Striders 10km race - Homebush

A bit of a chilly and rainy morning for Striders, but Andrew and I draged ourselves across to give it a go. A pretty small field for this race, unsurprising seeing as it's a long weekend as well as the first day of school holidays so a lot of people are probably away. On top of which the weather wouldn't have attracted anyone on the fence.

After a good run session on Tuesday I was feeling pretty fired up to try for a time in the 37.xx range, I thought I have the long run stamina in me and my speed has been good so I might just give it a shake. I did flake a bit in my run on Thursday, but then again it was 34 degrees that day. So I decided to just go for it.

I started with a fast first kilometre and saw it was 3.37, so decided to settle in the second to keep my HR down enough so as not to overdo it too early. Then when I saw my time had dropped to 3.49 I picked again for the 3rd kilometre and did a 3.39. The next two kms I struggled to keep my legs moving fast enough and then by the 6th kilometre my breathing started to become laboured, even though my HR wasn't anywhere near too high. Normally I'm over 180bpm when I'm gasping, but I was only about 173.

At this point the guys around me, who I had been keeping around for the whole race, started to ever to so slightly pull away and when I tried to stay with them I just couldn't. They weren't going any faster, my legs just refused to turn over at a fast enough rate to keep up with them and I started slipping back. After a 4.00 7th km, I gamely tried to pick it up in the 8th but only managed to make up a few seconds, then started fading badly in the 9th at 4.03. Doing my level best to sprint finish I managed a 3.47 for he final km, but I couldn't possibly have gone any faster.

Tough race, maybe I went too fast in the first km, or maybe I wasn't recovered from the week. My legs felt fine before the race, although it had been a big week of riding and running. Ah I still felt like it was a very good run and the best time I've done in a year so I was bloody happy to come over the line at 38.22

Then drove straight to the Blue Mountains for brekky with Sal and Tom and the family and supposedly a hike in Leura with Kate and Brett, but the socked-in fog and pouring rain turned that into a cafe lunch and a drive back instead...

Km - Time - Av HG
1 - 3.37 - 137
2 - 3.49 - 165
3 - 3.39 - 169
4 - 3.52 - 171
5 - 3.51 - 173
6 - 3.45 - 172
7 - 4.00 - 175
8 - 3.53 - 174
9 - 4.03 - 175
10 - 3.47 - 177

PPCR Garie Weekend

Hickson Road Thursday

First run since the marathon. Even though I felt absolutely fine when I finished and walked around for a couple of hours after the race, even jogged around the recovery village to try to find Kathryn, it still took it’s toll. I was pretty knackered Monday and took a full rest day. Tuesday I had a good ride in the morning, but didn’t fancy running a fast session at lunch because my legs felt tired, so did 25 mins of pool running with my float belt and 1km swim after to stretch out, plus a few minutes in the hydrotherapy pool.

Wednesday I just did yoga in the morning and donated blood (plasma) at lunchtime.

On the Boundary ride this morning I was tired to start with and struggled up Roseville Hill. But I hit Parrawi with fire and averaged about 23km/hr to the top which I was really happy with. I thought it was time to go running again, plus a marvellous sunny day which helps, so went down to Hickson Road with only a few of the HuRTS boys to pound out some flat fast ones.

I surprised myself by feeling good on the first rep and sticking with Mike Conway. We came back at what felt like a tough pace and turned out to be 7 seconds faster, so that was good to know I wasn’t blowing up just yet. I noticed that my HR was in the
180 zone already which I don’t think I’ve seen in months and months. Either I haven’t been pushing hard enough previously or I’m just untrained on the faster stuff after a patchy few months of HuRTS sessions. Or I’m still recovering after the marathon?

Either way, came back at a slightly slower pace, then went out for the fourth which was really hurting this time and I only just managed to keep it together and stick with Mike. I could feel the form suffering as well.

I was not sure about the last one, although in the end I managed to maintain for the first three quarters, but halfway back from the tunnel I saw Mike, Dominic and another bloke just slip away from me and I couldn’t make my legs go any faster to keep up. After reaching 183 HR for the last 3 reps I figured I’d just blown up and tried to keep the last bit as fast as I could, but felt like I was slowing with every step. I was surprised actually that I’d only dropped a couple of seconds – I thought I’d run a 4:15 but ended up 4:09 so happy with that.

