Last weekend (edit: more like 3 weeks ago since it's taken me so long to finish this post) myself and three mates headed to Rotorua to spend three days on the legendary trails down there. I'd never ridden there before, being quite a newbie to the whole mountain biking thing, but my old mate from high school, Alex, and usual riding buddy James are both experienced riders who have been there many a time.
We stayed at the Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park, which is about 2-3km from the main entrance to the trails, so each day we got up, got some food and then a quick ride along the road and we were in business. Our cabin was fairly tiny with 2 single beds and a pair of single bunks, no fridge or bathroom, and with 4 bikes inside I'm sure we would've all perished trying to get out in the event of a fire
The first day was definitely the most epic of the three. We were all nice and fresh and did two sessions on the hill. In the morning we mostly rode the trails on the lower half of the mountain (can't decide whether the area counts as a mountain, but since we were mountain biking I'm going to claim it). The first thing that struck me about the trails was that due to the surface being mud/clay based, as opposed to the sand/dirt base where we usually ride, the ground was packed nice and hard, and the trails rode really fast.
Here we all are at the top of a trail called Hot X Buns
The way the trails were built tended to utilise natural features such as roots, stumps and the general shape of the terrain to create jumps and drops, whereas at Woodhill most of the jumps are constructed from timber (presumably because the sandy base wont hold together to form a ramp). Some areas in the lower section had been logged, which made it feel a bit like you were riding through a wasteland, plus the lack of shade meant the surface was dry and dusty.
Stopped for a break at the lower carpark
After about 35km of riding we headed back to the cabin for some lunch (mmm Burgerfuel) and a bit of a rest, then went back out in the early afternoon. In the afternoon we took advantage of the shuttle to reduce our climbing a bit. The shuttle runs from part-way up the mountain to near the top. I felt a little bit like I was "cheating" taking a shuttle uphill so I could ride downhill, but it was still exhausting work so I got over it pretty quick. There were a number of trails we did from the top which still required a decent climb to the start of them - these included "Billy T" and "Split Enz", which I'd consider to be two of the best trails in the whole park. Below is a video of the Split Enz trail from the website, below that is a picture I took of the view (which coincidentally is where the video finishes)
The view from the Split Enz trail
In our afternoon session we hit some of the proper downhill tracks for the first time. These trails are just such a blast to ride, the one from the top called Huckleberry Hound has almost endless doubles, supposedly there's around 45 jumps on this trail, all of them very forgiving and it was great practise and a real confidence builder. Here's a video I found on youtube, business starts at 1:32
Returning to our cabin we had clocked up about 65km for the day, and I was completely shattered. By about 9pm everyone was in bed and asleep or nearly there: a bit nana-ish but we wanted to get the most out of our weekend of riding. Sunday was a solid day at the mountain, we arrived early enough to catch the shuttle leaving from the very bottom and did several runs of the downhill tracks, including another jump track called "Little Red Riding Huck" and a sweet one called "Corners", which features a good 20 or so nicely bermed hairpins.
Our bikes loaded on the shuttle ready to head up for the day
We ended up doing about 45km on Sunday, and thanks to the weather packing in around mid afternoon we were drenched and our bikes a bit of a mess by the time we got back to our cabin.
Our final day was a relatively short one; exhaustion from the previous days, lack of a shuttle due to it being a weekday, and the hours of driving ahead of us meant we only rode about 25km, most of them with a definite lack of vigour. We did manage a pretty significant climb to the top of one of the hills which had a pretty fantastic view down over Rotorua
The felling makes it less lovely, but there were plenty of trees through most of the park
Alex and James taking a break at the top of the climb
The problem with racking up 140km of mountain biking is the associated injuries - as you can see in the pictures below my shins took a bit of a beating. A number of these are pedal scrapes that would've been avoided if I was using cleats (lesson learned, I now have cleats on the MTB), but I think before any other big weekends of riding I might get some shin/knee guards too.
During the trip I discovered that Alex is going to spend the Xmas/NY holidays riding in Queenstown - sounded like a great way to spend the break so I decided to join him: 10 days of riding, should be a blast!
Today I have a long day at work babysitting an engine running through an automated test cycle - so I thought I'd kill some time by writing another blog post. I virtually didn't update this blog at all through my marathon training, so thought I might recap it, just to give some insight into what preparation it took to get me through my first marathon.
