Backed Up 100km Ultra with a 42km Marathon (with PB)

Running a full 42km marathon the week after a 100km ultra is probably not most ideal thing for someone to do… let alone running it hard to beat a personal best (PB).

You can cause some serious damage if you’re not careful with running an extensive amount which can cause a massive stress load on the body.

But… we are out here to push the limits and to race these events and raise money for charity like we said we would!

That’s one thing we will always be loyal to — sticking to our guns.

Like we’ve said in our previous blogs, you can make any decision in life as long as you’re committed and ensuring that you’re adaptable with any changes and bumps in the road (no pun intended).

Over the weekend we had endurance event #24 — Brisbane Marathon (42km).

As well as the full marathon, the Brisbane Running Festival also hosts a half marathon (21km), a 10km, and 5km fun run.

After running 2 of the last 100km ultramarathons in Brisbane, we weren’t looking forward to this one being in the same location haha.

Especially running the same course 16 times last week…

In saying that, there was a slight change in track running along the Story Bridge and the Brisbane River as opposed to the usual Southbank/ Kangaroo Point area.

And looking back at it now, the track was pretty fun!

With the city skyline, bright blue sky, and surrounded with friendly runners, this marathon was much better than anticipated.

What the amazing thing was we both smashed our fastest marathon PB times despite running 100km a week prior (plus another 20km in training runs)!

Ant just wanted to get 4 hours or under which would be much better than his existing PB of 4:35 and Tofes (Chris) was aiming for at least 3:45 to shave 6mins from his existing PB of 3:51.

As per usual when we visit Brissy, we park in our regular spot in the city on Edmonstone Street because it has free parking… however it’s 3.5km from the event meaning we walked another 7km that day as well as running the marathon…

With winter in its last month, it’s not as cold as it usually is but it was so nice to run against the crisp breeze for the first few hours!

That was until it hit around the 9am mark when the sun came blaring out and sweat was coming out of all pores and hydration was really needed.

As each event goes by, we come across more of the running community who we either meet for the first time on the day or that we’ve ran with recently.

Into the 4km mark, heading into the Southbank boardwalk, Tofes came across fellow runner Alexandra Rose.

Alex was always a runner having previously ran cross-country throughout high school and multiple marathons including the LA marathon!

She was aiming for anything quicker than her current 3:59 PB which she gracefully smashed yesterday by 14mins!

From this 4km point all the way to the 40km mark, her and Tofes ran alongside each other. Racing with someone will help immensely as one will push the other and can become quite competitive.

Competition is healthy in sports as long as it’s not maladaptive — i.e. sabotage.

As for Ant, he was making sure that he was in front of the 4 hour pace runner with our towering running mate Geoff Tomlins whom we also met during the start of our endurance-for-cancer project this year.

By the 25km mark, we both crossed paths and Geoff was ahead of Ant for now… however, Ant was alongside Shelly Ostrouhoff and Rebecca who are 2 awesome women we’ve met this year throughout this journey.

Going back to Tofes, his halfway split was 1:45 meaning leaving the last half to be completed within 2 hours to get the 3:45 finish…

All was going well till the 37km mark when it’s a couple bridge climbs before the final stretch — by then the legs are starting to struggle on the uphills — these suck so much at this point.

All that was needed was to stay on 6min/kms for the last 5kms and the 3:45 finish would be achievable but performance started to diminish slowing to 6:30–7min/kms…

In the meantime, Alex was stopping quite frequently with ‘Charlie-Horse’ cramps — gnarly achilles tendon pain, having to stretch them out constantly.

The 3:45 ballooned pace runner was creeping up at the end then that was the moment Tofes knew he’d be fighting to get that 3:45 time!

Unfortunately, Tofes crossed the line 1 min later than expected — 3h46m… however, a PB is a PB! Shaving 5mins off the previous PB is still a solid effort!

And Alex came home with a win of 3:45!

Ant on the other hand was fighting hard against the 4:00 pace runner and made his way ahead of Geoff after the 30km mark.

It’s crazy to think that we were both had ran 4:15 by the 40km mark of the 100km ultra last week which had been faster than any marathon he’s done.

By the last 2km, it was neck-and-neck between Ant and the pace runner but he managed to get ahead of him at the end… just.

The fact that we both ran quickest we’ve ever been the week after a 100km is rather astounding.

The smiles on our face says it all and we can’t believe we actually broke our own PBs after the load our legs have experienced last week!

It’s amazing how resilient the body is and the rapid rate we are recovering.

Which makes perfect sense why we’re doing this while we’re still so young.

Yes fair enough we want to make a difference but it helps alot if we are in our twenties than attempting to do these events in 10, 20, or even 30 years time.

Who knows, we still might be running some messed up events still in our fifties :)

At the end of the race, we were approached by other marathon runners who recognised us.

James Currie and Krissy Pea are two runners from the community who noticed the sweaty Pelicans and gave some kind words about this endurance project and wanted to get a pic with us!

Such a nice feeling when that happens!

Just when you think our schedule was tough enough after reading this blog, we have the Lamington Eco Challenge this weekend — b2b marathons (84km total)…

Leave a comment on your thoughts and if you’ll be at the Lamington Eco Challenge!

Enjoy

Tofes (Chris) & Ant — The Wounded Pelicans