did it in 2.59.59. That is what we in the trade call a ba hair, lucky for him it was the right side, the other is agony, I just ran it like our Sunday morning runs at 08.30hrs which with France being one hour ahead we started at the same time so I was thinking of all those runs over the last few years. Thanks to Gordon for the Weds nights and a huge Merci Bein to the hard core Sunday runners, the Jarvie brothers, Mr Fraser, John Forker (starts like a hare), Paul, Douglas, Werner, Mark, Janet, Andrew Jeske when he is not in the garden etc. See you again on a freezing morning and hopefully we can get Bert back. Now for Rotherham. Andrew Jeske has done the trg and I will be on domestique duties like the Tour du France to make sure he eats this time. This mornings 11.8 mile with the club was worse physically than the marathon but I still have 6 days to recover. One more runner for a team - everybody welcome.
Distance Average time for Section
Km Miles Time KM Miles5 3.11 21.02 4.12 6.46
10 6.21 42.20 4.14 6.50
15 9.32 1.03.17 4.12 6.45
21.1 13.1 1.29.04 4.14 6.51
25 15.53 1.45.17 4.08 6.38
30 18.63 2.06.13 4.12 6.46
35 21.73 2.27.23 4.13 6.48
42.2 26.2 2.58.16 4.18 6.55If your target is 3.30 then 4.59 is an even pace per km, 8 minute miles
Report and Photos Planet Henry
Does anyone else think that Graham's rock solid pacing - doing both halves within 12 seconds of each other - is really very very remarkable? Like gobsmacking? Very well done on a sub 3 result.
pb