Sunday 21 March 2010
Over the longer stuff, and by longer I mean upwards from half marathons, I have not had much success with executing pre-race strategies. In fact up until yesterday I had had NO success at all.
It was my first race as 35 year old (was I older and wiser? Who am I kidding). Sadly though, this race only had veteran categories for 40 and up. It was also potentially my last race in the old Rowheath colours as we are switching to new kit aligned with our new club as from 1 April. More on that merger in another post maybe…
So the coach (my wife) had come up with a foolproof race strategy. Easy first couple of miles, then slot into 6:45 (target marathon) pace and run as big a chunk of the race as possible AT THIS PACE. No giving in to temptation and pushing harder, no matter how good I feel. Assuming I still had the legs, the final part of the plan was to cut loose from the 17 mile mark. So that was the strategy. Simple.
Armed with one other piece of wisdom, from a running friend, PQ, who is the guru when it comes to judging pace in a long race. She has a rule that the first 2km must be equal to or slower than target pace. So I decided that my first two miles would be 7 minutes or slower each. The gun went and we were off. First mile…6:18. I cursed out loud and announced to the runners around me that the first mile was definitely short. No-one said anything. I didn’t panic though and pulled it right back for the second, which was just shy of 7 minutes. After that I spent the rest of the first lap (it was a two lapper) concentrating hard on not messing up the pace by going too fast but also not overcompensating and taking it too easy and ending up running 7:30s or something.
The first ten went by in 67:37 which is pretty darn close to the 6:45 pace I was after. Bec and the girls handed me a lucozade at halfway. On the second lap I was tempted to push on but restrained myself, repeating in my head what Bec had told me the day before. “You need to know what 6:45 feels like. Run as much of the race as you can at 6:45.” At the 16 mile mark I subconsciously started to speed up in anticipation of the 17 mile mark where I knew I was allowed to kick for home.
And that’s pretty much how it went, with the final four miles being my quickest of the race.
I ended with a 2:13:16 (or a 2:12:35 if 32km is your preference. The organisers had marked the 32km point – very handy for the metric-heads).
Job done. I finished 35th overall which was fitting I thought, as a 35-year old…
My training partner, Nice-guy-Eddie (formerly racing-snake-Eddie), had a storming effort, coming home in 2:01, finishing 6th overall, picking up prize money on top of winning a lucky draw prize, and generally making a mockery of my carefully executed 2:13…
He and his fiancé did bake some lovely cupcakes for us all to enjoy on the way there, so we’ll let him off.
Joking aside, an outstanding performance from Ed. If he keeps improving at this rate, well who knows where he may end up…
Some splits from my race:
| Splits: | Pace/mi | |
| 1st 10mi | 01:07:37 | 00:06:46 |
| 2nd 10mi | 01:05:39 | 00:06:34 |
| 1st 5mi | 00:33:37 | 00:06:43 |
| 2nd 5mi | 00:34:00 | 00:06:48 |
| 3rd 5mi | 00:33:55 | 00:06:47 |
| 4th 5mi | 00:31:44 | 00:06:21 |
The full monty, if you just cant get enough:
| Mile | Split | Cumulative |
| 1 | 00:06:18 | 00:06:18 |
| 2 | 00:06:47 | 00:13:05 |
| 3 | 00:06:57 | 00:20:02 |
| 4 | 00:06:53 | 00:26:55 |
| 5 | 00:06:42 | 00:33:37 |
| 6 | 00:07:01 | 00:40:38 |
| 7 | 00:06:48 | 00:47:26 |
| 8 | 00:06:51 | 00:54:17 |
| 9 | 00:06:32 | 01:00:49 |
| 10 | 00:06:48 | 01:07:37 |
| 11 | 00:06:39 | 01:14:16 |
| 12 | 00:06:58 | 01:21:14 |
| 13 | 00:06:46 | 01:28:00 |
| 14 | 00:07:00 | 01:35:00 |
| 15 | 00:06:32 | 01:41:32 |
| 16 | 00:06:47 | 01:48:19 |
| 17 | 00:06:21 | 01:54:40 |
| 18 | 00:06:22 | 02:01:02 |
| 19 | 00:06:16 | 02:07:18 |
| 20 | 00:05:58 | 02:13:16 |
midpack slacker 