If you asked a stadium-size crowd of runners to name the most important type of running workout, some would say tempo runs, others would say long runs, and still others would say intervals of one kind or another. None would mention recovery runs. Unless I happened to be in that stadium.
Running
At the weekend I entered the City Beach Cup 7.5k at , surprising enough, City beach, Perth. I have never ran a 7.5k race before and it obviously sits between a 5k and a 10k so pace is a difficult thing to dial in . Do you run it fast your 5k pace and then hang on for the last 2.5k , which doesn’t sound a lot but trust me when your legs are gone running another 2.5k is not fun! Alternatively do you run at 10k pace and then finish strong ? Add into the mix this was my first “fast” race since my calf injury in March this year and I was entering a world of unknown. In these situations setting a game plan pace is important because you need to make sure you give yourself the best chance of getting a goal time. I have talked about this before but even us ‘older’ runners can get carried away with youthful enthusiasm at the start of a race, which always ends badly.
Truth be told I was entering this race as part of the West Australian Marathon Club age group category competition, where the best 8 clubs runs are taken into account and the fastest winner of each age group is presented a trophy at the end of the year. I had ran 4 races before my injury so needed 4 more to have a chance. This was number 5 with my next 3 planned for later in the year. The criteria is your average pace over the 8 races, then race distances and finally head-to-head if two runners cannot be separated. Because this was one of the smaller distances it stands to reason I could get a good average pace. This race was thus more about a fast finish rather than any thoughts of a top 3 finish. All this changed of course on the start line….
As with all clubs runs we tend to know our main ‘rivals’ who we complete against over the year, as well as the ‘top gun’ runners who disappear into the distance as soon as the race starts. For some reason when scanning the front of the line-up on Sunday there was only two other runners who I would consider quicker than me. My running buddy Zac who has progressed so quickly this year , and continues to (oh to be in my twenties again when ever race is a PB and training seems so effortless.) , would run unchallenged to victory by well over a minute, and another runner I have had many good battles with over the years , Rob, who would prove too strong in this race. Bar these two it looked like there was a chance of a medal, which as I’m now 50 is an opportunity I always think will be my last. With this in my mind when the gun went off I went off like a scolded cat chasing Zac and all thoughts of pacing discarded instantly. I’m not even sure I had a game plan, just run fast for as long as possible and see what happens. This was to prove my undoing as the first kilometre sailed past in 3mins 13seconds, way , way to quick. It was a Scotty to Kirk moment with the famous ‘She’s going to blow’ quote ringing in my ears as the second kilometre came up in 3mins 40seconds. In my defence there was a slight hill but not enough to justify a 30 second delta compared to the first kilometre. This was me blowing up in spectacular fashion.
So onto kilometre 3 which was luckily a downhill section because I was hanging on for dear life. Zac and Rob started to move away and I prayed there was no one close behind me or my podium goal would have evaporated. I managed to ‘steady the boat’ so to speak and dig in for a few kilometres before finding a second wind, in the broadest sense of the word, and finishing in a semi-respectable sub 27 minutes (26:51). Funnily enough this was the goal before the races but the manner I achieved it could have been better executed. I had turned what was to be a pacing race, to get a run on the board, into a suicidal start and a very painful last 15 minutes with ‘engine close to blowing a head gasket’, not ideal.
What did I learn ? 7.5k is a long way when you are finished after 1k. What should have been an enjoyable pacing run turned into a ‘near death‘ experience by ignoring all I preach on this blog, not for the first time of course. I have mentioned this on many occasions about ‘old dogs and new tricks’ and it seems it still rings true. On the bright side the calf survived the beating and I managed to grab another podium, which I know will be harder and harder to achieve , so all-in-all a great day.