Marathon Training Plans
There are a ton of marathon plans available online, in books and magazines, catering for everyone from a first timer just looking to finish, to a seasoned runner wanting to achieve a particular time goal. I spent a bit of time looking around, one that caught my eye was the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training (FIRST) first timer's plan. The plan differs from many marathon plans in that it only involves 3 runs a week, with additional conditioning coming through cross-training. I liked the idea of this, as running 5 or 6 times a week is quite demanding, and I wanted to have time to do other activities that I enjoy, such as cycling. I was worried that it might be a bit light on miles compared with most plans, but after reading several good testimonials on various forums I decided to give it a try. See the FIRST programs here
The FIRST Program
There are actually two 20-week programs - one for first timers and one for experienced runners, they both use the same basic structure but the one for experienced runners has more strenuous speed-work, and builds the long run much more quickly. The three runs are: Speed work - intervals of various distances at a prescribed pace, dictated by your 10k race pace. These were usually around 9-12km, with up to 6km of that being at a fast pace. Tempo run - ranging in distance from 8km up to 16km, either at a constant pace (i.e. 10k pace + 10sec/km), or using a pattern such as 3km slow, 3km @10k pace, 3km slow Long run - ranging from about 18km up to 33km (i.e. 20 miles), pace prescribed as planned marathon pace + xx seconds/km.
On top of that, you are to do 2 30 minute cross training sessions per week, I usually just did one mountain biking session of about 2-3 hours, and occasionally added a 5-10k run.
Me and FIRST
Initially I started out on the beginner's marathon plan, but after a couple of weeks I decided I didn't think it was pushing me enough, so I switched to the experienced marathoners plan. With only 2 half marathons under my belt, I was a long way from an "experienced marathoner", but I decided that if I could manage the runs at the paces set by the plan then it would be fine.
I probably struggled the most with the speed sessions, it may have partly been that it's difficult to monitor intervals of the order of 200-1200m using GPS, but often I wouldn't quite be able to make the target pace. After 7 weeks of the program, the O'Hagans 5k series started again after a break over winter, and I replaced the speed sessions with a weekly 5k race. In the first 3 races of the series I dropped about 20-30 seconds per week to bring my 5k PB down to 18:23 :)
The tempo runs were great, a nice combination of distance and speed. I usually managed to knock them out quicker than the required pace. I haven't actually raced a 10k, so I'd guessed my 10k pace to be 4:20/km based on a half marathon pace of 4:27 and 5k of about 4:00. Looking back, I suspect I should've started around 4:15 and I think I could possibly manage a sub-40 10k now.
The long runs were long. For the first few I started out around 5:30/km, but I found running at that pace my stride was quite poor and I would get sore knees very quickly, so most of my long runs were in the range 4:50-5:15/km, depending on length. I did find I started to run out of gas once I got around the 30km mark, which made me reasonably concerned about how I would handle 42km! Also FWIW, my initial planned marathon pace was 5:00 (for a 3hr 30 marathon), but later on I was working with a planned pace around 4:45 (actual pace was 4:38).
Weekly and long run distance for my marathon build up. Note week 19 is race week
As you can see above, my weekly distance varied between 35 and 63km through the program, which is really quite low for a marathon plan.
Injuries and Down time
I think one of the excellent things about the FIRST plan is that 3 purposeful runs per week makes you less likely to suffer injuries than running 5+ times a week and clocking up 70-100 slow kilometers. I didn't suffer any specific running injuries during my training, although I think I came close during the O'Hagans 5k in which I set my current PB - it was only a couple of days after a 33km run, and I got a sudden sharp pain in my hip near the start which almost made me stop, it disappeared shortly after and I pushed very hard over the last 200-300m, leaving my legs in a pretty sorry state for several days afterwards.
I had about 1.5 weeks off early in the program due to getting the flu, it was the first time I had gone an entire week without running since sometime last year, and my first sick day in 2 years at my job.
Life and Marathon Training
I found the demands of marathon training to be a lot less of an impediment to other parts of my life than triathlon training had been over summer. The Rugby World Cup was on during the last 2 months of my training and most weeks I went out at least once to a bar or one of the "fan zones" in the city with my mates to watch a game. I did my part in supporting the New Zealand liquor industry during those weeks, and I also had plenty of time to get to work on my cars, making good progress on some fairly major work I'm doing on the MR2 which I hope will be finished some time over summer.
