Conratulations to Pat Robbins for his remarkable run at the Grand Union Canal Race. Not only did he win it but broke the existing course record by some 25 minutes he completed the course in 27 hours and one minute. For those of you that are not familiar with this event its a non stop 145 mile run along the Grand Union Canal between Birmingham and London. What makes it even more remarkable is that this is only Pat's second year running ultra distances. Last year he entered the race more in hope than expectation and confessed to some of his racing colleagues that he had only ever completed one marathon some years earlier and that his longest run in training for the event had been 22 miles. This created a good deal of leg-pulling although this soon turned to admiration as he turned in a superb first performanceto finish 4th overall in a little over 31 hours.
This years event has seen Pat put in some more structured training and he has been regularly running the Tuesday and Thurday sessions as his specific speed work. A wake up call to all Ironman triathletes who think that speed work is only required for sprint and olympic distance!
Pat startted his race really sensibly an covered the first 22 miles in 4hours 11 minutes, at this stage he was over and hour behind the leaders, through the first half of the race this extended and at one point Pat was over 2 hours behind the leading runners. Running through the night along the canal he saw a few interesting sites including 2 men trying to recue a cow that had decided to go for a swim in the canal! That could have been a bizarre dream caused by sleep deprivation and far too much running! With around 50 miles to go Pat hit a purple patch and was really picking his pace up, fuelled by gels, cashew nuts and other assorted goodies provided by hid Dad in full support crew mode. He passed the second place runner and pushed on, continuing his momentum. After arriving near Paddington and on the vantage point of a bridge he spotted the first place runner around 400m ahead, he quickly caught and passed him, being concerned that both chasers might mount a last attempt to wrestle back the lead Pat pushed on again. Even with 133 miles in his legs at that stage he covered the last 12 miles in an amazing 1 hour 45 minutes.
For those wondering how to run a good marathon there are some great lessons here in running a negative split even when the distance id 145 miles!
Well done Pat on an incredible effort and on setting a fantastic new record for the event.
Rob