What should have been the right approach? If I had ran the first kilometre at 3min 30-40seconds I would have been better placed to attach the hill rather than crumble into a mess , I could then have used the down hill third kilometre to prepare for the second half of the race and finish strong, compared to finishing like a weak kitten with a cold ! What could have been ? Will I learn from this experience, probably not. I have plans of a park run 5k this weekend and already I’m thinking start slow, finish strong, make the last 2k your fastest, accelerate into the finish etc. All great ideas but when that starter pistol goes off its all forgotten like a Donald Trump tweet and it’s ‘on for young and old.’ I know I’ll get to the first kilometre in sub 3 mins 20 seconds red-lining all the way with legs and lungs about to explode , faced with 4 more kilometres that will testing and a finish that will be as painful as always. Would I have it any other way ? Probably not, I understand Proper Pacing prevents poor performance but sometimes a Steve Prefontaine approach is best.
There are certain races that a runner learns to love over time as they are filled with golden memories. For me , as I race so often and in the same place (Western Australia) I have a few of these. They would include the Rottnest Island Marathon (you really need to click on this link, Rottnest is just one of the most beautiful places on earth. http://www.rottnestisland.com/ I’ve ran ‘Rotto’ 10 times and have loved every minute. ), the Perth Marathon, the 6 inch trail ultra ( http://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com/ ) and the Chevron sponsored City to Surf Marathon.
This morning after a bumper week of training last week , for a weekly total of 13k, I entered the City to Surf Marathon for the 9th time. This race to me is special for a number of reasons. It was the first marathon I first broke sub 3 hours in 2009 in it’s inaugural year. I have ran two of my fastest marathon times on the course (2013 my current PB of 2hrs 41 min 14 seconds and last year 2hrs 41min 41seconds) , finished top 10 on numerous occasions but best of all won $6,000 once as the first Australian (even with my English dulcet tones) to finish. I am also one of the last 26 runners to have ran all the previous 8 iterations of this race. (see below)
As I have mentioned before runners love numbers, be it your PB time, number of marathons ran, average pace, distance, VO2 max, cadence, numbers of runs a week etc. the list is endless but one of the biggest numbers runners love is ‘streaks’. To be involved at the beginning of a major city marathon, even better in your home town, is priceless and a once in a lifetime opportunity. This is why, even with a calf tear less than 8 weeks, out I am determined to run the ninth Perth City to Surf. (I say ‘run‘ , it may end up being a lot less than that by the time I get to ‘heartbreak hill’ at the 40k mark?)
I worked with Chevron from 2007-2015 and during that time suspected I was being kept on as the ‘poster boy’ for the event as I always seemed to be the first Chevron marathon finisher and normally attracted a bit of media attention. Most of that was mainly aimed at the ‘look at the old guy finishing the marathon in a semi-reasonable time’ angle more than anything else. Not many balding, bearded, mid-life (I hope?) runners at the front of the pack so might as well interview this one ? I have been lucky enough to make the papers, local TV and even You Tube on occasion, much to my kids disgust. Apparently watching your dad on the TV doing press-ups after finishing a marathon is not cool. Actually I seem to have this issue with anything I do funnily enough. (and you can imagine how the Elliptigo is going down at the moment in my house ? http://www.elliptigo.com )
There was also the time in 2013 I was nearly ‘first woman’ after running with the lead woman the whole race and then , in the sprint for the line, I was forced to slow so she could take the tape. The beard would have probably given the game away if I had crossed ahead of her and took the tape. At the time I was working for Chevron and reasoned my contract would come under some pressure if I was seen on local TV barging past the first woman in an effort to save a few seconds. Truth be told this was actually my PB run and I still maintain this act of chivalry cost me a few seconds, whether I could justify it cost me 1 minute and 15 seconds for a sub 2:40 is difficult.