Gear!
Fortunately I didn't spend nearly as much money buying gear or entering races as I did over summer, but I did add a few more shoes to my collection. I replaced my beloved fluorescent green Saucony Kinvaras with some fluorescent orange Saucony Kinvara 2s. The old ones had over 1000km on them and were starting to get quite worn on the soles, although with claims that the Kinvaras would only last 300km or so I was pleasantly surprised that one pair lasted me about 6 months of quite heavy use. I also finally got some nice trail shoes, the somewhat legendary New Balance MT101s. I haven't used them much yet, but they look awesome, are very comfortable and seem like great shoes, I might post up some detailed thoughts on them once I get a chance to really put them through their paces.
Two brilliant pairs of shoes, MT101 on the left and Kinvara 2 on the right
I did however blow a decent chunk of money on a new mountain bike. It's full suspension Norco with about 6 inches of travel front and rear, riding it has seen my bravery over jumps, drops and descents increase significantly, I love it! A group of us have been discussing a trip to Europe next year which will include the Pass'Portes du Soleil mountain bike race, nearly 100km of mostly downhill riding through the Alps, it looks amazing!
My steed after a particularly muddy ride at Riverhead
Song of the Day
This damn song! I listened to it several times the day before the marathon and it was continuously looping in my head for most of the first 20km or so! A classic from the Canadian rock band, Rush - Tom Sawyer, this one is a live performance with a nice little cameo from the South Park boys. Enjoy!
Finishing the Half Marathon in
Melbourne last October
Well, today I ran my first ever marathon. I’m going to start my story just over a year ago, when I ran my first half marathon in Melbourne. Having just completed the 21.1km, I was incredibly proud, but at the same time in awe of those who had undertaken the much bigger task of running the full marathon. I remember running the last section where the marathon and half marathon courses joined and looking at the marathon’s kilometer markers with big scary numbers on them like 36km - and just thinking I was so glad that I didn’t have to run that far! But somewhere, very quietly inside me, something said “I wonder if I could do a marathon?”. So moving ahead about 54 weeks in time, last night I was sitting on the couch, carb loading on pizza and beer (full disclosure: I only had about 2/3rds of the beer before feeling bad and stopping), and realising that tomorrow I’d be answering that question.
I was never going to get a lot of sleep, the 3am start to get down to the ferry, combined with pre-race nerves and anticipation meant I only got around 1 hour of sleep, in two short bursts (but got through a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory in between). I wasn’t too concerned, all the “big” races I’ve done in the last 12 months had been preceded with only 2-5 hours of sleep and it has never been an issue. Breakfast was coffee and 2 pieces of toast; between 5am and race start at 6:10am I had 2 gels and a bottle of Powerade, and went to the toilet twice...
My target pace for the race was 4:45 per km, for a time of 3 hours 20. I thought this was ambitious and expected I’d probably manage it for the first half but possibly fade in the second to finish somewhere around 3:25-3:30. I hit the 1km board around 4:30, and continued to put in similar splits for the following ks. To non-runners that 15 seconds per km might not seem like much, but I was still a bit concerned that I was going too fast.
Something you only ever get to practice during a race is the art of drinking out of a cup while running. It had been a while since I last attempted that and the first aid station at 4km left me covered in Powerade and choking. The second aid station came up pretty quickly and was my cue to take a gel, the plan being to take one every second aid station or roughly every 8km. By that point the field was already pretty spread out, I was running with a woman from the YMCA marathon club and we were holding a pretty consistent and comfortable pace, and I was feeling good.
Rounding the corner onto the motorway just before the bridge, about 13km in, there was a group of people playing those big Japanese drums - it was awesome! You really appreciate the support from the crowds, and people going the extra mile like that really puts a smile on your face. The harbour bridge ended up being a lot easier than I expected. The section up to that point is really quite hilly and I was surprised by how good my legs felt at the top of the bridge. The view was great, but there wasn’t a great deal of time to enjoy it! By now I was about 3 minutes ahead of my target time, and I think I made up even more time on the way down the bridge.
