August 2019
This weekend was the 45th City To Surf race and the eleventh running of the marathon for this iconic Perth event. I’ve been lucky enough to run nine of the ten marathons, missing out last year due to plantar fasciitis, a runners worst nightmare. This year I set my expectations a tad lower than usual as I was using the race as another indicator for the Perth Running Festival Marathon in October. Together with the Rottnest Marathon, earlier in the year, the goal was to run a comfortable and controlled sub 3 marathon saving something in the tank for later in the season.
Conditions at the start were perfect, around 10 degrees with no wind. This made for a fast start as the first three kilometres are slightly down hill. Normally I don’t recommend banking time but in this case , when the opportunity is this good, you just need to go for it. Running with the T-train and a turbo charged Jon we were soon rattling along at half marathon pace. Now hurtling along at half marathon pace in a half marathon is a good thing, in a marathon , not so much. My plan was to stick with the boys until half way and then back off and cruise home for a sub 3 finish. Going through 10k in less than forty minutes I decided discretion was the better part of valour and let the lads disappear into the distance , while I dropped a few gears and set the auto-pilot to 4.10min/k pace, far more civilised.
If you have never run the Perth City to Surf marathon you really are missing out on a treat. It must be up there with the best marathons in the world , with views to die for. The start is 6am , so its still dark , as you wind your way through the deserted CBD before moving along the Swann River on Riverside Drive and then passing the iconic Swan Brewery , as the sun rises, into Nedlands, one of the most affluent suburbs in Perth. I enjoy the Nedlands part of the course as you move from one street lined with mega-mansions to another, and then through pristine parks , before cruising through the deserted University of WA grounds and starting your 10k of hills in Kings Park.
Kings Park is another iconic symbol of Perth and running through it, while it showcases its natural beauty, is an honour , to do it as part of a marathon is a privilege. Of course there are hills but they are also part of the challenge and a reminder that a marathon is both a mental and physical test. This part is very much physical, the mental bit comes later of course as you move into the post 32k ‘death zone’.
Exploding out of Kings Park you are then rewarded with 3-4 kilometres of undulating, downhill section as you move through Subiaco, another one of Perth’s best suburbs. This really is the marathon that keeps on giving. Finally you run past Bold Park and over Oceanic Drive to be faced with City Beach, in my view the best beach in Perth. The marathon is more a guided tour of all the best Perth has to offer, with a medal at the end, priceless.
So back to the race. I left off earlier with me dropping down through the gears, leaving the T-train running towards a top 5 finish and a 5 minute PB to finish in 2:45. Jon was five minutes behind him just missing out on a sub 2:50 finish, 8th I think overall. Personally I had targeted a 2:55 finish, a 2 minute improvement on my 2:57 at Rottnest in June this year. Truth be told it all went to plan and, after banking time and going through 15k with a 4min/k average , I allowed myself to slow to a 4:09min/k average pace and crossed the line in 2:55:27, mission accomplished. How easy was it typing that, very easy, how easy was the marathon , not so easy. If you race a marathon it’s never easy, its not meant to be.
A marathon needs to be broken down into manageable chunks. The first 10k should be where you set out your stall, so to speak. Start depending on the terrain, for example the City to Surf is slightly downhill for the first three kilometres and normally very cold, this is perfect to bank a few minutes to be used later in the race. Faced with a hilly start you need to do the opposite and start slower than marathon pace to save energy for later in the day. A marathon is all about choosing your battles. The next 10k or so , too halfway, is about locking in marathon pace and preparing for what I consider the hardest part of any marathon, the 10k between halfway and 32k.
From halfway to 32k is when it’s going to hurt. You’ve ran a half already and you’re now probably maintaining a pace at a distance that you rarely, if at at all, run in training. Your long runs are normally long and slow, more of a time on feet run and your tempos are not normally past 21k. Thus you rarely run over 21k at marathon pace and between 21k and 32k you will start to feel the pain, that is long distance racing. This is where you need to dig deep and just get to the final part of the race, the finish quarter. At 32k , personally, I switch into finish mode.