Other notable events over the years is one of my favourite photos of Jon barking orders at me in 2010 about 10k into the race. My Garmin watch had died at the start so mentally I was shot before the first step. My plan was to stay with Jon and this group to he finish and grab another sub3. It was about this time I gave up and got dropped like a bad habit. I ended up running alone for the next 30k and finishing in 3hours and 3 minutes. With a fully functioning Garmin I’m convinced I could have gone under 3 hours. Jon was moving into his prime at the time and I was no match for his endurance or speed. Also note this was before the ‘speed beard’ was added to my arsenal and I don’t think I’ve ran over 3 hours with the beard ? (for female readers I would recommend growing a speed beard or any beard really, probably not going to help you attract a ‘life partner’, or maybe…? ) Also notice it was about this time Skins first came out and me and Jon were convinced of their magical properties. I even wore a pair to a 10k once ! We both decided that if the Africans didn’t wear them then we wouldn’t either in the end. Still good for injury prevention on training runs and recovery of course. ( I still remember the first time Karen encountered me wearing skins to bed , for recovery purposes you understand, it was a once only event, I think she nearly died laughing.)
Even got to meet the great Steve Moneghetti at one of the photo shoots for the event when he was the ambassador in 2014. There is a slight resemble, feature wise, as he is also blessed like myself, just needs a beard of course but when it comes to running performances he in a different league, actually a different planet. A genuine nice guy though which is something you find with most good long distance runners. I reckon it is because they’ve been through the same pain we have albeit probably harder , longer and faster; and they are better people for it. This goes for all long distance runners, as a whole they are normally nice people.
There was also the time Mike ran the course and at half way ‘blew his hammy’, he then couldn’t remember his Wife’s mobile number so had to wait until she returned to the family home before calling her and asking to be picked up. Unfortunately for Mike his Wife was the wrong side of road closures and it took her over three hours to get to him. He could have limped to the finish quicker and at least got a finishing medal and probably saved an hour or two hanging around. There was some good karma last year when I got him a free entry and he ran , with very little training, and got his medal he missed from his last failed attempt. The marathon god giveth’ and the marathon god taketh; away.
I have so many more City to Surf stories but will save them for a rainy day when I have run out of things to talk about, assuming that is possible as with each passing day running you are blessed with new experiences, adventures and memories. This is why we run and this is why we are what we are…
Well after yesterdays post it was time to practice what I preach and run a controlled 10k , win my age group, finish high up the field and not get ‘chicked’. Four objectives to achieve, well I managed two, which is nearly a famous song by Meatloaf; or was that 2 out of 3 ? The ‘run a controlled race’ went out the window in the first 3k with a tailwind and runners to chase. Of the four objectives this was always going to be the hardest to achieve. I am well known for sprinting from the start quicker than Usain Bolt and paying the price down the line. Today was not going to be a change from the status quo. In my defence there was a tailwind and I had erred on the side of caution and put on my new racing shoes of choice, the Saucony A6’s . These boys are light and new so there was an extra spring in my step. Add to this a 3 day break from running due to circumstances beyond my control and it all added up to a suicide pace first 3k, feeling ‘on top of the world‘.
Unfortunately as I explained yesterday when you go out at your 5k pace things start to fall apart at 5k, the tank has been emptied and your halfway through the race. Today we had the added bonus of the wind moving from a tailwind , encouraging you to run faster and caressing you forward, into a headwind with an attitude, joy ! Chuck in the ‘O’ I’ve done it again feeling’ and it was time to assume the position in the pain box a few kilometres earlier than planned. Then at 7k things started to get very ugly when Linda Spence, remember I mentioned Linda yesterday, cruised past me with another runner both looking very relaxed. I hung on for as long as I could but I was now in the ‘I’m never going to run a 10k again’ mode. (Remember yesterday I mentioned I go through this conversation with myself around the same time every 10k I run !) So that was 2 objectives out of the window and I was going to have to work very hard to fulfil the remaining two.
The headwind was brutal for the last few kilometres but I managed to hold my position in the field and even managed to pass a couple of runners towards the end of the race. I found my second wind, which again I mentioned yesterday when the central governor is switched off with the finish line in sight, and set of in pursuit of Linda. I’m not sure is she was just teasing me but I managed to close within 10 seconds and finish one place behind her for second female (and first female with a beard?). Age group victory and finish high hip the field , tick. Not sure how high but I suspect I may have sneaked into the top 10. Finishing time of 35:13 which is a bridges course PB but as they change the course every year not sure it counts. Last year we ran the opposite direction and I managed 35:50 so progress of sorts, I think.