Ultimately I was stoked to complete one of the harder sessions and maintain fairly consistent times, on the back of a marathon and months of no fast training, with the Achilles injury meaning no HuRTS sessions, Striders 10kms, City to Surf etc. Gives me hope that I may be able to pull off a decent 10km or Half marathon time this year…

Rep – Time – Av HG
1 – 4:02 – 160
2 – 3:55 – 171
3 – 4:06 – 170
4 – 4:02 – 174
5 – 4:09 – 174

Sydney Marathon 2009

Here is my brief report as one of the 3.45 pacers for the marathon.



It was my first ever time pacing, along with my mate Kathryn, both of us having done the Oxfam Trailwalker 3 weekends previously so confident we’d be able to make it through the distance. We picked up our running belts with the flags sticking out of them and did a bit of mucking around trying to get the things to sit right and not smack us in the back of the head every step for 42 kms. We took up our positions in the middle of the yellow bib group and got chatting to the runners around us as to what our pacing plans were. Basically that was to expect a slow first km with the bottleneck, then hit around 5.15min/kms until halfway to make up for the first km and bank a small amount of time (like a minute and a half) to allow for a slightly slower paced 2nd half.

The gun went off and we fast-walked to the start line, crossing the mat exactly one minute later. We regrouped a bit on the bridge deck and I got the first chance to meet some of my fellow 3.45 hopefuls, Greg, Michael and a bunch of others. Chatted to some lovely people, but after a few kilometres the day got hotter and the conversation started drying up as people started to look more and more focussed.

Kathryn was chatting away with some people around her and pushed ahead by about 30 seconds or so, we were both on target and it actually provided a good spread for people to try to fit in between. I got the chance to run with the lovely LBP into Centennial Park and shortly after the park regrouped with Kathryn and the two pacers ran together for a few kilometres. Back into the city K forged ahead a little and we continued that way through to the finish.The splits were fairly even for the first half, averaging around 5.14 min/km and we ended up crossing the halfway point at exactly 1:51:21 by gun time which was right where we wanted to be – just a little ahead of schedule to protect against any second half fade. And fade looked like a reality as the day got hotter and hotter.

There was a little reshuffle of positions around this time as a few people dropped off the pace in the second half – the City West Link was particularly brutal, especially that hill right before the turnaround. Quite a few people experienced cramping and I handed out salt tablets like popcorn which helped some! We also tried to make sure everyone was drinking enough by walking through every aid station and grabbing a couple of cups ourselves. Along with the dropoffs we had a few pickups for the bus and even a couple of guys who had chased for three quarters of the race and finally managed to catch up right as we went back through the city!

The last 10km was unrelenting with the heat and hills and the group around me battled through silently, but did a great job of keeping the pace up as we went through the Pyrmont hills and freeway flyovers, until we finally starting cruising the downhill past the IMAX into the final few kms of precious flatness! From here we all knew that it was simply a case of maintaining 5.20min/kms for the next 20 minutes and we’d be there.

This was definitely the best part as we rounded the bridge, passed the CR cheersquad, through the quay and finally the stretch towards the Opera House. I sent a few punters sprinting off along East Circular Quay and we ended up crossing the line at the perfect time – Kathryn at 3.44.25 and myself at 3.44.50

I can say it was definitely the most enjoyable marathon I’ve been involved in, I met some lovely people and I was happy to see many of them achieve their time goal. Great cheering too!

Marathon details

Gun time: 3:44:46
Net time: 3:43:48
Av Pace 5:19
Av HR 144

1st half 1:51:21 (Av Pace 5:13)
2nd half: 1:53:25 (Av Pace 5:22)


1 - 6:16 - 11 - 5:15 - 21 - 5:20 - 31 - 5:18 - 41 - 5:11
2 - 5:04 - 12 - 5:11 - 22 - 5:18 - 32 - 5:23 - 42 - 5:25
3 - - 4:53 - 13 - 5:12 - 23 - 5:07 - 33 - 5:36 - 42.2 - 1:02
4 - 5:12 - 14 - 4:56 - 24 - 5:38 - 34 - 5:30
5 - 5:15 - 15 - 5:40 - 25 - 5:15 - 35 - 5:30
6 - 5:22 - 16 - 4:55 - 26 - 5:18 - 36 - 5:21
7 - 5:10 - 17 - 5:55 - 27 - 5:39 - 37 - 5:02
8 - - 5:20 - 18 - 4:43 - 28 - 5:57 - 38 - 5:13
9 - 5:21 - 19 - 5:19 - 29 - 5:24 - 39 - 5:16
10 - 5:06 - 20 - 5:18 - 30 - 5:10 - 40 - 5:15

