When it doesn’t go to plan.

 

I am sure that I am not unique in saying by the time I toe the start line in any event of significance I have played out how I want my race to go hundreds of times in my head. Of course it is fantastic when you have those dream days where everything seems to gel from the moment you roll out of bed until the second you cross the finish line, but what about those times when it just did not happen, things weren’t clicking and for whatever reason that day you were not on form. How do you come back from such a day when your ego and your confidence and maybe even your physical being is bruised and battered?

 

All the Runlab coaches have been there before so for this article I am going to focus on coming back from disappoint and injury and tap on how these really experienced athletes keep the spark alive when they have been knocked down.

 

Head coach and founder of Runlab Vlad Shatrov has most certainly had his share of ups and downs throughout his running and triathlon career at an elite level. More often than not the higher the level of competition the higher the level of expectation on yourself and by others become. Over the years we have seen Vlad win numerous races in highly regarded competitions such as The North Face 50 in 2013, then there are other races where he was in incredible form and fallen short of his own expectations. One of the races where Vlad didn’t quite hit his mark was the Paris Marathon earlier this year. In the following Vlad recalls the lead up to the Paris Marathon, the race and the aftermath of not reaching his goal for that race. The following gives an insight into Vlad’s thoughts from pre to post race to get an understanding of how elites athletes cope and learn lessons from not achieving their goals.

 

“Looking back on it now, it’s little wonder I didn’t quite hit the mark in Paris, saying that I learnt an incredible amount about my running and training. I hurt, I laughed, two fantastic people supported me and I got to run through some incredible historical landmarks. The fact remains though that I still have unfinished business”.

 

Vlad recalls his training in the lead up to Paris – “I could go back to Last December when I started my targeted training for this event [the Paris Marathon], I could go back further still to July last year when we unfortunately had to pull the plug on Berlin [Marathon] because both Cheryl [Vlad’s wife and a great runner in her own right] and I hadn’t the ideal training we wanted through winter, I could go back further but I will start with the December training block.

 

Summer training, I absolutely love, the sounds, the smells, the warmth, that hot Australian sun and the amazing sunrises. I had it all the last year and between getting Runlab off the ground, moving house and preparing for Runlab Summer School it was a very busy time for me but I kept the training consistent. It was my first summer in Newcastle with new running routes, making amazing new friends [sic ultimately leading to] some of the best running I’ve ever done. Between December and March I consistently trained between 160-200km a week, trying some minor modifications to my training to see what results I could get”.

 

After a few testing days of trying to find adequate pre race food and drinks after travelling across the world and fitting in some all important site seeing (this was part of his honeymoon after all) it came to race day, an event that Vlad had devoted countless hours pounding the pavement, a strict diet and sacrificed my other aspects of his life in order to achieve his goals. It was now race day and Vlad has broken the race down into sectors for us to fully comprehend how his race unfolded.

 

“There were cameras everywhere and although we couldn’t tell at the time, some of these were live feeds to Eurosport meaning a lot of our friends were able to see me at the start.”

 

0-5km (15:54 -36 seconds under goal time)

I Felt great, the way it should. This section included a long straight of 2km approximately heading down the Champs Elysee, it was slightly downhill and leveled out around the 2km mark. After the pack settled I found myself sitting right on the back of the second group of around 12 runners (There was another group of maybe 20, about 100m in front by this stage), my splits were pretty quick but I didn’t feel like I was exerting myself, so I allowed a comfortable pace to flow. I remember looking for and coming across the “Blue line”, this was marked out on the course in the days before the race – a biodegradable dye used to mark the most direct route across and through sometimes very wide streets, but it wasn’t always visible.

 

5-10km (16:34 +4 seconds outside goal time)

Winding our way through much narrower streets and heading towards and into one of the two parks we were to run through, I had dropped to be running by myself intentionally as I didn’t want to push the pace and was now hitting between 3:17-3:21/km right on pace. Easier said than done though as we had already hit a long hill at around 8km, similar in difficulty to Oxford street with a headwind making it harder than needed, still I felt good as we passed the locals setting up Sunday markets and shouting encouragement as we headed into the park around a corner and hit the 10km arch. It was here I had taken my first Endura gel washing it down with water at the second aid station, I remember hearing the beep on the mat knowing I was still on target. It was here I noticed that there were at least 20 separate tables for the ‘Elites” where they had their nutrition perfectly and clearly placed, thanks. I don’t classify myself as in their league at all but it still annoyed me that there were special arrangements given to a group of runners and there was no reasonable way of finding this information out prior. Also the Elites nutrition was always right on the blue line whilst everyone else’s was far to either the right or left.

 

 

 

10-15km (16:38 +8 seconds)

This section was all through parklands; it was quite winding which made it difficult to ascertain the direction you were headed. There was one particular false flat where I remember running maybe 4-5 seconds slower than my target split causing me to question how I was actually going, however once I hit the reverse side of this section I was able to go 4-5 seconds under my target pace still giving me a sense of relief. Based off the maps we had and the course elevation diagrams though, this run was proving more difficult than I expected tougher than any of the courses I had run before.

 

15-20km (16:34 +4 seconds)

This section had us heading back onto city streets, getting buffeted by wind pockets and serving out testing marathon conditions, still fair though and I was still on track feeling pretty good but closely monitoring my splits when alternating between slightly up/down sections. Running towards 20km there was a nice downhill immediately followed by an uphill, this was a hill maybe 400m long quite a bit steeper than the first, the reward though was the 21.1 not far on the knowing I would soon hit the Bastille where Cheryl and Shay would be waiting.