So another learning experience and what did I learn. ? As always the 10k really starts at around the 6k mark. This is where you can either maintain your pace or even step up to the finish. In this case it was ‘hang on and survive‘ (the normal for me.) but the conditions played a part in that. (Did I mention it was also quite warm ?) The tailwind, new shoes and rest pre-race lulled me into a false sense of security and this explains the 3k pace, of course at 5k I was done but I did manage to handgun and not lose too many positions in the final part of the race. This was probably due to my ‘pig headed refusal to quit’ rather than training but I suppose this is the one benefit of age, you have resilience as well. I’ve attached the Strava ‘tale of the tape‘ below and as the caption explains the tailwind and headwind played a part in the splits, it wasn’t that bad really ? Although there really is no defence for the first 3k but as the title of this post suggests , ‘old dogs and new tricks‘ are a hard thing to master.
Finally the highlight of the day I suppose, on the way home we managed to sneak into a new Yelo ( http://yelocornerstore.com.au ) at Subiaco. Same format so it was coffee and muffins all around. In the picture you have Mark Conway who ran a huge PB of just over 37 minutes. Mark is on a Matt Fitzgerald plan and it is working big time (in Matt we trust! http://mattfitzgerald.org ). He is at the stage in his running career where every race is a PB and it really is a wondrous stage of any runners career. Next to Mark C. is another Mark, Mark Lommers who is training for the Boston Marathon and will certainly run his first sub 3 marathon. Again Mark is in that stage where every run is faster than the last and every race a PB. Even Mike, next in line in the photo, is chasing PB’s and we have high hopes he will break the West Australian Marathon Club ( http://www.wamc.org.au ) age group record, 55-60 , for the upcoming Perth Marathon. Then you have me who is just trying not to slow down and that is enough. Four runners at different stages of their careers united over quality coffee and muffins. It really is a thing of beauty and this goes back to one of my posts earlier about the social side of running. On the way back from the presentations (remember I did manage an age group win) we had Mark C. in so much pain laughing he had to stop running. This continued for most of the cool down and onto the coffee and muffin race debriefing. This part of running is as important to me as the race itself and, truth be told, as you start to slow it becomes more important.
Right that was the bridges, more time in the pain box than I would have liked and my first ‘chicking‘ for three years but overall a success and a stepping stone for next week when I saddle up and get to race the marathon that just about destroyed me in 2014. Look out Bunbury the BK running machine is on its way and this time it’s personal…..
In Western Australia there are a number of iconic events in the West Australian Marathon Club calendar that attract a large field of the states best runners. ( http://www.wamc.org.au ) Tomorrow is one of them, the bridges 10k. (There is a 5k but c’mon, when there’s a 10k option the 5k really is just an appetiser, and not a very good one at that, maybe a pumpkin soup compared to the Surf ‘n’ turf main course.) The bridges, and the name suggest runs alongside the Swan River in Perth and crosses the river twice via two bridges, giving you a point to point loop course. Flat the whole way bar the rise on the Narrows Bridge it is built for a good time and a run that I run probably 20-30 times a year minimum.
Last year, as this year probably, my main objective is not to get ‘chicked’ (beaten by a woman) as Linda Spencer, a Zatopek runner in her time, runs this race and at her best will beat me hands down. Last year I ran with Linda for the first two kilometres at a pace far faster than I wanted to go but luckily she dropped off and I managed to sneak in before her. We’ll see what transpires this year ? Truth be told there are a number of women runners in Perth who are making great improvements under various coaches and my days of finishing ahead of them are numbered. As always I will go down fighting and, while I still can, keep them honest.
