So I reckoned 48mins was possible - 3 minutes under my PB of 51mins. Something I was discussing on the start lines with my friends.
I want to make this a personal account rather than a race report. Trouble is I know that my friends will read it, but here goes anyway.
Let me tell you something about who I was standing on the start line with.
Firstly there's 'B'. I train with her and it seems we are fairly matched. She has a 47:40min PB, so although on PBs she is over 3 minutes faster than me, as I've mentioned, I feel that maybe I can keep pace with her.
Then there's 'R'. Someone I rate as another good runner. I've never run with R, but she seems to be an improver and I'm unsure if I'll keep pace.
'A' is someone I've always looked up to as a fine runner. She represents the club at a lot of races and always puts in a good performance. As we are sizing each other up at the start, A says "You and I are about the same speed Susie". What is she basing that on? "In my dreams maybe", I thought.
Finally there's 'M'. M is a legend. She holds most of the club age group records and is a powerhouse of athletic and organisational ability. The club owes so much to M. M is 14 years older than me. In the past this hasn't made a jot of difference, but recently I've wondered if the age gap might mean that one day I would finally beat her. She's had a few injury problems recently so she isn't on top form. Could this be the day?
I knew M and B had both run cross country yesterday. I later found out that R had too. I'm competitive, but it's rare I ever have a chance to run equally against others I know. My races are usually solo affairs against my own PB, or social occasions having fun chatting away at the back of field (how many men reading this have just gone "tut"? - be honest!). Maybe today was a chance for a real race!
We didn't get off to the best of starts, having positioned ourselves too far back in the 1000-strong field. It took 30 seconds to cross the line, and then there was a mad scramble to jump round or through the slower runners to establish a more realistic position in the field. I swear I didn't injure anyone in process - well not too badly anyway - the local hospital could probably cope - provided they had a few spare beds - and intensive care wasn't too busy ;-)
Eventually we settled down with A,R,B and myself in a group, with M up ahead, her experience paying dividends at the start.
I've described elsewhere in this blog how I run with a Garmin Forerunner and a Polar HRM. I've been described as having good pace judgement, but I suspect a lot of people think that it is simply the electronics doing the running for me. In my defence, you have to have some idea of what pace you can run at. If I followed the electronics blindly, they might hold me back, or run me too quickly. There is a certain amount of human judgement you know! Today was just such a day. A was dashing off into the distance, and I felt that I needed to hold back a little. Soon though R and B were also pulling away. I was a little down on the pace I'd imagined, but I felt I was running the right sort of pace. I know that people often go off too quickly and I hoped I might be able to catch the others later, trusting my pace judgement.
The gap opened up a bit more as we turned onto the seafront and met a stiff breeze. The others pushed on, but I didn't want to burn out fighting the wind, so again made the judgement to conserve a bit of energy. As ARB pushed on they passed M, and soon I was right behind her. Wow! I can pass my hero! (I apologise if M is reading this, but I figured I'd give a true account) I had a small moment of doubt, wondering if my pace judgement was sound, but thought I may as well take my chance. We were only 3km in. Would she sit behind me and take me on the line? I promised myself I would always look ahead and not be concerned with what was going on behind so with mental blinkers on I sped past M and tried to concentrate on ARB ahead.
Soon, we were coming up to the drink station at half way, and a small incline. I remember 2 years ago this seemed more of a hill. Signs of improvement! Now it was A's turn to be passed. Again a small moment of doubt but I felt good and had to go with what I felt, despite a fairly high reading on my HRM at this point. A wished me well. I'm not sure if I replied. Serious case of blinkers!
My half way time was a little disappointing at around 25mins. There was the 30 seconds delay at the start and we had just had the fumbling of the water station. I felt confident that I could do the second half much quicker. Time now to try and catch some ground on B and R who I could occasionally see up ahead.
It took me till 8km to catch B and R. R sounded relaxed in her breathing, but B was breathing a fair bit heavier than me. She later commented how relaxed I sounded. I did feel good! I pushed on past them and started the push for home. Could I hold them? No looking back!
The motorists so far had been reasonably well behaved, but with about a mile to go I saw an act of unbelievable stupidity. A car with caravan overtook me and snaked down the road, admittedly slowly, weaving in and out of the runners. The car overtook a girl ahead of me, only allowing a foot or so gap between her and the car. Thing is, the caravan is considerably wider than the car. The girl hadn't realised there was a caravan in tow. She screamed as it got within millimetres of her and caused her to stumble out of the way. That was a major shock for her! My reaction was to utter an anagram of a major UK clothing brand. I've been knocked off my bike in a similar fashion. Based on my experience, I doubt if the idiot even knew what he'd done!
Soon though, that was all forgotten as I concentrated on keeping my pace, against the slight head wind into the finish. Don't look back! Don't look back! A quick glance at my Garmin told me I had a healthy pace, but also that I didn't really have too much more to give. I was glad to see the finish! 48:46 official time, 48:15 on my watch ignoring the start delay. Officially a PB by over 2 mins.
I felt good about the fact that I had nothing extra at the end. Unlike a lot of races I had no big sprint finish. My pace was fairly even, I didn't slow, I did a negative split (second half faster than the first), so I'd judged my pace fairly well right to the end. My pace prediction was pretty good: 7:46/mile of actual running.
It's a good job I didn't look back (I think?), as R was only 4 seconds behind me and B just behind her. I had no idea they were so close! A and M were a bit further back.
Very pleased!
I said I'd name check the physio who gave me a pre (and post) race massage. Thankyou Lisa Brown of LB Healthcare, you loosened my calf muscles a treat!
Let me emphasise that in my entire life I've never run more than 400m at 7:46 pace. At no time in the last year have I run at that pace at all. Speed in distance running is mostly about aerobic conditioning, and that is what I've been concentrating on. I'm not saying you should never do speedwork. In fact, if I'd prepared properly for the race I would have done some sharpening work involving fast intervals, and could probably have gone quicker (providing I didn't do the speedwork to the detriment of my aerobic condition). The point is that speedwork is the icing on the cake. You do it once you have fine aerobic condition. I still have a lot of improvement to go, but I will do that by aerobic base training (BT) until I feel I need to do speedwork, having gone as far with BT as I can.
Now here's how I thought I could do 7:40/mile without ever running at that pace.
I described my pace plots in The 4th mile plot - a spy story. I suspected that based on the average heart rate I have done past 10k races in, I could simply extrapolate on the graph to get an approximate 10k pace. Taking my 4th mile pace is simply a way of ensuring a steady state reading. My HR for a 10k race would be steadily climbing - hardly steady state, but I reckoned the average figure would be a reasonable comparison. I knew from past races that 154 was my average HR for a well run 10k. By extrapolating from recent runs it seemed that 7:40/mile was the target. This is an increase of 40seconds/mile for every 10bpm increase in HR.
Here's an updated plot. You can see today's pace - the green square at the very top of the chart:
The pace is right in line with December's red diamonds (I was rather tired last week so January's data so far has been slower)
Stats! Luv 'em!
1 comment:
great race report - and for someone at the beginning of base training, great encouragement,
runningbeanz
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