Now that I am personally coaching some "Marathon Clubbers" (our running club), the race had even more significance for me. I biked out to the 30km mark to cheer on all of the 62 marathoners of our club and other friends and runners along the way. The 30km is a particularly key point in the race as it is just before the end of the endless hills that distinguish the Authentic course. Giving a voice of enthusiasm and confidence to the runners, reminding them that the hills were just about over was so fulfilling as I could see their eyes light up despite the obvious challenge they faced.
As a coach, I had my first marathon runners finish their races in fine form. Irini ran a 19 minute PR finishing in 4:10:41. Meanwhile in the Cote d'Azur Marathon on the same day, Magda paced her brother to his first sub-4:00 marathon running 3:45:40. Both negative-split (faster second half) efforts.
Michael managed to finish the Athens course despite an injury that kept him out of training, but his desire to start and finish willed him to jogging and walking the entire race. A valiant effort!
Cordelia and Dora ran the 10km in 44:09 and 44:24 (a PR), respectively, taking 1st and 2nd place in their age-group 40-44. Pavlos also ran the 10km in 47:42. Congratulations to all!
As for me, two weeks of training have passed and I've started intervals! Very exciting to be back into more structured training. Some of the more interesting workouts I've done these past two weeks include 5x1km repeats, 13x400m repeats, and a couple of tempo runs (6.5km and 8km).
As much as hanging out with Marathoners is a blast, I end up eating like one too, but without the training volume to justify it. So, its about time to put an end to marathon season for 2015 and hunker down for a winter of solid training and the promise of racing for myself in 2016.
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