A 10k is a good indicator race before a marathon which I happen to be running next week. I go by the ‘mile a day to recover’ rule and being the 10k is about 6 miles I should be recovered by next Sunday for the Bunbury Marathon. ( http://bunburyrunnersclub.org/3-waters-marathon/ ) I certainly need to be at my best as this marathon destroyed me in 2014 and put me in a running slump that lasted well over a year. This was in stark contrast to the previous year when I won the event. (My one and only marathon victory and one I will cherish to the end….) My plans for Bunbury will be to initially try and keep my average sub 4min/k and finish sub 2hrs 48mins but if the conditions are ideal I may be persuaded, on the day. to go a tad quicker. It is really a starter race to the main course ,which is Perth in June this year. Bunbury is known for bad conditions ranging from winds to heat to humidity, the three things all marathon runners try to avoid. I’ll talk more on ‘bunners’ in a post later in the week as I move in taper mode, this will at least give me more time to spend blogging.
Right back to the Bridges 10k. I’ve said on just about every time I’ve ran t’his 10k will be my last’. It is a race that can put you in the pain box early if you go out too fast and unlike a half or a marathon doesn’t really give you enough time to work into it. A 5k is all about speed and worst case scenario you’re only go to blow up with maximum 3k to go (and that take’s some doing to blow so early !!) , in the 10k if things goes awry early you can be looking at a true 5k pain train and believe me 5k is a long way when you have nothing left in the tank. It also asks some serious questions at around the 6-8k mark and you need to dig deep to answer these before finding that finishing burst for the last kilometre. (Why doesn’t that ‘burst’ happen at 5k ? All down to the central governor I suppose?) So many people ran a 10k at 5k pace, which is find for 5k of course but then they wonder why the wheels have fallen off and there’s still 5k to go.? Funny that.
So how do you run a 10k successfully ? I think the best advice is to run a lot of them, like all things practice makes perfect. Last year I think I ran five 10k races with each one easier (relatively speaking.) than the last. I even managed a couple of sub 35 minute efforts, which was always the dream, so was happy to tick that one off. My advice would be to start at slower than your 5k pace and then build into it and finish strong. How easy was that to type? I am actually smiling to myself while typing this because I know tomorrow when the guns goes off I’ll be sprinting with the leaders for the first kilometre and regretting it at the second, while they continue on their merry way and smash 32 minutes, making it look easy, bless ’em. Meanwhile I’ll be staggering to 5k and opening the ‘5k to go pain box’, jump in, assume the foetal position and close the door behind me.
Tomorrow will also be , probably, the last outing for my weapon of choice lately, the Adidas Takumi Sen 3 racing shoe. These bad boys have got me through three marathons, numerous half marathons, 10k’s and a load of park runs. Over 400km currently (thankyou http://www.strava.com ) but they are now well past their sell by date. The shoe is expensive (and if anybody finds them on special please email me!) but like all things in life you get what you pay for and these are worth 2-3 minutes over a marathon compared to the normal training shoes like the Asics Kayano. (I consider the Kayano more of a boot than a running shoe truth be told. I use to wear these shoes believing all the marketing hype about protecting your foot with their magic gel, about a kilogram of the stuff ! and raising the heel so much you’re virtually tipping over. Not for me people but as with all things running it is personal and this shoe may be right for you but I’m a less is more , when it comes to runners and wear those bad boys down to the bitter end before changing. We were built to run without shoes so, to me , all the shoe does is protesct you from the nasty objects on the concrete. )
Right that’s if for Saturday, I’ll be back tomorrow and post the race details ,which will of course involve lots of questioning myself, time in the pain box and maybe even me getting chicked. Wouldn’t have it any other way…. as you were.
This weekend I ran one of my favourites half marathons, the Darlington half. Favourite for a number of reasons but the main one being the finish. The first half is 11k uphill initially and, being a point to point , there is a 10k downhill for the return. (For the more intelligent amongst you there is a small loop section which explains why its not a 50/50 split between up and down.) So if you get to the turn around with something left in the tank the final 10k is normally the quickest. It really is built for the holy grail of running , the negative split, often talked about but rarely achieved. At Darlington to positive split is actually harder than a negative split with gravity as your co-pilot you are normally caressed home. This year we even had a head wind up the hill to make sure it was negative splits all around !