These times aren’t exactly accurate, I was hitting the lap button sometimes a little before, sometimes a little after, the KM markers (which I didn’t feel were 100% accurate anyway). But you get the general idea.

Placing
Overall 600 / 2456
Male 528 / 1844
Category M30-34 124/357

Oxfam results

Bo Peep & her Running Sheep

Start: Fri 7:00 am (28/08/2009)
CP 1 Fri 9:10 am
CP 2 Fri 11:34 am
CP 3 Fri 1:59 pm
CP 4 Fri 3:36 pm
CP 5 Fri 5:08 pm
CP 6 Fri 7:27 pm
CP 7 Fri 9:58 pm
CP 8 Sat 12:06 am
Finish: Sat 2:21 am

Total time: 19 hours 21 minutes

Overall 31 /510
Mixed 10 /251
Open 10 / 195

16th complete team with all four members (or in our case - five) to finish

Bo Peep & her running sheep

Oxfam Trailwalker

Oxfam fundraising dinner

Oxfam training run

50kms today, from the start at Brooklyn through to Ku-ring-gai high school. Chris, Andrew and I.

It was a beautiful warm sunny day and a glorious day to be out in the bush.

It was also gruelling. We tried to run all the flats and make haste walking up the many hills. I don't think we took on enough calories because in the final 8km there was complete silence and all of us were clearly hurting. It was bloody good to get it done though and we were happy as can be to get back to my car at Ku-ring-gai!

Started at 7am, finished at 3:15pm.

View from the platform at Hawksbury River station


Local graffiti


Down by the water, stage 1

Saturday was to be our longest training run for the Oxfam Trailwalker. Unfortunately Kathryn is still a week off coming back from injury, although from the sounds of her double-spin class and water-running training schedule, she’s going to come back twice as fit as the rest of us!

So it was the other three team members - Chris, Andrew and myself – who set off in the dark for a 50km run from the start of the run at Brooklyn to the third checkpoint at Ku-Ring-Gai High shool on Bobbin Head Road.

We parked my car at Ku-ring-gai, drove with Andrew to Berowra and dropped his car, then caught the train to Brooklyn for a 7am start.

It was much better doing the track for a second time, we knew where we were going and what to expect and in fact managed to make it to the first Check Point at Cowan almost 30 minutes faster than last time.

The second stage is the hardest and it did feel like a long slog up and down, but we made it to Berowra ok and changed shirts and shoes at the car.

It wasn’t easy to get going again, in fact it was downright tough through the bush at the next section, especially climbing back up to Mount Ku-ring-gai, but then we had the flat part on the other side of the Highway and the descent into Apple Tree Bay to rest our legs a little bit.

Getting going after Apple Tree Bay was a nightmare. We’d done 42 km by this point and only had another 8km to go to the finish, but that last 1 hour and 15 minutes seemed about as long as the rest of the day combined! I don’t think any of us had taken on nearly enough food and while we probably had sufficient water, a bit more electrolyte would have helped.

It was a dark place, we all ran along for the last hour in almost complete silence (which for us is a rarity) and I could tell we all just wanted the thing over with. I’ve never been so happy to see my car at the end! We’d managed just over 50km in 8 hours and 15 minutes, arriving at the car at 3:15pm.

We were tired, but in pretty good spirits. None of us fancied running another step, but I feel that with the right nutrition and hydration we would have been feeling much better at the end. Saying that, it’s bloody awesome to have run longer than any of us have ever run in our lives and still feel good about it.

I was even more stoked to be able to get back on the bike at 6am the next day and pedal an easy recovery 65km to McCarrs Creek and back with Mike, John and Mark.

