Monday 26 May 2008

Bupa London 10000 Race report

Talk about miserable conditions! It was pretty wet and a little blustery which didn't really help my mood going into the race. It was so miserable I didn't do a warmup, but that doesn't really mean much...I hate doing warm-ups. So enough of the chit-chat...I got around in (officially) 1hr 2m 55s which I'm happy enough with. Its a PB for me, so thats always good. Not too sure I could have given it much more (without blowing up), so in that regards, can't ask for much more.

I'm happy to report that I acheived three out of four of my goals for this race (see previous post). I'm really chuffed with that, so hopefully can progress with them for my next 10k.

Firstly, I ran the distance non-stop. This was actually pretty tough as I really had to fight with myself to keep going at times. Having other people around helps a lot, but I think the biggest help was that I'd set that out as my number one goal for the race.

Secondly, as I mentioned earlier, I ran a PB. Again, I don't think I could have done it much faster so happy enough there.

Thirdly, I ran a negative split...just about. I didn't really use HR to pace myself, but all the same it seemed to settle around the 170-172bpm mark for most of the race. This is about 10bpm higher than I normally train at, so would imply that I was slightly outside my "comfort" zone in the race. Officially, my splits were 31.32 and 31.24. Like I say, not a massive difference, but still a negative split all the same.

Finally, a word on what my Garmin had to say about things. Notice that the distance as 10.43km in 1.03.10 (6.03 pace). I guess that this means that over the course of the race I ran the guts of an extra half km, most likely dodging people or by not taking the "racing line". Bit of a sickener really, as that would have put me within reach of my fourth goal, breaking the hour mark. Oh well, I guess there's always next time.

Friday 23 May 2008

10k goals for Monday

Just want to publicly state a few goals for the 10km I'm doing on Monday ...
  1. Run the 10km non-stop
  2. Run a 10km PB
  3. Ideally do a negative split (2nd half of the race faster than the first)
  4. Break the hour mark
These are listed in order of likelihood. I've actually run a 10km non-stop in training, which means I can probably mentally and physically do it on Monday. Not going to be easy, especially at the start where there will likely be quite a bit of people to contend with.

The second of of these is also achievable. I've actually trained more up to this point (though not specifically for this race) than I have for any other event in recent times. My previous PB is approx. 1hr 05m which was done using a run\walk strategy. I generally find I'm faster using this approach, but hopefully I should be able to still acheive a PB by going non-stop.

The negative split I think could be tough. The idea behind this is so as not to set out too fast. I'm planning on sticking to a HR limit of 160bpm for the first half of the race as I normally do in training, but might just let that creep up a bit towards the end. I'd hope the last km for instance would be as fast as I can go (non-stop), so hopefully this goal is achievable.

Finally, I'd love to break the hour mark. This was actually a goal I wanted to break before the end of 2007, but obviously didn't achieve that. This is my first 10km race in 2008, so the first crack at it so to speak. Its probably doubtful, given the times I've been posting in training, but we can always hope.

Thursday 22 May 2008

Another brick session

Seem to be settling into a Wednesday night Gael Force training session with one of the lads. It suits us as we normally have football training Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Fridays generally don't suit. Mondays from now on might also be an option.

So tonight, we decided to do about an hour cycle followed by a 5km run around the block. To be honest, the cycle was a bit of a disaster tonight. We ended up getting a bit lost, and then got held up twice at the same level crossing which would have cost us at least 5 mins. No word of a lie.

The run on the other hand was good I felt. My training mate is a pretty good runner, so off he went into the distance. I was feeling quite good, which is surprising given I normally feel very jelly-legged after the bike. I'd a quick transition as well, taking less than three minutes to get the bike away, so it'd be similar time to what I'd done before (I'm not one for rushing transitions).

I ran the first two km's ok, but then struggled a bit with the (small) hills on the route, choosing to walk them. That said, I was still making good pace and didn't fall into my usual habit of continuing to stop after my first break. All in all, made it around in a personal best which I was delighted with. Should be interesting to see how my next fresh lap goes...

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Slow steady progress

Got a 10k next Monday (bank holiday over here) and I've slacked off the running training a little bit. Half the reason is that my ankle is sore for at least a day after football training or games, but otherwise its just laziness.

So tonight I went out for a 10k non-stop run. I hadn't ran properly since the start of the month, but I was at least going to see how far I got. I made sure to start off slowly, again limiting my HR to about the 160bpm mark. Have to say it was tough going in parts. I especially notice that I seem to sag a little in the second quarter, between 3-5km. Just have to think happy thoughts and keep going. Got around in 1hr 7m 34s, which isn't a PB (my best 10k is about 1hr 5m), but its the first time I've done the distance non-stop.

My pace was also faster than the last two hour long runs that I've done, coming down from 7m 12s per km a month ago, to 6m 40s per km tonight. Not bad considering the lack of training on my part over the last few weeks.

I've just been looking back over some of my previous runs and I compared a walk around the block I done last Monday to a similar one (first 4km are the same) that I done near the start of the year. You can definitely see the improvement there, which is good.

Monday 12 May 2008

Intercounty footballer

Believe it or not, I've become an inter-county footballer...hard to believe, but true none the less. The fact that I got absolutely roasted by the lad I was marking is irrelevant I suppose, that'll be forgotten in the future :P

Sunday 11 May 2008

Rest day

Went for a jog last night after work. Was planning on doing an hour or so, but that didn't really go to plan at all. Legs felt really knackered and basically was into a walk\run routine after about 1.5km. I think the legs were just a bit tired from the last few days cycling.

To that end, decided to take today as a rest day. I was initially planning on doing either a cycle or a run, and the weather was absolutely savage, so had to resist. Got a football game tomorrow, so I guess I'll get out for a run on Monday.

Friday 9 May 2008

My first official timetrial

Well, that was tough. Despite feeling like I was about to puke for the first 5km and having the British 10 mile TT champion (I think) lap me after 3km (despite starting two minutes behind me), I still made it around the two six mile laps in a PB pace.

The course was relatively flat and more or less impossible to get lost on which was good for my first go at something like this. I'd the option of doing one or two laps and opted for the latter just as I past the start\finish line.

I tried to focus on keeping a high cadence, setting a minimum limit of 85rpm (before shifting up) and a maximum limit of 95rpm (before shifting down). This strategy seemed to work well for the most part, with just one minor hill causing trouble.

Here are the stats from my Garmin.
Distance: 18.77km
Time: 39m 03s
Average Speed: 28.8kmph
Fastest Pace: 1m 40s per km
Average Cadence: 87.6rpm

For a brief perspective, my usual cadence is just under 80rpm and my previous best average speed for a comparable distance is 27.9kmph (average cadence for that ride was 79.4rpm).

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Je suis pooped

I think that's the technical term :)

Went out for a Gael Force Training cycle with one of the lads that's also doing it. Idea was to do about 1h 40m - 2hrs worth of cycling, so after drawing up a route earlier in the day, we set off around 7pm. It was good going, we done 47.5km in 1hr 54m 24s, with an average speed of 24.9kmph. It eased off a bit towards the end, our average was closer to 26kmph for most of the first 30km.

Found one or two nice hills around here as well, which will need to be hit again. They absolutely kill me and the only way to get better at them is to keep doing them. The GF route will be hilly enough, so its important to get the work in now.

Once I got home, I decided to do a "quick" lap of the block. There was absolutely nothing quick about it, but no harm doing a bit of running while tired like that...gets the body used to it. More details here.