So back to the race. We drove to the start in Jon’s new BMW and this certainly set the tone for a fast start. Jon is certainly a young man on a mission behind the wheel of a weapon of mass destruction that is his 330d . Please note I do not advocate speeding but if you do indulge it might as well be in a German sports car. So to the start line. The Darlington half starts downhill for the first 100 or so metres and then it’s 11k up, in different degrees of ‘hard’; i.e. hard, very hard, very very hard and this is surely classed as a wall hard !! As always I started way to fast and found myself sitting in 4th place after the first kilometre with another runner who I knew. We settled into the hill climbing part of the half and a stiff headwind, which meant we took turns at the front. Truth be told I think Chris took more time at the front than me but I played the ‘I’m 50 and so, being older, am entitled to sit behind you longer’ card. I’m not sure if this is proper running etiquette but in my mind it worked and I was more than happy to take it a read this was the way. Darlington is always a struggle initially as you race up a 10k hill. You feel you should be running faster than you actually are (according to your Garmin or GPS watch. Sometimes technology can be a curse!) but know you need to save something for the return journey. There is more ‘pacing‘ involved with Darlington as the race really is two different races in one; one a 10k slog uphill and then a ‘run as fast as you can without falling over‘ return 10k. The 1k in between these two races is flat and serves as a divide between the two seperate terrains.
Myself and Chris ran past the half-way cone (well I think it’s about 11k?) together and then started on the 1k in-between flat part of the course, pre-downhill. This also gives you an opportunity to see who is behind you without looking around (as we all know a cardinal sin in racing is looking behind you, never, never do this !) I noted that there was a group of 3-4 runners who were closer than I would have liked and all would be gunning for me on the downhill section, joy, just what you need when you’re knackered and still have 10k to run. (albeit downhill) I up’d the pace in a desperate attempt to put some distance between me and the chasing pack and started on the downhill section with a ‘spring in my step‘ as gravity and the tail wind combined to push me forward. The next 5-6k’s were eventful only in my continued effort to pull back 3rd place, a young man I could see was slightly slowing giving me renewed hope of a top 3 finish. (My best Darlington finish was 5th in 2014 and this becomes important with 2k to go…)
Unfortunately the faster I ran I was still unable to bridge the gap to 3rd and about 18k into the race I resigned myself to a 4th place finish as Chris had dropped off a tad, probably a by product of dragging a 50 year old up the hill earlier. This was going to come back and bite me as, at 19k, I heard footsteps behind me and my friend Luke went past after checking all was good. Luke, being probably 25 years younger than me , was cruising home and had left his dash for the line as late as possible. I moved back to 5th place, which given the race so far, I would have been happy with. Alas, not to be, another runner probably half my age (and then some) went past me with less than 1k to go and down to 6th I tumbled. All in all a 1:19:16 and 6th place was a reasonable hit out for the day. it was my second fastest finishing time on my 6th Darlington half.
What did I learn from the race ? Yet again I struggled at the 5-10k part of the race and felt better for the second half. Not sure if this was gravity and tail wind assisted but it was certainly less painful than the 16k race a few weeks earlier. I still feel I am struggling a bit with my form at the moment but I’m managing to hang on to some respectable times. I have 3 weeks to my next race which is a 10k so this will give me some focus to concentrate on shorter, faster training runs and maybe drop the odd double day; what will I do with all my free time I wonder ?
On a side note Darlington was also witness to a World Record as young Tom Alexander ran 1:24:22. You may wonder why it was a World Record, well Tom is 10 years old. ! He beat the current World Record by nearly a minute running a notoriously slow course . I personally reckon it is at least 2 minutes slower than a flat course, thus young Tom has it in him, on a flat course, to probably put 3 minutes on the 10 year old WR . Now that is impressive. As well as worried about being ‘chicked’ I know need to worry about being beaten by a 10 year old, life as a runner can be a stressful one.