Top of the Harbour Bridge
I’d been drinking Powerade at every aid station, and as I came through Wynyard Quarter at about 19km I realised I was definitely going to have to stop for a piss. I didn’t really want to lose my pace buddy, but I also didn’t want to wet myself! The stop cost me about 60 seconds, but I still came through the half way mark at 1:37, 3 minutes up on my target. I was starting to think my goal time was looking more and more achievable.
Rounding the tank farm with the bridge in the background, 20km-ish
My 22nd kilometer was my fastest of the race, a 4:19 according to my GPS. I was still feeling good, but the long haul out to St Heliers was looking moderately intimidating! From about 27 or 28km, I knew things were getting bad because I was constantly looking for the next kilometer marker, and the next aid station. Going back over the GPS log, I had been consistently splitting in the 4:30s but from the 29th I dropped into the 4:40s. Somewhere around here I caught up to and passed the YMCA woman from earlier who looked to be fading at this point
On the way out to St Heliers, 26km-ish
I checked my time at 32km, just after the turn around at St Heliers and 10.2km to go - somewhere around 2 hours 27, on track to beat my target but now running on very tired legs. Took my 4th gel and switched from Powerade to Coke at the 33km aid station. As I now know, this is where the hard part of the marathon starts! I started catching up to people who had been reduced to walking, and an even larger number of people who were still running but had drastically slowed. Every now and then I’d feel my hamstrings or quads give a bit of a twinge, which was quite worrying as cramping would be disasterous at this point. I was also now entering uncharted territory, the longest I’d run in training was 33km and everything beyond brought questions of whether my legs could keep pushing me along, whether my battered knees would bring me a world of pain, whether I’d been fuelling well enough to avoid the dreaded wall.
36km, another aid station and I chugged back some more Coke.
37km, only 5k to go, should be less than 25 minutes now.
38km, should be less than 20 minutes. Can I keep running for another 20 minutes, that’s kinda ages.
Up the small hill to the Tamaki Drive/Quay St/The Strand intersection. Is that the 39km sign? Take another gel, aid station should be up here.
Top of the hill, come on legs, I think we’re going to do this. Where the hell is the aid station? My mouth feels so dry after that gel.
Running past Vector Arena - here’s the aid station, thank fuck! More coke, lots of cheering and support. There’s the 40km sign, and bunch of people from Max College for Fitness Professionals - I recognise the woman from the Albany Lakes series, run past with my arm out and high five all of them, awesome!
Pace is increasing, nothing drastic but I’m going to finish this bad boy strong! Through the Viaduct and past the 41km sign, watch says 3:11 - should be over in 5 minutes!
Must be close to the finish now, check the watch again but it’s only 3:13, still more than half a k left.
Coming out of the Viaduct and there’s fences everywhere, so many people around! Lots of cheering and encouragement, no other marathoners in sight
Looking up at the clock, just before the finish line
Turn a right hand corner and onto the final 100m or so! I can see the clock - 3:15:xx, suddenly it hits me that I’m about to finish my first marathon and to do so in a time that I never even dreamed of!
Arms in the air as I go under the finish gate, I imagine this might seem strange but I almost wanted to cry/almost did.
Staggered to the final aid station beyond the finish, 2 cups of water over my head, 3 down the hatch, inhaled a banana, more staggering, got my finisher’s medal along with lots of praise and a bottle of Powerade, which also went straight down the hatch in no time. Collapsed in the middle of Victoria Park and just lay there for about 20 minutes, relieved to be off my feet, feeling pretty smug and dieing just a bit.
Eventually I got up and went to claim my free beer, which turned into 2 free beers and a long sit down in a chair in the sun. Felt great - physically I felt completely shattered, was hobbling around like a gimp but just felt amazing.
Spent
Despite drinking at every aid station and everything I consumed after the finish, I lost 1.5kg, presumably in sweat, between getting up this morning and arriving home afterwards. Since then I’ve been working on recovering the 3,600 calories I burnt, trying to sleep, and alternating the one bandage I have between my knees and ankles to give the joints some compression.
Done!
So my official time was 3:15:59, 6 minutes short of a Boston Qualification for 2012. First half split was 1:37:02, second half 1:38:56. Finish placing was 125th out of 2,307 finishers.
