One week after the Yorkshire marathon it was time already to run another: the inaugural Birmingham International Marathon. It’s not the first time the city of Birmingham have had a marathon. From 1980 to 1985 the city played host to the People’s Marathon. The return of a marathon to England’s second city meant it was a race I had to do, even if it only gave me a week of recovery time after the last marathon.

In the week between marathons I barely ran. I did a slow 3.5 mile run with some walking breaks, and a marathon-paced four mile run later in the week. It seems I didn’t hydrate as well as I should have though as the afternoon of the day before the race I got a migraine that meant I needed to sleep early. Sleeping early meant I didn’t sleep well at night, so wasn’t as fresh as I’d have liked when I got up at 04:30 the next morning.

Originally I’d thought the race was going to start at 09:30, but they eventually split the waves into two start times with the sub-3:45 runners heading off at 08:30. The start and finish were different parts of the city and miles apart too so I’d booked a shuttle to take me from the finish at 07:00. I’d need to be parked up at least 15 minutes before that, depending on where I could find for parking.

I knew people doing the half marathon in the afternoon, but I couldn’t think of anyone I knew doing the full 26.2 miles in the morning. I did however meet up with @albowk and @1SteveMac, and bumped into Paul Addicott who was on pacing duties. He was there a little early as his wave didn’t start until 09:30, but it was nice to meet. I got to the race village myself just before 07:00 as it seems they’d overestimated how long it’d take to get to the race start from the bus stop. I felt I could have had another hour in bed, and left later.

I set off having no real goal in mind, other than the hope of another sub-3:30 marathon.

For the start of the race it was along the running track of Alexander Stadium. Personally I think it’d have been nice to have had a stadium finish, but was still nice to get a bit of track time. Out of the stadium, the course quickly joins the A34 – a bit of dual carriageway to run along to get to the city. This part of the course is a little undulating, but none of the hills (mainly the underpasses and flyovers) are really that bad. At least not at this stage of the race.

There was a fine mist of rain for the first few miles and had to wipe my glasses a number of times to make sure I could see where I was going.

Around mile 4 the course went through the Aston University campus. Being held back by police there were some protesters, though they were far enough away I couldn’t see what was going on. Miles 5-7 were then probably the most boring of them as the course zig-zagged through what is probably the most rundown part of Birmingham.

The first few miles had been tough on my legs, a reminder of last weeks race, but things started to ease off after this. I’d long since overtaken the 3:15 pacer and as my legs eased I thought that maybe I might actually do better than I’d expected.

Just after mile 7 the start of the two lap loop begins. Every step I took on this I’d be repeating, more tired, later. For some of this loop people were setting things up on the side of the course – perhaps not expecting anyone to run passed them until later.

Cannon Hill Park was a nice section of the course, though I found my legs were starting to tire again already, so tried really hard to reign in the pace. After  the park it returns to the road and it looked like later we’d be seeing runners on the other side of the road. This was a long straight section that lasted for almost 3 miles. Views that far in front can be a little depressing, but I found looking down at the road helped here.

So far the loop didn’t seem too bad. Perhaps I could run the entire marathon for a change. No. That wasn’t going to happen. On the way into Bourneville, a place famous for chocolate, they’d sneaked a hill into the course that was a lot of effort to run up. I kept going though. I wanted to finish at least the first lap without walking, but after reaching the top I thought it unlikely I’d manage it a second time.

I was thankful though that I was now passed halfway, and some brief respite with a down hill section passed the Cadburys (formerly Bourneville) factory. At the bottom of that hill it was a return to a road I’d already along in the opposite direction. This time I could see oncoming runners and spotted @albowk!

After that I was concentrating on keeping moving. I really, really wanted to walk, but I also really wanted to finish the first lap without walking. That was enough to keep me going until the “decision point” where I could finally begin the second lap.

On this second lap I soon slowed to a walk once I hit 16 miles, and from that point I accepted that I’d be walking frequently. Sure enough, although there were sections I’d run for longer periods, I did walk extremely frequently.

When I rounded the corner at Bourneville again I didn’t even attempt to run up part of it, I just started walking immediately. I just had no inclination to run up it. The 3:30 pacer passed me a little later, and it didn’t really bother me. I just wanted to finish and didn’t really care what my time was. When I ran Brighton the week after Manchester and Canalathon last year, I’d been far slower. So it wasn’t a complete failure.

What was a failure was that I my goal for a sub-3:15 this year was an impossibility. I’d only made it half way from where I was to where I wanted to be. It’d have to be a goal for 2018 instead.

Knowing this didn’t really motivate me to keep running, but I did find that deciding I wouldn’t walk again until I’d counted slowly to 100 helped. I did actually run for that entire stretch, and started walking as soon as I hit 100. Oops. I’d only got 4 miles left to go, but I didn’t really feel like dangling that carrot again to keep me running.

Finally I reached the decision point again, and this time was very pleased to be going straight on, back towards the city. It was hard going, but I ran as often as I could force myself to but with an uphill finish it was hard work. As I got close to mile 26 I found that my path was blocked though by people crossing the road en masse so had to weave through them. I heard one of the marshals shouting at the pedestrians, “let the runners pass!”. Well, I slowed to a walk to get passed.

I sprinted from the “200 metres” to go sign and finally finished the first Birmingham International Marathon in 3:35:38 in position 565 out of 5202 finishers.

Not a great time or position, but it’s okay. I never expected to do well in this race, but I still think I should have tried harder in Yorkshire last week. In the finishers bag was:

• Finishers medal,
• Finishers tee,
• bottle of water,
• Crunchy Peanut butter Cliff bar,
• Rowntree’s Randoms,
• Sanex,
• Omega-3,
• Foil blanket,
• and a packet of milled flax, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame seeds, and goji berries.

Next weekend I’ll be doing a ten mile race in Thorseby, so hopefully I can recover enough for that before then. This race took more out of my legs than last week, but by the evening they’ve eased enough to keep me hopeful.