I did it! A sub 4 hour marathon! 🎉🎉🎉
All the training, long runs and preparations paid off. Here is the breakdown of the event.
Expo
Like many big races, there is an expo a couple of days before race day where participants go to collect their race numbers, final instructions for the race and where they can browse stands selling all sorts of running related paraphernalia.
The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon has their expo located in the DHL Stadium in Green Point Cape Town, number collection queues are by start batch and is a quick process on the Thursday or Friday days – Saturday gets a bit busy, so go early if you can.
Adidas, the headline sponsor along with Sanlam, had a huge section of the expo where you could change purchase shoes and clothing, change the size of your complimentary shirt or get it personalised.
There was also a massive board with the names or all the participants and previous personal best course times (if you had participated before) as well as a wall to sign and add a motivational message for other runners.
Overall the expo is rather small and once you have your race number and confirmed that your shirt size is correct – you can get through it quickly to do your own preparations for race day.
Shake-out Run
Garmin, Virgin Active and Adidas (along with many others) had official shake-out runs on the Saturday morning. The 10km Peace run, and the 21km and Marathon trail runs were also held on the Saturday morning.
I decided to do my own little loop on the Sea Point Promenade, watching the last of the 10k Peace run runners coming in to the finish nearby.
Race Day
An early start (4am)
We stayed at a hotel that is about 2km from the start – so while not exceedingly close, it was still an easy walk to the start line.
The wait in our batches was around 40 min before we got going (race start times were very accurate) – with a moderate breeze on the start line and a moderate to slightly heavy breeze over the course of the race.
I started out slightly back from the 4 hour pacer and caught the pacer at the 5 km mark – a short toilet break at put me 2 minutes behind the pacers again.
At around 15km I had caught the 4 hour pacing group again and shortly after, I passed the group to give myself some wiggle room.
Over the rest of the race I steadily extended this lead, feeling good up until the 32 km mark.
Over the last 10 km I slowed my pace a little, not really able to maintain the same effort I had for most of the race – my legs really started feeling tired on the last few km. I did manage to find some extra energy near the end and gave it a final push over the the last 500m to cross the finish line in 3:55:18 (3:55:38 on my watch) – My sub 4 hour goal achieved!