During the marathon training I didn’t do any swimming but mountain biked at least once a week. From here I’m going to cut my running back to probably twice a week, get a lot more cycling in and get back into the pool. Next goal: half ironman (don’t know which yet)
Song of the Day Some Japanese drummers, much like those on the course before the bridge
Over the last few weeks I've been really getting in to mountain biking. There's a bike park in Auckland (well, it's more the "greater Auckland area" and about a 140km round trip from home) that has around 60 or 70 trails, and I've been there every weekend for the last few. I really enjoy the combination of exercise plus the quite intense adrenaline rush of fast downhills, jumps and such, plus it's much more social than running or road cycling - probably helped by the fact that a lot more of my mates do it, probably because they look at it as "fun" rather than training or exercise.
A jump at Woodhill, from Google image search
The trails at Woodhill forest are a great set up - they have a series of map stations with several different trails providing the routes between each. Most of the trails have jumps and/or wooden structures on them, with each rated by difficulty and usually with a bypass to avoid it if needed. The trails are mostly sand-based, which means they don't get too boggy when it's wet, although you do still get some decent mud puddles on the busier trails.
Another Woodhill shot from Google images
I've seen small increases in my skill, and disproportionately large increases in confidence - which is great, each time I go I'm tackling harder jumps and structures, going at increasingly absurd speeds on the descents, and finding my limits (i.e. falling off) more regularly. No real injuries other than the odd scrape or bruise yet, hopefully I can keep it that way
River crossing at the Hunua Ranges mountain bike trails (Google images again)
Yesterday we went out to the mountain bike trails in the Hunua Ranges, just south of Auckland. The trails there are quite different to Woodhill - largely dirt or clay with gravel laid down, a lot tighter and narrower, not as highly maintained, no man-made structures or jumps, and generally a lot fewer trails (maybe 5 or so?). It was still great fun, it was pretty wet so we all ended up incredibly muddy and quite saturated; the river was high which meant carrying the bikes through nearly waist-deep water at times. I would say I still prefer the trails at Woodhill, but Hunua does make a nice change (and being only a 100km round trip it's moderately more convenient)
I think mountain biking is likely to become a staple of my winter training diet. Especially during bad weather, it's much more enticing than getting on my road bike to dice with cars on Auckland's roads, and I do like to get a bit battered, bruised and muddy every now and then :)
Vibram Five Fingers
I wanted to add a brief note about my VFFs. I've been steadily increasing my running in them, last week I did 3 runs of 6.5, 7 and 10.5 kms in them, and I'm really enjoying it. Last night I did the 10.5km in pouring rain and it was great fun - the lack of cushioning and increased feel underfoot really makes you feel more connected to the experience than running in normal running shoes. I now don't even think about my stride or landing in them, I just run and it all comes very naturally. My calves still get quite sore by the end of a long run, but they're fine the next day and feel fully recovered 2 days later. I think I'm going to sign up for the next race in the Xterra trail run series and do it in these.
Song of the Day
Oops, forgot again. Keeping with my current tradition of posting a pretty diverse range of music, here's some dubstep - one of my secret, dirty pleasures. Last night's run I was listening to a bunch of Skrillex, streamedfrom my laptop to my phone thanks to Audiogalaxy (awesome program), here's one of his tracks called Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
I haven't been able set aside time to write a blog entry here in a while - work has been uncharacteristically full-on and I've had a few other things on my plate. Unfortunately blogging is near the bottom of my list of priorities so it's the first to be dropped when time is really tight.
Huntly Half Marathon
About 14km in, looking serious
So I ran my second half marathon last Sunday. I devised a training program with a sole focus on running to span the 5 weeks from my last triathlon to the half marathon. My main goal was to improve my run-specific endurance so that I could maintain a relatively fast pace for the full 21.1km. I started with a 44km week, built to 60km/week. I was cautious about avoiding injury (although I did break the 10%/week rule), and ended up cutting the distance down in my second to last week when my legs were telling me they'd had enough.
My original goal for the race was to go sub 1:40 - having run a 1:47 at my first half marathon. My run pace in the Olympic triathlon (sub 4:30/km) and the pace I was able to hit on mid-distance training runs made me think I might be able to get close to 4:30/km pace for the race, which would be 1:35. It seemed a bit ridiculous because to me that kind of time is getting into the realm of "good" runners (and is faster than my 5K pace was in December).
