Am I a rollercoaster?

After the disaster of the half marathon at the weekend, I'm on a bit of a high this evening! I completed the second race in the Cambridge Triathlon Club 5km race series, running strong all the way and even managing a sprint finish at the end (to overtake someone). Actually, considering how the first of these races went, I'm definitely at a high-point of the season so far!

Again, some very nice weather this evening (which kinda had me worried after Sunday), but I'm certainly not just going to run \ race in the cold & rain! Was determined to set off at an easy pace, but didn't fancy using HR or to try to stick at a certain pace, so just went by how I felt. It's always a danger, but one of my fellow competitors seemed about my level (he's in his 70's and has Parkinson's I found out afterwards - he's the brains behind the AnyOldIronman challenge I've been doing this month). To be honest, I was struggling to keep up and was hanging on his shoulder for a while, which is probably easier than setting the pace.

Pretty uneventful race for the next 2km - if my HR was anything to go by, I was certainly working hard. I passed and pulled away from my fellow competitor and at the 3km mark I'd caught up with another girl who had lapsed into a run\walk. After giving her a bit of encouragement, she was passed me again and stayed around 30m - 50m ahead until we turned for the final straight - I gave it as much as I had and passed her with about 30 meters to go. I felt a bit guilty about it I have to say!

Finishing time was 27m 33s - a new official PB. That said, I think I've done a 27m 12s in training before. HR was sky-high (avg 175bpm\max 186bpm). Didn't get negative splits, doing the first half in 13m 32s and the second in 14m 01s.

I've uploaded a comparison screenshot between the first race and tonights - I think a picture speaks a thousand words. A few points to note:

• See the two dots on the map - still had a bit of a way to go in the first race
• Tonights effort (blue) was at a constant effort throughout (apart from the sprint finish) - see the HR graph and average speed graph
• Tortoise and hare - slow and steady wins the race - the delta distance shows that I was ahead of myself in the first race from the 10 minute mark onwards - sweet.
  

How NOT to run a 5km

Start out all guns blazing - it's a sure way to end up in a heap. I found this out to my detriment earlier this evening in the first race of a three race series I'm doing. The event is being organised by the local triathlon club and it's about a 5 minute walk from work, so I'd no excuses. I even skipped GAA training for it.

5km is a pretty tough distance - it's short enough that the aim should be to do it just under all-out effort. However, it does help if you know what your limit is!

Set off on todays race after warming up for a few minutes. Started off strong, as I'd good memories of the Reading Half marathon and lasting a fair distance with a good pace. Looked at the garmin at one point and I was in the low four min zone! Felt good and started contemplating my 20 minute 5km! What a fool!!!

Of course it was never going to last - according to the garmin & sport tracks it lasted all over 7 minutes (1.42km). As you should be able to see in the pic below, it was a battle to get to the end after that - short runs followed by rests - depressing stuff!

To mock me even further (I'm joking) there was also a kids 2.5km race which set of a few mins after the full 5km - I was getting passed by some of the youngsters before my first walk break - fair play to them - they were absolutely flying.

Anyways, my splits sum up this race nicely - 4.42, 6.01, 6.53, 6.25 and 6.09. Lesson learnt - the fable of the tortoise and hare comes to mind.

My first triathlon...kinda

Volunteered to give a hand at the local triathlon here in Cambridge this morning. Very enjoyable experience. I was asked to act as a timing scribe, basically registering times and numbers of athletes as they exited T1 and also as they finished the race. Went well over-all, got a little bit hectic at times, but ran pretty smoothly.

Anyways, it gave me my first close up view of how a triathlon works, from seeing people setting up for transition thru to the last person crossing the line. And there's a fair bit to see in between. The lads (and girls) at the top of the game are unreal...literally taking no time to pass through transitions and going everywhere at pace.

Then you've the average lads, who are still impressive, but are generally out for a PB instead of to win the race. They're a little more relaxed through transition, but still posted some pretty impressive times overall.

There were a fair few people there as well that were just there to complete, which in fairness to them, they all did (only about 4 DNF's I think). In a sense, these lads are almost as impressive as the top guys, as the mental strength thats needed must be unreal. I have to say I feel a bit sorry for this group of people that happen to be in the wrong age group...I'd say its lonely enough as you're generally the last wave to leave, so you're always going to be finishing towards the end of the race.

Anyways, really enjoyed the day and I'd have no hesitations doing it again.