Training was going pretty well. 12 weeks out from the marathon, I had a few months down with a calf strain. With some pretty aggressive physio I was back on my feet after a few weeks. Building volume back up went fairly will, but losing momentum 3 months out lead me to drop back to the half. I still felt pretty confident of a good time, and as I stood at the start line I felt that a 1:40 half was a realistic goal.
I rose very early on race day, and drove down to the Gold Coast, taking the tram from Helensvale. This part of the trip ran seamlessly, there was parking, the tram was great, went straight to Southport to the race precinct. I dropped my gear off at the bag tent, chilled out for a bit, soaked up some atmosphere, and finally joined the starting pack.
I set myself up at the front of start group B, we're talking 1:40 or so. I ran into a good acquaintance, and celebrated reaching the start line of the Gold Coast for another year.
The atmosphere at the start line was pretty electric, I was pumped. An hour-forty half marathon was in my grasp. Somewhere up the front the gun went off, and the crowd slowly started to move.
The start of an event like this is pretty crowded - there's not much room and it stays that way until the crowd thins out. There's usually a bit of jostling, but people are normally pretty polite.
As I ran across the start line, the crowd was quite a bit thicker than I expected, and wasn't as quick as I was expecting; I was coming up against people and finding it difficult to get around them without pushing. No one want to be that guy, and I was trying not to be a dick.
The right hand barricade was set up on the median strip and there was room to run, so I stepped up onto the median strip and made my way past a few slower runners. About 600m into the race, as I placed my right foot onto the ground, another runner jumped up into the median strip and knocked me off balance, my ankle gave an audible crack.
I stopped, aware instantly that the race was done, and also that getting home was going to be a bit of a mission.
This blog has gone one long enough. I saw a nice sunrise, and it was a mission getting home.
6 months of training, done. If that other runner had been a single second ahead or behind, it would have been a different outcome, but here we are.
Talking to the physio a few weeks later, it was a grade 2 ankle sprain. I'm finally back running 6 weeks later, but man, motivation is eluding me. I was pretty heartbroken at the time. Also the finisher's shirt was really good this year.
I'm not sure what this means for the future. I';m going to continue, I still want that BQ, but I feel like I'm back at the start.
Slightly crazy idea that a mid-low level plodder might achieve a BQ if he put his mind to it. I might talk about music, motorbikes or cycling if the mood takes me as well.
Current PBs
5km - 21:10.5 (23/07/17) (prev 22:43, 2013)
10km - 46:35 (2017) (prev 46:43, 2011)
14km - 67:30 (07/05/2017)
21.1km - 1:46:04 (02/07/2017) (prev 1:51, 2011)
42.2km - 4:11:14 (2011)
Friday, August 24, 2018
Thursday, March 08, 2018
Training begins
I've kicked off my 2018 campaign the right way I reckon. I'm 5 (6?) weeks into a training program from Pat Carrol, and it's going ok. The volume has been building up, and there's a couple of interval sessions thrown in during the week to add some variety and (hopefully) speed improvements.
The training program has seen my volume slowly step up to about 35-40km a week at the moment. That's going to start increasing as the long runs (currently at 1:50) will start to ramp up in the coming weeks. They top out at 3:20, which sounds quite outlandish. I've done it before, but the memory fades, leaving only a vague disbelief that that sort of effort is possible.
My planned run of events has been going pretty well. The Ipswich Trail Run Series runs were a bit of a mixed bag - the long courses were lap based and very heavily focused on single track.
I don't really enjoy either that much; laps feel like a wasted opportunity, and at the start of a race, single track is as frustrating as holiday traffic on the Bruce Highway with all the overtaking lanes removed. Also the tshirt this year turned out to be a singlet, which my least favourite form of torso covering.
Even so, really enjoyable runs, they make a great series of runs to ease into the year, and I'll probably be back next year.
ITRS #1 was a new course at White Rock. It was good to get some variety, and the terrain was mountain goat worthy in parts. Some great fun descents.
Hidden Valley hosted ITRS #2, and this is where I really noticed the downside of both the laps and the single track. The single 11km loop of the previous years was a really diverse and challenging run, and while this one was challenging, I felt the diversity lacked a bit. Doing two loops does mean that you can use the first lap as a sighting run, and it makes it easier to estimate when it's safe to start stepping up the effort for a strong finish, but at the expense of new scenery.
The three ITRS runs were about three weeks apart, so in between here I headed up to Stanthorpe to take part in That Dam Ride, a 125km ride that starts and finishes just out of town at Storm King Dam. I haven't been doing as much cycling this year, what with the training program and a tyre blowout, so I lined up at the start with a fair bit of trepidation. It's pretty hilly country up that way, and it did not disappoint in that regard - 1600m of climbing over the 125km. I rode with a mate from school, Mark, and we ended up in a well matched group of about 8 riders, which made a big difference to the last 25km or so.
The ride and the training load had taken it out of me, so the week leading up to ITRS #3 was very light on activity. Probably was the right call as the third race was by far the toughest - 4 steep, long grinding climbs followed by swift, sharp descents on some narrow, rocky and technical single track.