Finish chute
The first couple of km's of the race I was running about 4:15 pace and told myself to calm down and slow down. As each successive km marker went past, I found I was managing to hold a sub 4:30 pace without feeling like I was pushing particularly hard. About 14km in I decided if I was still feeling good I'd pick up the pace at 16km. I actually started gradually picking up and by the time the 16km marker went by I was pushing a decent pace and passing a lot of people. The last km I picked up further and actually approached my 5k pace, to finish with a time of 1:31:04. Unfortunately the organisers later announced they had screwed up their calculations on the measurement wheel, and the whole course was 600m short! They adjusted times for the additional distance and mine was 1:33:57 - still a time that I'm immensely proud of.
I actually wonder if I would've gone faster if the course had been marked correctly - the slightly short km's meant I thought I was running faster than I was, and forced myself to slow down a bit. I also wonder how things would've gone if I hadn't been wearing a stopwatch and monitoring my pace, and had just run to RPE.
Going through the GPS data I recorded (with more accurate distance), I ended up running a decent negative split - first half (only 10.25km) was 46:31 and second half was 44:33. In fact I did the final 10km in 43:37 which is about 4:20/km pace and a 10km PB for me. So now I have a new goal (which I wont be testing until near the end of the year) - sub 1:30. Requires a 4:15 pace but I think I'll be capable of that after a winter of marathon training.
O'Hagans
I've run the O'Hagans 5k every week since early April - I had posted earlier about how I was consistently dropping my times. Two days after the Oly I managed a 19:22, but since then I haven't come close. The following week was 19:5x and then the last three weeks I've run either 19:38 or 19:39. I can't decide if this is due to fatigue (my initial guess, but during my taper before the half marathon I didn't get any faster) or if it just reflects the change in the intensity of my training. I also won a $100 bar tab as a spot prize at one of the races...that went down well :)
Five Fingers
I tried to incorporate a short run in the VFFs each week, usually 4 or 5km. I really enjoy running in them, I think perhaps over the next few weeks where I don't have any specific events to be training for, I might get out in them more and build my distance in them further. Actually since it took me so long to finish this post, I ran the final O'Hagan's run of the series yesterday in my VFFs. Found them to be a little slippery in a couple of spots (it was raining), and my calves felt alright at the end (sore today though). My time was 5 seconds slower than my last runs in the Kinvaras, which is better than I expected to do in them.
Other Stuff
I've done very little riding and no swimming for the last month or so, have done a bit of mountain biking and think I might try get out and do that more regularly over winter.
Song of the Day
Nearly forgot. Bit different from my last few, Sound Check (Gravity) by Gorillaz from their first (self titled) album
Yesterday I completed my first Olympic distance triathlon, which has been the primary goal of my training for the last 17 weeks. For a more structured race report with times and such, you can read my report on BeginnerTriathlete.com here
After completing my first triathlon, the Sprint distance at Mission Bay last December, I decided I wanted to do the Olympic distance being held at the same venue at the end of the season. It's a great spot for a triathlon, based around a small, popular beach with a large grassy reserve, near Auckland City and surrounded by cafes, bars and restraurants. The course for the bike and run is dead flat, with a nice smooth surface. It's also probably the most popular triathlon in Auckland, largely due to the central location and welcoming atmosphere, but also helped by the severe lack of well organised triathlons in Auckland.
In preparation for this event, I've been following one of the free training programs from Beginner Triathlete, the 16 week Olympic 3x Balanced program (meaning 3 workouts for each discipline per week, with an even emphasis on all three). I followed the program pretty closely, I missed a couple of workouts when I went away over New Years, and stretched one of the weeks out a bit around the North Shore Coastal Challenge. In the peak week of the program I swam 7.2km, rode 170km and ran just over 40km. I was very happy with how my speed and endurance progressed over the program, and felt well prepared for the race.
The Race
I was up at 4:30am to get ready, giving myself plenty of time to eat, shower, dose up on caffeine and drive in; arrived in heavy darkness at the venue just before 6. It was nice to be there early enough to get a park real close to transition, and a great spot in transition: there were probably only 10 or so bikes racked when I arrived.
The sun had just come up when the race started at 7:05, the start actually came up sooner than I was expecting and I commented to my mate Oly (who I've shared the triathlon journey with) that I didn't feel prepared - in a short term/mental kind of way. I hadn't got myself into a preferred spot for the start, so I was roughly in the middle of the lineup and a few people back from the front. This put me right in the thick of the busiest swim start I've been in. Fortunately I'm not too phased by crowded starts, but it's still not my preference and I got quite frustrated by not being able to settle into a steady pace. I think I have a lot to learn about how to get the best out of myself in a busy open water swim.
