OK. I've just got the race results from my.raceonline.com . Thanks to Paul, Julian and others for pointing me in the right direction.


DENIS OAKLEY
BIB 1289
1st 21km 2:12:01.96
2nd 21km 2:28:20.98
Chip Time 4:40:22.94
Gun Time 4:40:50.55
Position 50

There were 302 starters in the Marathon and 275 finishers. So I was in the top 20%!

The winner, Richard Habeya, won in 3 hours and 2 minutes and only 14 men went sub 4 hours!

14 finishers between 3 and 4 hours
76 finishers between 4 and 5 hours
110 finishers between 5 and 6 hours
60 finishers between 6 and 7 hours
5 finishers 7 hours +

There were 2 negative splits in the first 50!

So whilst I'd felt a bit disappointed by my time initially it seems that I really wasn't so bad as I thought. That pretty much mirrors my feeling on the ground. I was generally running with people who were wearing marathon or 30k race shirts; but I was running with walkers.

I estimate that I was 92nd at the end of 21k and I gained 42 places in the 2nd half - with no one in aggregate overtaking me (those who did had started the 2nd half ahead of me).

Happy with that!

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I've just booked my tickets to Nepal

I'll be running from Mount Everest Base Camp

And doing a full marathon - cross country, trail running with lots of glaciers, rickety bridges, rock falls and the like.

Fly out mid May to Kathmandu with Royal Nepal Airlines and back in early June. Direct flight from KL.

This going to hurt

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I bought some K-Swiss Kona-C's recently. I liked them because their light weight and cool design. However I've only done 12km in them. Not much for a proper review and so I've waited until I actually used them in combat.


It was a bit dangerous to use them in the Energizer Night Marathon. 12km of training is not really enough to allow them to settle in and figure out what problems if any I'd have.


One of the things that made me worry is that although the Kona-C's are stability there isn't quite enough stability for me and my feet tend to fall in a bit more than I'm used to. One question was whether to use orthotics in them or use the existing insoles. Using orthotics with a stability shoe is dangerous - I've been crippled by ITB before by having stability shoes to combat my pronation AND orthotics.  Not something I'll do willingly again and so I decided to run in the Kona-C's as is.


On my previous run I'd also felt that the padding was very thin and that the balls of me feet get very sore quite quickly - 10km+. Would this lead to an agonising marathon?


Everything went really well on the foot basis. From about 15km  - 18km I had a hotspot under my right big toe but that then went away. I also have a blister on the front of my right big toe just by the toenail - didn't realise until Senay checked my feet at home. That was originally cause by the crap Nike trainers and is probably not to do with the K-Swiss.


I suffered quite a lot of foot compression as my arches didn't have the support that they were used to and this resulted in feet that ached and felt a bit unnatural at the end of the race - think of Chinese footbinding . . . However there was no real impact on the race itself. 


Equally my ankles suffered from the under stability that I needed and were sore from providing the additional support as were my knees. However my legs had sufficient strength to compensate for this and it's a reasonable cost for racing in a pair of untested shoes. 


I am a heavy sweater and one of the reasons why I like the Kona-C's is the drainage channels in the bottom of the shoe. I've no evidence that sweat was squirting out the bottom of the sole through the race - but I never noticed the shoes once I started running. They felt really light and compared to most of my other shoes they STAYED light. 


Compared to many shoes there is not a lot of water absorbing fabric and I've found that with other shoes the combination of sweat and ice sponges can really make it a chore of lifting your feet up. No problem here. This made my high cadence strategy workable. 


I think that I will probably buy another pair but with neutral support so that I can use my orthotics in them. 


So all in all I'm pleased with the shoes and will make them a permanent part of my race repertoire. 

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Slept with the windows open last night for a wonderful sleep. Pulled myself up just after 7 and was down on the treadmill soon after. It's strange but the intensity of my new programme seems to roughly match where I was half way through my last ironman plan. And I'm not even in the base stage yet. That said the benefits already seem to be huge. I can run and swim a lot faster already - and whilst the endurance isn't there yet it will come.

Though as I did my 11.25km easy run this morning I realised that there is a lot more to do. I was starting to feel a little fatigued by the end of it, but after a facebook chat with Simon yesterday about the Everest Marathon there is a lot I have got to do in 4 months.

Not only have I got to be able to do a marathon - which I know I can. I have to be able to do it cross country - which I have before. I have to do it only really shit terrain - nope. At altitude - nope - but I did run down Ras Dashen  in Ethiopia once. And in the cold - anyone go a walk in freezer I can train in?

Still its all about building blocks. Build slowly. Carefully. Consistently. Results will come.

So scores on the doors - 11.26km in 1 hour. Cadence - 90+ usually about 92-94

Injuries - stiff shoulder and upper body. slight hot spot on right arch. slight bruising on left heel

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