Dubai Marathon 2.41:54

After having the mother of all rows last night with my central governor (sub conscious that is), I finally put my head down on the pillow happy to have finally defeated the the little fu****! Now read on...
Couldn't sleep on the long haul flight from Sydney but Timmy will like this..got to see plenty of new movies. WALL-E is class, Ed Harris's Appaloosa is a super western and Ricky Gervias is very funny in Ghost-town.
After the debacle in Berlin, I opted not to carry any gels and just rely on the sports drink available. Got to the start early and had the pleasure of warming up with the elite boys. Haile was looking very serious and i even got chatting to the eventual 2nd place guy who in broken english told me to 'run strong'. He was quite big for an elite guys...the rest of them were tiny.
The elite guys took off 4 mins before the rest of us (strange I doubt Haile needed a 4 min start on me). Settled into it straight away and the plan from the off was to run very comfortable until 10k and increase the tempo if I was feeling good. About 20 runners settled in front of me, got to 5k on the slow side 19.16 (which projected me out to 2.42.20) but I wasn't concerned as there was a slight headwind. I was thinking this will be great on the return leg. From 5k to 15k I picked up quite a few runners who had gone out a little fast. At around 16k (which was around 1.02 if i recall correctly) I chatted to a Turkish runner and told him I was Irish living in Australia. He never commented on Australia but mentioned Roy Keane was a great player in his day. I told him Sukar was decent but not a great striker. He didn't talk to me after that! Got to half way in a tick over 80 mins and I was pretty excited at the prospect of getting a tailwind. I recall reading Criniti's article about neg splits from the Striders blister mag and felt confident of having a crack. It went well until 26k where i got a bloody stitch (not sure why but there was no orange sports drink at the 25k only lime...)Anyhow, this slowed me down and for the first time in the race a runner flew by me...i wouldn't mind it was the Turkish guy who i dropped at 23k!)It took me 4k to get rid of the stitch (plenty of heavy breathing in combo with pushing my foot down on the right side). The Turkish guy was about 120m ahead of me and from 30k I decided to chase him. For the first time in a marathon I was looking forward to the challenge of the last 12k.
The weather decided to put a spanner in the works..just as I hit 32k hoping for a Tucks sort of finish the rain started to fall and the bloody wind changed direction. Frank Shorter blamed the rain on his 2nd place finish in '76, I actually like the rain but am not very fond of a headwind. Just put the head down and battled, got plenty of comments from crowd 'your looking strong and all that jazz...the little f*** of a central governor kept questioning that...but i wouldn't give in. I used every Jedi mind trick in the book and Gallaway the US coach often got his runners to used their imagination in weird and wonderful ways to get throu the last 10k(my head was all over the shop - my friend Eamon was the Taoiseach (prime minister)of Ireland I was asked to become the minster of education...weird or what!
Just kept going until the finish, had another stitch at 39k (not sure why) but it was a little higher on the left side so I stopped at 40k to make sure I was ok. The last 400m felt pretty long as I tried to run 70 sec...i did manage 82 which isn't bad.
Plan to rest now as I have a huge week of drinking ahead of me. Will hit the after party and endeavour to get Geb drunk as I am interested in the sort training he does. I checked the results and I was the 24th male home which isn't bad considering there were 21 elite boys ahead of me. It's been a great month for me with 3 pbs and would love to race against the boys in the Gold Coast in July - Tom, Richard High, Muz and Terence ...obviously I would like the opportunity to have another crack at the little f*** of a central governor.
Thanks to everyone for all the email and texts....looking forward to catching up with friends and family in Ireland. I'm glad I've got a fair few pbs out of the way in Jan as from March I reckon Livo and I will be busy :) Can't wait for the big day!

See you on the road - Kanser

Some articles on Geb's world record attempt in Dubai
Associated Press You can see how big Chimsa is compared to Haile and I had a feeling in the warm-up Sertsu would run well.

Sporting Life...interesting to see Dave Bedford the London race director comment on the change of the wind in the 2nd half...

IAAF Great photo on Haile coming to the line...