Anyway, my swimming is still at a point where I'm mostly thinking about getting to the end, and thankfully the 1500m went by quite quickly, and I was into T1. Apart from being slightly held up trying to get around some dudes who were walking to transition, T1 was fast and smooth. Had the wetsuit around my waist by the time I got to my bike, quickly got it off and my helmet and glasses on and I was out of there. Blew past a bunch of folk standing on the mount line trying to get clipped in as I jumped on the bike and pedalled on top of my already clipped-in shoes as I got up to speed. Slipped into the shoes easily and I was quickly hammering along at a good rate.
Crossing past the transition area on my second lap
I took a GU gel, calmed myself down and tried to get my heart rate down below 165. I knew this was going to be a tri of massive draft packs, further to my post complaining about drafting in this series I had found an official description of the events as being geared toward participation rather than rules compliance, so accepted it would happen but decided to stick to my guns and ride my own race, head on into the wind at all times! Apart from a bit of rain making things a bit damp, I really enjoyed the ride. I maintained a pace I was very happy with the whole way and was clearly closing the 3 minute gap that Ollie had put on me in the swim.
Unfortunately on the third lap (of 4) I saw Ollie at the side of the road fixing a puncture, meaning there would be no epic battle between us on the run. I was a lot more assertive on the bike this time round, in terms of warning people I was coming through or asking them to make way, possibly because I was actually overtaking a significant number of people (probably mostly doing the Sprint), and was not interested in getting caught up in a crash due to a lack of communication. Any time that I came up behind someone or a group of people who I was only marginally faster than, and thought there was a chance they'd try to jump on the back, I increased my speed enough to not give them a chance to get in to my draft, which proved 100% successful in keeping my ass free of leeches.
This picture is from my first race here in December. I find it interesting to see how much worse my position was then. Also, note the leeches (those guys didn't even try to take a pull)
On the final lap of the bike the wind started to pick up a bit, and I was starting to really feel the burn in my hamstrings and glutes after close to an hour in the aero position at a high level of effort. I started to wonder if this was going to hurt me significantly in the run, and if perhaps I'd been pushing too hard, but I think I needn't have worried. I sucked down a second gel shot about 2km from the end of the bike.
Coming in to T2 I was feeling pretty good and psyched for the run. I'd already slipped out of my shoes, and to avoid knocking them off the pedals I carried the bike slightly off the ground with one hand as I ran to my rack, overtaking a number of very tired and spent looking people on the way through. Again, things went very smoothly. I racked the bike front-first by the brake levers, slipped into my magical Saucony Kinvaras, and ran off, putting my race belt on as I went. I'm not sure why, but I didn't feel anywhere near as bad as I usually do coming off the bike, and was running strong from the beginning.
Although I no longer had to worry about Ollie, I'd been keeping an eye on a third person with whom we also have a bit of a running battle with - Mark, an Engineering Faculty member who lectured us both during our degrees and who is now Ollie's supervisor for his Masters project. He's a very quick runner and has thoroughly routed us both in the run of the last two triathlons we all did, and at the O'Hagans 5K races. I was guessing I had about 2 minutes on him at the last point I'd seen him on the bike, and expected he'd be up to 5 minutes faster than me on the run.
As soon as I hit the run, I started overtaking people. I was feeling pretty good, but was weary about going out too fast and running out of legs before the end; so I sat at what was a comfortable pace, and progressed through the crowd. The run course is 2.5km out along the bike course, then back again, obviously with 2 laps to make it 10km.
About 1km into the run I saw Ollie go past on the bike, at the point I knew that there would be no miraculous comeback and I'd have a hollow victory on that front. After the first turn around I saw Mark and guessed I was around 500m ahead of him, he was looking strong and I was sure he'd be upon me in no time. I crossed Ollie at about 3.5km, we high fived and shouted encouragement as we passed. Coming to the turn around at 5km I ran through the central area and saw my family who had come along to support me. I'd caught brief glimpses of my dad while on the bike but this was the first time I'd spotted my mother and sister too. It's always great to have support!