Run stats:
Left Brooklyn – 7.00am
Arrived Checkpoint 1 Cowan – 9.00am
Left Checkpoint 1 Cowan – 9.10am
Arrived Checkpoint 2 Berowra – 11.30am
Left Checkpoint 2 Berowra – 11.45am
Arrived Checkpoint 3 Apple Tree Bay – 1.50pm
Left Checkpoint 3 Apple Tree Bay – 2.00pm
Arrived Checkpoint 4 Ku-ring-gai High School – 3.15pm

Solid Tuesday, at last

I'm back baby!

I feel like it's been a difficult road back to get to where I was since before Ironman. After that race I had week's total recovery, then 4 weeks of overseas holiday with plenty of "good living", then a lazy few weeks after getting back to Sydney... So my riding has been in a very ordinary state and it's been a bit of a Catch 22 trying to get back in action again. The problem is that I haven’t felt like I’ve been able to keep up with the Boundary riders, so I’ve been reluctant to go on Tues and Thursday if I’m going to be dropped straight away. But I’m not going to get in better riding shape unless I get out there.

Basically I’ve spent the last 2 months only coming to the Friendly Friday ride and otherwise doing plenty of running, which I find really leaves my legs tired and heavy for cycling. So today I thought enough delaying, it’s time to fire up and come back!

It was a huge group of over 20, probably because of people being antsy after a full week of rain last week and the inspiration of Le Tour. The pace wasn’t overly fast thank goodness and I didn’t find it terribly hard to hang on in the bunch. The hills weren’t easy, but they weren’t terrible. Of course the paceline was always going to be the tester and I got blown out straight away without even taking a turn. I was so bloody thankful that the pack got caught by the traffic lights at Bike Addiction so I could catch up. The rest was fine, up until the Military Road sprint, but I’ve never been able to keep up with that anyway.

It was such a beautiful morning and a great ride, and good to see some of the guys again, that I just felt on top of the world after finishing.

Then at lunchtime it was a progressive tempo run with the HURTS boys. I find this a tough session, 45 minutes of hard running with no recovery and switching the pace up every 10 minutes. I’ve never done it properly, but I did come closer than usual today.

I turned at 23.5 minutes, about 50 metres before the corner of Hickson Road and that road to the right that sweeps up the hill to the Palisade. Was with Todd and Sam the first half but they started pulling away on the return trip and I couldn’t stick with them by the MCA. I finished halfway between the Art Gallery and the stone gates (the goal is to get back to the stone gates where we started).

Stats:
45 minutes total
HR average overall 157
HR max 173

1st 10 minutes – HR av 138
2nd 10 minutes – HR av 157
3rd 10 minutes – HR av 163
4th 10 minutes – HR av 166
Last 5 minutes – HR av 169

Zen Habits blog post

I like this post that came up today, check it out:
Three simple changes to get fit and green at the same time

Pymble STAR run

I’ve finally discovered the Sydney Striders STAR runs and I’m a major convert. The hardest thing I’ve found about training has always been the long run. Just going out by yourself to pound out 3 hours or so on the road all by yourself is such a mental battle – not just the run itself, but getting yourself to actually leave the house when you know what’s ahead of you.

The opportunity to just turn up at a spot on a Sunday morning, join onto a group of great runners and spend the next couple of hours trotting along discovering a different part of Sydney, chatting, meeting people and just maintaining a much faster pace than I ever would is fantastic. Then to end up with a major feast, tell a few yarns and be home by 9.30 – perfect.

I did my first one about a month ago in Mosman, then Woolwich and finally this morning in Pymble with Chris. It was bloody hilly and the pace felt tough. Halfway through I was struggling, but as I’ve experienced many times, suddenly in the last 5kms I felt stronger than ever and really enjoyed the bush track finish.

Stats:
29km
2 hours 37 minutes
Average HR 138

It started raining just after we finished. Perfect for going home and watching the entire 8th stage of Le Tour which I’d recorded last night!

Solo Saturday ride

Everyone abandoned me today for the weekend ride, so I slept in a little, but was still up by 7am and it was such a gorgeous sunrise and finally a dry day after a very soggy week, that I couldn’t help but get on the bike and pedal up to Akuna Bay. I took the heavy old Felt and it was a struggle getting up the hills and keeping a decent cadence, but it was nice to be totally by myself in the national park and enjoy the birdsong and beautiful views and get a bit of alone time.