Luckily the following week has turned out to be a recovery week. Woohoo!
A big trail run coming up in a few weeks (Up The Buff 25km), so I'll be doing a few long runs with my camelbak to iron out any issues there. My body is holding up ok, tightness is starting to creep in around my hips and ITB, but managing to stay on top of it with pilates, massage, chiro and lots of foam roller.
Oh yeah, signed up for the 110km Great Brisbane Bike Ride as well. Should be good.
Only 16 more weeks to go.
The training program has seen my volume slowly step up to about 35-40km a week at the moment. That's going to start increasing as the long runs (currently at 1:50) will start to ramp up in the coming weeks. They top out at 3:20, which sounds quite outlandish. I've done it before, but the memory fades, leaving only a vague disbelief that that sort of effort is possible.
My planned run of events has been going pretty well. The Ipswich Trail Run Series runs were a bit of a mixed bag - the long courses were lap based and very heavily focused on single track.
I don't really enjoy either that much; laps feel like a wasted opportunity, and at the start of a race, single track is as frustrating as holiday traffic on the Bruce Highway with all the overtaking lanes removed. Also the tshirt this year turned out to be a singlet, which my least favourite form of torso covering.
Even so, really enjoyable runs, they make a great series of runs to ease into the year, and I'll probably be back next year.
ITRS #1 was a new course at White Rock. It was good to get some variety, and the terrain was mountain goat worthy in parts. Some great fun descents.
Hidden Valley hosted ITRS #2, and this is where I really noticed the downside of both the laps and the single track. The single 11km loop of the previous years was a really diverse and challenging run, and while this one was challenging, I felt the diversity lacked a bit. Doing two loops does mean that you can use the first lap as a sighting run, and it makes it easier to estimate when it's safe to start stepping up the effort for a strong finish, but at the expense of new scenery.
The three ITRS runs were about three weeks apart, so in between here I headed up to Stanthorpe to take part in That Dam Ride, a 125km ride that starts and finishes just out of town at Storm King Dam. I haven't been doing as much cycling this year, what with the training program and a tyre blowout, so I lined up at the start with a fair bit of trepidation. It's pretty hilly country up that way, and it did not disappoint in that regard - 1600m of climbing over the 125km. I rode with a mate from school, Mark, and we ended up in a well matched group of about 8 riders, which made a big difference to the last 25km or so.
The ride and the training load had taken it out of me, so the week leading up to ITRS #3 was very light on activity. Probably was the right call as the third race was by far the toughest - 4 steep, long grinding climbs followed by swift, sharp descents on some narrow, rocky and technical single track.
Luckily the following week has turned out to be a recovery week. Woohoo!
A big trail run coming up in a few weeks (Up The Buff 25km), so I'll be doing a few long runs with my camelbak to iron out any issues there. My body is holding up ok, tightness is starting to creep in around my hips and ITB, but managing to stay on top of it with pilates, massage, chiro and lots of foam roller.
Oh yeah, signed up for the 110km Great Brisbane Bike Ride as well. Should be good.
Only 16 more weeks to go.
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Taking Steps
Right, so the planning phase is 90% done with, tonight I've gone an formally organised for online coaching for the Gold Coast Marathon with Pat Carroll. I used the training programs Pat provided for the Gold Coast Marathons in 2010 and 2011, and found that they were easy to understand and to follow.
I'm really feel that with a solid and achievable program behind me I should be able to set myself up for a really good run at the goal for 2019.
I'm also hoping that another 10kg comes off and that a sub-20 minute 5km comes out of it as well...
I did the Lismore Parkrun this weekend (my 80th), and I'm very happy with my time of 22:12. It's a very tough course, with lots of 180 degree turns (9 of them!) and a couple of sharp hairpins. It's also sharply undulating. Not really right to call it hilly, but the changes in elevation are short and sharp so they hurt. It's not a run where you can easily fall into a comfortable rhythm.
You can kind of see from the heart rate and cadence data, but I don't think I trust the wrist heart rate monitor - there's no way my heart rate maxed out at 145bpm, I felt like I was at redline the whole way. The slightly cooler weather really made a huge difference to my time I think.
I'm really feel that with a solid and achievable program behind me I should be able to set myself up for a really good run at the goal for 2019.
I'm also hoping that another 10kg comes off and that a sub-20 minute 5km comes out of it as well...
I did the Lismore Parkrun this weekend (my 80th), and I'm very happy with my time of 22:12. It's a very tough course, with lots of 180 degree turns (9 of them!) and a couple of sharp hairpins. It's also sharply undulating. Not really right to call it hilly, but the changes in elevation are short and sharp so they hurt. It's not a run where you can easily fall into a comfortable rhythm.
You can kind of see from the heart rate and cadence data, but I don't think I trust the wrist heart rate monitor - there's no way my heart rate maxed out at 145bpm, I felt like I was at redline the whole way. The slightly cooler weather really made a huge difference to my time I think.