I was not originally down to run the London Marathon this year, but when they opened the virtual race up to anyone I was straight in there. It may not be the London Marathon we all know and love but to be a part of the 40th race was still something I was keen to do.

This was my second virtual marathon, having ran the virtual Boston Marathon four weeks ago. I also signed up to run the virtual Manchester Marathon and virtual Marine Corps Marathon. I am using this London Marathon run to cover of those two virtual races. Endurance running is all about being as efficient as possible, there is nothing more efficient than running three marathons in one 26.2 mile run.

My build up to this run didn’t go as smoothly as four weeks ago. This week I have felt off, not sure what it is but just been low on energy and tired. The night before the virtual I felt really low on energy, my stomach didn’t feel great and I had a really bad nights sleep.

Besides feeling off, the week went ok. I got all five runs done, ate well and hydrated just as I do before any endurance race.

I like to treat these virtual marathons as a race. I train for them as I would any race, I taper, fuel & hydrate pre race and lay out my gear the night before. To be honest, all of the above is what I do for every single longer Sunday run.

The weather forecast for this weekend had been terrible, all through the week it had forecast heavy rain and strong winds Saturday with the heavy rain continuing on into Sunday afternoon. I had been checking the BBC weather app hourly on Saturday hoping to see the rain for Sunday morning had cleared but when I went to bed it still had heavy rain until 11am. I was planning on starting my run at 7am.

I was really concerned that the heavy rain would leave parts of my route flooded. Saturday night I got in the car and went for a drive around my 7.6 mile course. It wasn’t great but seemed ok for running.

After running the 3:03.59 four weeks ago and pacing that one perfectly. This time I wanted to push myself. I wanted to see where my limit currently is then I can use that to build my winter training plans and pacing.

I was running the same route as four weeks ago which was a 1.2 mile run down to what I call the circuit, which is a 5.2 mile loop. I will do three loops then run back up the 1.2 miles collect a fresh water bottle and head back to the 5.2 mile loop for one last lap and finish back up the 1.2 miler. That 1.2 mile stretch has a 110ft hill on it, meaning mile 18 and 26 contain that 110ft climb, the rest of the route is fairly flat.

So, the plan was to go out at 7:05/mi and try to pick it up from half way this time, hopefully, if all went to plan, coming in under 3:03.

5km Splits: 21:24, 21:40, 21:27, 21:34, 21:29, 21:51, 22:51, 22:43

Thankfully, when I woke up at 6am the rain had stopped and the forecast had cleared so it looked like I had dropped on there, although there was a LOT of standing water all around my loop. Two places were flooded straight across the road.

Straight out of the door I ran a 6:57 first mile, that mile is downhill so I wasn’t too concerned about that. Then the second mile I ran 6:44 which I was more concerned by, that was 20secs under target pace and not a pace I could sustain for long.

I changed my plan at this point and went with a more challenging pace that would find my limit and most likely lead to me struggling late on, but I wanted to see how long I could hold onto 6:55/mi and then see how I deal with the pain and struggling in those latter miles.

I held that pace for the first 17 miles without any real issues. Mile 18 was the run back up the 110ft hill. During the virtual Boston Marathon I was able to hold my pace on this hill, so I felt confident that I could do it again but this week the legs weren’t happy about the sudden incline and I got a stitch that I couldn’t clear.

The pace dropped to 7:10/mi on the uphill. I wasn’t too concerned about that, the next mile was back downhill so I can get back on track. I was more concerned about the stitch.

I was concentrating on my breathing. Taking deep breaths through the nose and out through the mouth, this wasn’t improving things. Mile 19 was another 7:10 mile.

During mile 20, the stitch got really bad and I had to stop to catch my breath. From that point on I was just focusing on finishing as fast as I could but as comfortable as I could. It was only a virtual race so no need for heroics today.

I found that 7:30/mi pace was okay, still had the stitch but I was able to run and breathe. The final 7 miles weren’t the most comfortable. Yes, the last 10k of a marathon never feels great but this was a struggle and a struggle I had signed up for when I increased the pace to 6:55/mi early on.

Was the stitch related to the faster pace? was it from not hydrating sufficiently during the run? What I did find out was 17 miles was the limit for 6:55/mi pace today, maybe I could have gone further had there not been that hill in mile 18 but now I know I need to train harder over winter to be able to hold 6:45/mi (yes 6:45 not 6:55) for a spring marathon.

So, in the end, I finished up with a 3:05.05 for the 26.2 miles, just over 1 minute slower than 4 weeks ago but still 12min 43secs faster than my official 2nd fastest marathon time.

For this virtual marathon, they insisted on making us use the official London Marathon app to track our progress. I was sceptical about this. I didn’t think it would be as accurate as my watch and thought it would drain the battery on my phone, especially as it was cold and wet outside which tends to drain battery life faster.

The app worked really well though, I was really impressed. It tracked accurately. I did run slightly longer on my watch to ensure Strava picked up the full 26.2 miles but the app stopped recording bang on 26.2 and I had a text message with my “official” time before I had even saved the activity on my watch. Very good and fast service there. As for the battery life, I was running for 3hours and 5mins and only lost 12% battery.

The app did have some audio but I muted this from the start to save battery and I don’t wear headphones when running. This would have saved some battery but still plenty left for the audio and a lot more hours of running.

That is virtual marathon number 2 of 4 done. Next week it is the virtual Chicago Marathon with the virtual New York City Marathon a week later.