 

20-25km (16:41 +11 seconds)

Lots happened in this section, passed halfway still on target although I remember I was disappointed for the pace I felt I was running that I was probably only 30 seconds up on where I needed to be. I had run almost 2 minutes faster than this a couple of weeks back in a race I remembered thinking. I also recall looking out for Cheryl then the relief almost as she shouted out at around 22.5km and although I was working I felt pretty good. Remember that I was still alone, there were 2 runners maybe 50-100m in front and they had been like that for a while. Not long after seeing the guys there were some nasty little sections of hill as we went down onto the path along the river.

 

25km-30km (17:37 +67 seconds)

Definitely the most challenging section of the course profile was contained here. This included a couple of in and out of road underpasses with steep hills and exposed headwinds. You really had to push here as you felt the energy being sapped out of you. There was one long tunnel maybe 1km along the water which was mostly ok because in it there wasn’t any wind, the only problem was that it was very dark, you couldn’t see ground in front of you which made you really focus on being careful, there were spectators on bikes in this section too sometimes getting in the way. Once out of the tunnel we headed down towards 30km, when I saw the arc I remember being very disappointed, I new this section was tough but I didn’t expect to now go through above target pace!

 

30-35km (18:17 +117 seconds)       

I was hurting I just didn’t have the energy in my legs and felt an emptiness I hadn’t felt for a long time. There were a couple of times here that I really just wanted to stop, I had felt my target time slip by, based on how I felt I knew I simply didn’t have it in my body to pull this back, it was simply how much would I slip. There were also a few difficult sections here, I can’t really recall the profile in this part of the course, I just focused on my forward momentum and getting towards 35km. Around the 34km mark in a very narrow section I had the horrible sound of the lead women’s car and motorbike slip up behind then in front of me as the leading girl passed with her own pacemaker I slipped in behind them only holding it for about 200m.

 

35-40km (19:04 167 seconds)

Feeling shattered and disappointed, I had given it a crack but wasn’t going to achieve my goal and everything annoyed me. My Hip flexors were sore, I had blisters forming on my toes and a few runners were running up from behind and passing. Each pass just ever so slightly quicker than me, I couldn’t respond, but I was running with a well known Frenchman at this point who was well known, it gave me comfort though that he was also shattered, he was one of the top ranked Elites and when we hit the 4okm mark he offered his personal refreshment to me, I thanked him but couldn’t I just didn’t feel like having anything.

 

40km to home! 2:25 – My second fastest Marathon, 4 minutes outside a PB!

Although way under what I truly feel I’m capable of, finishing a marathon is very rewarding and I pushed through the final bit to finish the best I could for that day, literally running up to and across the finishing line the tops of both my hamstrings were cramping and restricted the pace I could run.

 

So I was done, I crossed and stopped dead almost because I couldn’t walk with my legs cramping. Unfortunately I’ve had a habit of finishing in that weird place were you have done well enough for a stranger to think your amazing but far enough behind so that you get absolutely no attention in those lonely 2-3 minutes after you cross. All barricaded off, I walked slowly sometimes swaying as officials just looked, finally I found PowerAde after collecting my medal and exited out of the compound waiting for Cheryl and Seamus to come and find me. This is where I held my head in my hands for a few moments as well as threw up as I came to terms with my race.

 

The guys were really happy for me and anyone that cared to ask as we returned to the hotel were very impressed, I had a feeling of bitter disappointment but satisfaction still that I had really had a great 29km of racing today and what I required was some further minor training modifications and a friendlier course for me to help. The guys were keen to print out that I was finishing with people who did this full time, whereas I led a full life outside of my running and had an extremely busy 6 months travelled 30 hours to the race and had no electrolyte on course”.

 

After the amount of training and perseverance that Vlad had put into this race it is to be expected that there would be some level of disappointed and sure he was disappointed how ever, Vlad used this experience to become a better runner. He looked at the positives he could take from the race, he focused on what he could learn and determined his next race and what he needed to do for a better performance next time.

 

The positives from the race.

“For much of the race I was running 3minute and 14second kilometers, kilometer after kilometer, which was awesome. I just didn’t have it in my legs towards the end which meant that I needed to work on my threshold”. Knowing what he had to do to reach his goal is a great feeling what’s more when talking of his goal Vlad says “I am going to do it I know I am going to do it” thus taking from the race that he has the ability to reach his goal a great positive to be able to take away from the experience.

 

Determine your Next Race.

After the Paris Marathon in the beginning of April Vlad quickly turned his attention towards the Gold Coast Marathon in Queensland. Vlad felt that “the closer location, the fact that there would be electrolytes on course” in addition to being comfortable in his surrounding (speaking English and communicating with ease) and already being acclimatized to the weather and time zone would be far more beneficial than another race overseas. Other factors that help Vlad determine to race Gold coast 3 months later included the fact the he had previously run the course and knew what to expect.

 

Focus on what you can learn

As mentioned earlier after Paris Vlad felt that he was sitting far too close to his threshold and to get that extra little bit that he needed at the back end of the race he needed to raise his threshold otherwise he was likely to plateau and hold the same sort of pace. Interestingly now that Gold Coast Marathon has also past with a similar result to Paris, Vlad noted that although he had done more threshold work he was still getting similar results so it was back to the drawing board “you might need to change things multiple times, often there is not one way of attacking things and as an elite athlete you need to be adaptable”.

 

Mentally keeping it together

Vlad without sounding arrogant confidently states “nearly everyone else at my level does this as a job”. Vlad on the other hand works a thousand hours a week, maintains his own business and doesn’t have the support structure of multiple sponsors and for that Vlad is rightfully proud of his own efforts. Without sounding like Oprah it is important to love yourself and be proud of what you have achieved within yourself to move onwards and upwards. Instead of having unfulfilled goals bring you down rather use those unfulfilled goals to “become motivation to improve” and like a movie star Vlad restates, “I know I am going to do it, I am going to do it”.

 

Happy Running

 

Seb Gallery