I just ran one!
My finishing time was 3 hours, 37 minutes and 9 seconds. (3:37:09).
It's not as fast as I had hoped/planned, and my first two splits were right on track to do well. My first 10K split was 45:06, and my 21.1K half split was 1:36:12. Which means I was doing pretty well, and I would have been close to my 3:10:59 goal, off by a minute or so.
However, my third split at 30K was about 2:20, meaning that I would have had to do 12 kilometers in 50 minutes or less, something pretty fast after already doing 30K, although I was ready to do it up until that point.
Soon after, I started getting muscle spasms in my legs, meaning I was either dehydrated, hot, unprepared, or a combination of the three. The hell had only begun, as the conditions of my legs slowly worsened until I was finally resigned to walking for about 60 seconds every kilometer. My finishing time shows that it took me 77 minutes to do the final 12K, a pace of over 6 m/k, an abysmal pace considering the rest of the race had been run at about 4:30-4:35m/k.
I must say though, that the crowds in Ottawa were inspiring, and while I thought of stopping many times, their cheers roused me and forced me to continue hobbling towards the finish. Thanks to anyone that was out there.
I'm gonna upload a pic or two after I'm not lazy, maybe a video of me straining past 21.1K.
My friend wrote a quick lyric about my running. It's funny :
My name's James bitch
Run my marathon in a speedy outfit
Doin it all just to get some big tits-
-IN MY FACE.
It's why I run the race.
metalstorm
I've always wanted to run a marathon but I've never really got around to it. There's only one big marathon held in my city each year and I've always had other stuff on when it came around.
If you're running the first 10k or a marathon in 45 I'm guessing you'd be at about 40min for a 10k and you ran almost double that in the last 10k's of the marathon. Most of the guys I train with with are national standard runners, some are even international standard and there's no way half of them would push through that for 10ks
You've still got a bit of work to go but hopefully you can break your 3:10:59 goal in your next marathon.
Warrickneff (Updated )
I can't recommend the experience enough! I've had 2 days to ponder it, and I think the final 10K might have been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
It's kind of a weird feeling.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean about your friends and their ability to push a 10k, but I'm gonna keep at it. You're correct about my 10k speed though, I haven't run a race pace 10k since last year and it was 40:40, before I started the marathon training.
I might try another marathon at the end of September, the Toronto Waterfront. It's something I look forward too!