When I got home after about 80km I thought it might do me good to run off the bike, which I hadn’t tried at all since Ironman training a few months ago. So I strapped on the runners and headed out to the bush tracks around Balls Head and Berry Island and actually felt on top of the world, although I’d expected to feel rubbish. I did have the Ipod on with some inspiring music, which does make a difference since I very rarely listen. Did a nice 50mins at an average HR of 138, then headed off for Dumplings lunch with Jenn & Luke, followed by a nap and dinner with Dan & Juliet.

HuRTS 2km reps

A fairly long session for a Thursday today, 2km x5 with 2 mins recovery in between.

We split into a couple of different groups so that the slower guys like myself were able to get a full 2 mins of recovery instead of gasping and having to rush off again after a few seconds! The goal was to keep the times consistent across all 5 reps and not drop off by the last one.

For some reason my running felt good today and I was able to hold the pace pretty comfortably. Mike Conway thought we were pushing a bit fast after the first couple because we were doing 3:44 – 3:47 min/kms and counselled us to slow down a bit to ensure we could finish consistently. We dropped the pace for the next two, but on the last one Todd took off and I still felt good so grabbed on and stuck with him, Andrew alongside me and we managed a faster one to finish which was good.

Rep – Time – Avg HR
1 – 7:76 – 156
2 – 7:31 – 163
3 – 7:46 – 163
4 – 7:48 – 163
5 – 7:32 - 168

Backing up from a long day

An absolutely gorgeous morning and I didn’t feel too bad at all getting on the bike. I was thinking it might be a horrible experience, and for that reason grabbed the new carbon Giant to make it a bit easier on myself. Since having 6 weeks off the bike after Ironman and losing all my fitness, I’ve been trying to focus on riding the heavier old Felt to build up my legs again. For that reason it was a delight to ride the Giant, it spun uphill so easily I couldn’t believe it!

Met Brad, Brent, James, Mike and Jon and we went up the Northern Beaches to McCarrs Creek, climbed MC road once, did reverse Akuna and climbed MC again before heading back. I was nowhere near Brad and Brent, but I was overjoyed to be able to ride at a decent pace (for me lately) and have no problem climbing, even though I’d beaten the hell out of my legs the day before. Then home to watch the highlights of the first day of Le Tour.

This was absolutely the best weekend of training I’ve had since about March. It felt great to know my body is back able to go for hours on end at the weekend and still feel sensational.

Oxfam night run

The whole plan was to get some Oxfam training in. Kathryn was injured and Andrew had to look after his 3 kids so it was just Chris and I and we had a couple of goals for this session:

1) Night run training – try out my new headlamp and just get the feel for running the trail at night for the first time
2) Running on tired legs – after having held nothing in reserve at the Striders 10km that morning, could we back up and knock over another 30km a few hours later? If so that had to be good training for the latter stages of the race itself.
3) See some more of the trail – I hadn’t seen any of the last couple of stages from Roseville Bridge and ultimately I want to run the entire course once at least before the big day.

We parked at Kambora at 4.30 as the sun was going down and hit the trail. There’s not a great deal to report except I was really surprised by a few things. I didn’t realise how much your world shrinks down to the circle of light at your feet so that you’re in sensory deprivation and able to totally focus on keeping your footing. Somehow not being able to see the trail ahead or anything around you makes time go really quickly. It also feels very surreal to be in the totally silent bush without another soul around. If Chris wasn’t there it would have been kind of scary actually!

We held a fairly good pace considering the dark and the terrain, apart from a couple of nightmare creek crossings where the water level of Middle Harbour was unfeasibly high compared to last time (and we would have been up to our waists if we’d waded) and we had to bush bash around on the high side. We chatted through and it actually felt incredibly good to be night running on the trail, the 10km that morning hadn’t really affected us at all. However by the time we started climbing back up from the Spit, our legs were done. The Mosman and Balmoral hills were not our friends, but we limped to Georges Heights and Chris’s girlfriend Catherine waiting in the car and were bloody happy to have had an amazing training day.

The final 3 stages of the race and 30km of bush running in just under 5 hours. I got home at 9.30pm, ate, watched some terrible DVD with Sarah on the couch and crashed out…. ready to get up in about 6 hours for an 80km hilly bike ride!