I've been tossing up joining Striders and last night I just thought to myself, "Why are you even considering this decision?" so went online and signed up before bed.
This morning's 10km race at North Head was therefore my first official run as a Striders member. Nice.
I walked up the road and met Ben who was on carpool duty today (can I just say it is pretty awesome having a guy live 2 blocks away who runs almost exactly the same times as me). We picked up Chris and Rich is Kirribilli and with four guys crammed into the Civic like clowns in a mini we chugged across to Manly.
The morning was a pearler, the predicted high winds and heavy rain never eventuated, instead it was clear skies and only a very slight breeze. I'd had a horrible sleep last night, tossing and turning with vivid anxiety dreams about running in the rain, at least three separate dreams where I was off doing something else and missed the start and then had to run to catch up... weird it was like I had an exam the next morning or something. I didn't think I was that nervous.
But when I woke up I did think to myself, "This is it. Today is my favourite course, the weather's perfect and I'm feeling good. I AM going to run a PB! I'm also on an even bigger mission to run sub 6 minute miles" (which is something I hadn't even thought about until Tom mentioned it, but suddenly it became my major focus!)
I had a good warmup with Mike Conway and said hi to plenty of familiar faces milling about waiting for the start. I sidled into the pack about 3 rows back from the front guys and tried to take off at a fast pace, but still conserving something. I saw Ben after a few seconds (he's hard to miss at about 6 foot 3 or 4 with bright red hair!) and scooted across the pack to join him. He's thrashed me at the last two 10km races so I knew if I stuck close to him the pace would be right.
We went through the first two kms in 3:36 and I didn't feel like I was pushing that hard (and was actually really surprised at the pace) so all the HuRTS training has really paid off. The next few kms were slower, but we settled into a pretty even pace that felt sustainable and just went. Good to see Greg cheering at the turnaround!
Come about 6.5km I started pulling away slightly, but only stayed a couple of metres ahead of Ben. I tried to catch onto a couple of guys passing and managed ok until 8km. then I felt like all my speed had left me, between 8 and 9km I really struggled and felt like I was barely moving at all, it was like suddenly I had forgotten how to run. Just my form was all over the place and I couldn't work out how to move my legs in order to get more speed. The little pack of guys beside and just in front of me had no such problems and started to disappear into the distance which was frustrating. It wasn't just an illusion, my slowest km at 3:53. Then at 9km I thought "Pull it together, concentrate and hammer it home, less than 4 minutes to go!"
I tried my darndest to speed up and while it didn't feel like I was running fast, it was in fact my fastest km at 3:34. All I could concentrate on was the breathing of whoever was right on my shoulder and thinking "I will not let this person pass me!"
Over the line and i knew it was a PB, turned out to be 37:12 which is a 26 second best and just under 6 minute per mile pace (which I think is about 37:16). So I could not be happier!
Ben finished about 2 seconds after me, also a PB for him. The next talk naturally turned to getting us both sub 37 next time...
Anyway, STOKED! Three obervations:
1) I decided not to wear the HR monitor this time. Not only has it been falling down and the strap bothering me (I was constantly adjusting it like an ill-fitting bra throughout the Great Nosh last weekend), but the battery is on the way out as my readings have been all over the place recently. I think I'll just have to buy a new one.
2) Instead of running on total time, for the first time I set my Polar to "Lap view" and hit the lap button at each KM marker, so the only thing I looked at was the watch at every km point to see the time for only that last km. It worked well, broke the race up and stopped me from constantly checking my HR and time and trying to do complex calculations in my head. I like it, will try it in more races.
3) I was concerned about the breathing thing from Thursday. I actually posted a question on CoolRunning and had a couple of responses with some interesting threories. The one I'm sticking with is that a few days of rest meant that my legs were fresh and could run at faster than my heart and lungs could hope with (which hasn't been a reality over the last year or so, hence why it hasn't happened before). I kept my mind on my breathing through this race and about 7 or 8 km thought I might be on the verge of losing my breath a bit, so just concentrated on deep breaths and tried to control it. Hey it worked!
Splits:
1 -3:36
2 -3:36
3 -3:44
4 -3:44
5 -3:43
6 -3:48
7 -3:49
8 -3:41
9 -3:53
10- 3:34
This morning's 10km race at North Head was therefore my first official run as a Striders member. Nice.