Didn't get in many pics, but here's me in the background. Most of the people around me were in the Sprint distance
Since about 4km a guy I passed had been sitting right behind me. We'd had a couple of brief exchanges and he seemed like a nice guy, but around 7km I decided I had enough in the tank to pick up my pace significantly so decided it was time to bring the pain. I had been running with HR around 158 (lower than usual, was feeling limited by muscle tiredness more than aerobic ability), and stepped it up to 165+. I'd guess I went from a pace of 4:35-4:40/km to 4:15-4:20. I lost him quite easily, and began catching a few reasonably quick guys and girls who had been just ahead of me. Some of them tried to keep up but I think I'd paced myself really well because none could hang on. After the final turn-around at 7.5km, I crossed Mark at roughly the same point we'd crossed on the first lap - shortly after it was the same with Ollie! Apparently I was running at close to the same pace as these two who are significantly faster runners than I in open runs - very pleased and feeling great. Around 9km I was overtaken by a very speedy woman, probably in the 40-49 age group - I was well impressed by her pace and had no intention of trying to keep up!
Coming through the 5K mark with my new buddy on my heels
Coming through the last couple hundred metres I gave my last kick - unfortunately nobody ahead worth trying to chase down, but I wanted to finish knowing I'd given it all I could. Coming across the finish line I found I'd finished in 2:27:xx - comfortably under the 2:30 I'd predicted. My time for the run was 44:47 which is faster than I expected, and is now my 10K PB.
Because this post is getting quite lengthy, I wont go through my post-race activities, but I will say it involved a lot of high carbohydrate foods, a giant Belgian beer, a spa, and about 4 hours sleeping on the couch in front of the TV.
So the next challenge is a half marathon in 5 weeks. My aim is sub 1:40, but based on how I ran yesterday I really wonder if I might have more like a 1:35 in me.
Song of the Day
To go with the rest of this post, I wanted to pick a song that's been heavily featured in my "run" playlist as I've trained my way to this race over the last 4 months. This does mean you probably wont like it, as I do like to listen to songs with some guts to them when I'm running. It's not my favourite song, but it really motivates me when I'm pushing through the end of a fast training run. The song is "Bradley", by the now-defunct band Coal Chamber
Yesterday I ran in the O'Hagans 5K, which I believe I've mentioned in previous posts, and happily managed to maintain my previous record of PBing the 5K every time I run one. My 5K PB record has progressed as follows:
Nov: 22:30 (training run)
Dec: 21:43 (training)
Jan: 21:00 (first 5km race, bit of a hill)
Feb: 20:57 (same race as previous, eased off on the final hill to keep heart rate down = error)
later in Feb: 20:05 (O'Hagans, flat course, possibly up to 30 seconds short)
Mar: 19:51 (O'Hagans)
Apr: 19:27 (yesterday)
I was amazed at how much I was able to pull off my last time. Although the previous two 5Ks I'd run had been during low-volume/recovery weeks in my program, I'm now fully in taper mode so perhaps that helped; it was also my first race in my new, feels-so-light-and-fast Kinvaras.
I suspect the biggest difference is actually the reason why I've been racing as often as I can, which is just getting better at executing a race. I felt like throughout this one I was able to stay focused and as a result not allow myself to ease off in the later half of the race when the discomfort levels are getting steadily harder to ignore. My average heart rate from the race was 171, and max 183 - both of these are the highest I can remember having seen (I have suspected for a long time that I'm a low max HR person).
I had a nice little sprint finish too, I'd been slowly closing in on a guy who'd overtaken me about 1km in to the run, and managed to really put the hammer down over the last 100m to close the ~5-10m gap and just edge him out. I was beaten by a friend of mine from uni who has been doing the series barefoot! He's made rapid progress over the last month or so since he first entered, I think his times have dropped from mid 20's to high 18's. I followed him quite closely for most of the way to the turnaround, but when we hit a section where there was grass he could run on rather than pavement, he absolutely flew and left me for dead.
Song of the Day
As promised, here's the obligatory song to accompany my post. It's another NZ band - this one is a now defunct group called Push Push. The song is nearly 20 years old, with a 80's hair-metal type of sound. I hadn't heard this in a long time but it appeared on a music channel on TV recently and I was reminded of its greatness. The song is called Song 27, I'm going to embed two versions, the longer one with no video has much better audio, but I thought I'd include the version w/ video too since it's not the same without video. Enjoy!