With less than 10k to go I know I probably hold on and if the first 32k have gone to plan I’ll be there, or there abouts, to my predicted finish time. Mentally I can feel the mind relaxing a bit and the central governor releasing its hold on the body. One of my runnings hero’s David Goggin’s once said that the central governor protects the body by only allowing us to use 40% of what we are capable of. By working on our mental strength we can find another 60% , imagine that , 60% improvement ! Endless possibilities, beats spending $350 on a pair of Nike Vaporflys for a 4% improvement, David Goggins can get you 10 times that by using one of his ‘suck it up pills‘ or eating concrete to harden up, you get the picture. ( https://davidgoggins.com )
So the marathon went to plan really. First 10k felt good and I banked time to be used in the hilly second half. Up to halfway I set auto pilot to just over 4min/k pace and enjoyed the ride. The 10k in Kings Park was challenging , as expected but the following 10k to the finish was easier and although the last few hills beat the hell out of your legs the end is in sight. All in all another great marathon , in perfect conditions with good friends. It doesn’t get any better truth be told and as the photo shows below running with good friends is what its all about.
Right the point of this post isn’t about my last marathon, my 45th in total, the point is to try to show you that whatever you consider your best really is just 40% of what you can achieve. Spend some time on the David Goggins website, get inspired and learn to loosen the grip the central governor has on your ability. It’ll be a whole lot cheaper than a pair of Nike Vaporflys and ten times as effective. Goggins is also the master of motivating memes and a favourite with me and my friends, it’s worth reading his books just for some of these little gems.
2019 has been a mixed bag for me. So far I’ve raced 6 times and done pretty well. Three 10k’s finishing in 36.17, 35.55 and 35.38 ; two half marathons , 1:22 and 1:19 and one full, 2:57. Not times to set the world alight but reasonable enough I suppose to keep me interested. Chuck in my first ever DNF at the Lighthouse 12 hour race and I reckon I’m averaging around the ‘B’ grade for the year; commendable effort but could do better . Add to this me and my mojo parted company earlier in the year and it has taken me nearly three months to find it again. I’m not sure how one loses their mojo but it did happen to me in 2014 and this led to me taking Raf on board to coach me which sparked a running renaissance that lasted until late 2017. ( http://therunningcentre.com.au) I use to say there was only one coach in Perth but this was by no means a slant on the numerous quality coaching opportunities available. In fact lately there’s a new Rooster in the training henhouse, my good mate Tony T-Train Smith ( https://www.tonysmithruncoaching.com ) Tony is probably aiming at the older runner , being one himself, and with his military back ground you can be sure of a quality product. Word on the street is he’s fully booked with a waiting list and countless 5 star reviews , maybe I can join the queue as , of late, his running has been taken to a new level.
So what has Tony done to not only reboot his running but all of his clients. Basically good old fashioned running 101’s. First, distance, this is the foundation onto which you build your running dreams and aspirations. If you take nothing more from this post, or even my blog as a whole, than ‘distance is king‘ then my job is done. I have other rules of course about avoiding injury, adding speed, losing weight but all these are useless without first adding distance. Once you run more you will get quicker, it is that simple people. Of course the act of running more may lead to injuries and this is where the juggling act of adding distance comes into play. It’s here a good coach can advise with advice on training techniques and/or injury avoidance with exercise etc. (It’s a little known fact that injured runners do more prescribed exercises in the waiting room of their running professional than in whole previous week. Also when a runner is given a ‘time not to run’ they instantly half that time as they are better than ‘normal runners’ and then half it again because the Doctor is always conservative. Thus when a Doctor says ‘ 6 weeks of no running’, a runner hears ‘ 2 weeks of no running’….. I digress)
Right back to my mojo. Losing ones mojo is not nice as it makes the thing you love most seem a chore and you find yourself thinking of reasons not to run. Trust me you can always think of multiple reasons not to run but all you need is one reason to run, to get you out the door and , normally, that is enough. The old adage you never judge a run on the first few kilometres. Unfortunately when your mojo is gone the run itself is torture from the start to the finish. When this happens you just got to get your head down and ‘run through it’. For me buying new trainers helps as well as running with friends , especially if you start to find you’re running alone a lot. Friends keep you accountable and also help pass the time. They’re also good for ‘kicking your sorry ass’ if you start to bleat about losing your mojo; thanks guys. Eventually you will come out the other side and , voila, you and your mojo are reunited and all is good with the world.