I walked up the road and met Ben who was on carpool duty today (can I just say it is pretty awesome having a guy live 2 blocks away who runs almost exactly the same times as me). We picked up Chris and Rich is Kirribilli and with four guys crammed into the Civic like clowns in a mini we chugged across to Manly.
The morning was a pearler, the predicted high winds and heavy rain never eventuated, instead it was clear skies and only a very slight breeze. I'd had a horrible sleep last night, tossing and turning with vivid anxiety dreams about running in the rain, at least three separate dreams where I was off doing something else and missed the start and then had to run to catch up... weird it was like I had an exam the next morning or something. I didn't think I was that nervous.
But when I woke up I did think to myself, "This is it. Today is my favourite course, the weather's perfect and I'm feeling good. I AM going to run a PB! I'm also on an even bigger mission to run sub 6 minute miles" (which is something I hadn't even thought about until Tom mentioned it, but suddenly it became my major focus!)
I had a good warmup with Mike Conway and said hi to plenty of familiar faces milling about waiting for the start. I sidled into the pack about 3 rows back from the front guys and tried to take off at a fast pace, but still conserving something. I saw Ben after a few seconds (he's hard to miss at about 6 foot 3 or 4 with bright red hair!) and scooted across the pack to join him. He's thrashed me at the last two 10km races so I knew if I stuck close to him the pace would be right.
We went through the first two kms in 3:36 and I didn't feel like I was pushing that hard (and was actually really surprised at the pace) so all the HuRTS training has really paid off. The next few kms were slower, but we settled into a pretty even pace that felt sustainable and just went. Good to see Greg cheering at the turnaround!
Come about 6.5km I started pulling away slightly, but only stayed a couple of metres ahead of Ben. I tried to catch onto a couple of guys passing and managed ok until 8km. then I felt like all my speed had left me, between 8 and 9km I really struggled and felt like I was barely moving at all, it was like suddenly I had forgotten how to run. Just my form was all over the place and I couldn't work out how to move my legs in order to get more speed. The little pack of guys beside and just in front of me had no such problems and started to disappear into the distance which was frustrating. It wasn't just an illusion, my slowest km at 3:53. Then at 9km I thought "Pull it together, concentrate and hammer it home, less than 4 minutes to go!"
I tried my darndest to speed up and while it didn't feel like I was running fast, it was in fact my fastest km at 3:34. All I could concentrate on was the breathing of whoever was right on my shoulder and thinking "I will not let this person pass me!"
Over the line and i knew it was a PB, turned out to be 37:12 which is a 26 second best and just under 6 minute per mile pace (which I think is about 37:16). So I could not be happier!
Ben finished about 2 seconds after me, also a PB for him. The next talk naturally turned to getting us both sub 37 next time...
Anyway, STOKED! Three obervations:
1) I decided not to wear the HR monitor this time. Not only has it been falling down and the strap bothering me (I was constantly adjusting it like an ill-fitting bra throughout the Great Nosh last weekend), but the battery is on the way out as my readings have been all over the place recently. I think I'll just have to buy a new one.
2) Instead of running on total time, for the first time I set my Polar to "Lap view" and hit the lap button at each KM marker, so the only thing I looked at was the watch at every km point to see the time for only that last km. It worked well, broke the race up and stopped me from constantly checking my HR and time and trying to do complex calculations in my head. I like it, will try it in more races.
3) I was concerned about the breathing thing from Thursday. I actually posted a question on CoolRunning and had a couple of responses with some interesting threories. The one I'm sticking with is that a few days of rest meant that my legs were fresh and could run at faster than my heart and lungs could hope with (which hasn't been a reality over the last year or so, hence why it hasn't happened before). I kept my mind on my breathing through this race and about 7 or 8 km thought I might be on the verge of losing my breath a bit, so just concentrated on deep breaths and tried to control it. Hey it worked!
Splits:
1 -3:36
2 -3:36
3 -3:44
4 -3:44
5 -3:43
6 -3:48
7 -3:49
8 -3:41
9 -3:53
10- 3:34
2 comments:
Top race Mike - you looked fresh whenever I saw you. Sub 37 next. And thanks for the nod on the exit to the loop just like I asked
Cheers
IHS
Nice striders debut RMR! That 9th k is a killer isn't it!
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