This time I managed to find my form and mojo by buying new shoes. Initially the new Nike NextX and then some Hoka Cliftons ; which were on sale so why wouldn’t you? These Hoka’s are amazing and give you that Vaporfly feel without the hefty price tag, a poor man’s Nike Vaporflys you can use for everyday training. They are so light but also packed with foam that ‘bounce’ you along on your run and also protect your legs. I can’t recommend these bad boys enough, I am a convert. They also add 2-3 inches to your height, a win-win situation.! I’m tempted to try their Carbon X version which is their version of the Nike NextX but with three pair of Vaporflys in my stable it would just be showing off to buy more , wouldn’t it ? I’ve heard on very good sources the Carbon X is as good as the Next X, not for me to decide on that one unless a Hoka representative is reading this and wants to send me a pair to test, always open to free stuff. (Would any reader, i.e. Mum, please forward this post to someone in Hoka One One world and get me some free shoes please… I’ll mention you on my blog?)
Right back to the mojo search. As you can see from Strava extract below ( you do have Strava don’t you ? … ‘in Strava we trust’, ‘if its not on Strava it didn’t happen‘ etc… http://www.strava.com ) I built up nicely after the Rottnest Marathon before being struck down by a blister. This was a rookie error on my part as I could feel my shoe rubbing but waited until the end of the run, 10k later, to investigate. ! If I had just stopped and adjusted my shoe earlier the blister would have disappeared . As it was I had four days off running when I was starting to get the love back. Anyhow after a few painful runs on my healing blister I eventually put together a few good weeks and threw in some double days to add some punch to the training. Now I am deep into my two week taper and finding it hard not to run twice a day, this is where you need to be so close to a marathon, itching to run twice a day and worried about the prospect of losing all that hard earned fitness you have accumulated over the previous few months. Of course you won’t, and can’t, lose fitness in two weeks but marathon runners are fickle things at the best of times and let all sorts of ridiculous thoughts enter their brain when they don’t have running to distract them! Tapering and carboloading are activities which ever runner realises they MUST DO pre-marathon but all question these activities when they are not running as much as they’d like. As I have said before as runners we enjoy running, it is what makes us runners. Knowing we shouldn’t run to allow ourselves the best chance on race day is common sense but it still does not make it any easier to digest, no matter how many times we go through it. Add in the carboloading activity ,pre-marathon, when we are forced to eat more carbohydrates than we think we should , mixed in with our paranoid delusions about getting sick the last few days before the race and you wonder why being married to a marathon runner can certainly put a strain on any marriage. Karen, No1 Wife, treads very careful around her grumpy Husband in the few weeks preceding a marathon., even the kids have learnt its best to give Dad a wide berth, pre-marathon. With just over a week to go I’m not in fully ‘taper grumpy mode‘ yet but it’s coming and the family is preparing to baton down the hatches. I must admit I forgot to tell them I’ve entered a ‘last man standing’ race two weeks after the marathon so will move seamlessly from one two week ‘grumpy runner‘ period straight into a another two week pre-race taper, joy, I can’t wait to tell them the good news ?
This last man standing is a new concept over here in WA and it’s the brain child of Shaun Kaesler and his USWA Series ( http://ultraserieswa.com.au ) , as well as his triple crown of Australian 200 mile running (The Delirious West, Irrational South and Unreasonable East , I think? ) and the Forest Series etc.. you can’t keep up with Shaun at the moment. Birdys backyard is a 6.7k loop with 44 runners all needing to be at the start line on the hour every hour , until there is only one runner left who will need to run the loop one more time to win. Depending on how keen the other runners are this event had the possibility of lasting between 24 and 48 hours. Eventually sleep depravation will choose who wins, in my opinion. Personally I’d like to run over 100k and if I could nudge 100 miles that will be my limit. We’ll see, it’s my first ‘last man standing race’ so anything could happen ? A lot will depend how I pull up after the marathon but this event is more mentally challenging so the legs won’t have to be 100%, well that’s the theory anyway ? If you need to know about extreme running events google https://wheredreamsgotodie.com . Lazarus Lake invented the insane ultra and his Barklay Marathons is just a lesson in masochism ! He also has a last man standing competition and from this Birdys Backyard was born, allegedly. ?
As always I seem to have digressed and a post about finding my mojo, getting free shoes from Hoka One One and general training tips has ended up detailing mad races that you’d be mad to take on , after I have already signed to do just that. We’re a funny bunch runners, just saying.