So it was back with the boys this afternoon on the 10k recovery. Mike and Jon enjoy this run as they seem to recover better than me. I struggle to keep up with them as they discuss the race and I hang off the back cursing getting old and recovering like a 90 year old. I personally put this down to leaving very little in the tank after a race where as I sometimes think Jon enjoys the social side of racing a bit too much. Mike was chastising him for striking up conversations with strangers while racing and must admit this is not something I have ever down myself. Give Jon his due he did finish like Usain Bolt but I feel this had more to do with the free breakfast , including muffins, rather than the finishing time. Priorities Jon, priorities !! Once we dragged Jon away from the free breakfast it was back to his BMW and his best Lewis Hamilton impression on the way home. I did feel sorry for Mike in the back trying to eat his croissants and fruit as we went round corners faster that the space shuttle reentering orbit ! Oh well, that’s racing……
I have been quiet the last couple of weeks as I digest the findings from my last WAMC (West Australian Marathon Club) race where I worked very hard for a podium finish. The race itself was harder than expected and although I was happy with the end result it has certainly left me ‘scarred’, and this explains the lack of posts.
As runners we all run for different reasons, some for health, some wellness, some to escape life and others to embrace life. For me it has always been about racing myself and trying to better my best time, always looking to be my best or even beat my best. Over the years I have been very successful at this and ran many PB’s . This though has come at a cost and truth be told it has always been one I have been more than willing to pay. Each year I have increased my weekly distance and still ran the hard sessions when needed. It was always worth the extra effort as the PB’s kept coming and I even started to grab some podium spots as I hit my late forties. I had successfully moved from the middle of the pack to the front and this is an addiction that is stronger than any illegal drug. (Please note I assuming this to be true as being a dedicated runner my only vice is pancakes and muffins !.) Last year was perhaps my best ever as I left the forties and moved into my fifties. Admittedly I put in more distance than ever before and also changed my diet but the results came and they were better than I ever could have imagined.
Thus 2017 I started off on the same foot (excuse the pun) and kept up the double days and hard sessions assuming this PB trajectory would continue. The first hint of trouble was a 5k race at the beginning of the year where I ran over 17 minutes for the first time in a year. I put this down to the conditions and a tough training week pre-race. Looking at my training log I had ran the same race 3 years ago and go the same time so it wasn’t a complete disaster, or was it? Next was the ADU 100K, my first 100k ultra. This was a complete success with a 2nd place finish and a strong race throughout. The video was even good documenting the experience, thanks to Rob’s talent rather the subject. Next came a 16k race that I had run twice previously (for two 2nd place finishes.). This race was going to be the tester for the season and I was expecting to do well and try and break my 59:59:07 time from last year. The race report can be read here :-
This race has made me question my training and I am certainly more worried about what the future holds rather than usual excited anticipation you experience at the start of a racing season. With the Darlington half this weekend I need to make sure I work on my mindset as currently I am not in the right frame of mind to ‘attack’ the course and I feel similar to the last time I ran Darlington in 2014 where I was a few minutes slower than planned. This doesn’t sound a lot but when you race as much as me a few minutes is a lifetime and I certainly spent some serious time reflecting on that 120 seconds slippage! All of a sudden runners who I would normally never see where chasing me in the closing stages and when I finished there was a procession of runners behind me, far too close for my liking; I was being dragged back to the pack.
I understand that at fifty my time at the pointy-end of the race is limited and truth be told I was actually looking forward to moving back to the pack and relaxing my arduous training load but as I mentioned before being near the front is addictive and it’s not something I am willing to give up without a fight. I need my fix of ‘success’ and last year was a good year where I over dosed on medals. I’m just not ready to go back to the pack just yet but maybe I don’t have a choice?
Point Walter was hard in many ways but what was hardest to digest was the feeling that maybe I have ‘shot my bolt’ and the downward spiral of finishing times is over. I had the same feeling in 2014, after a particularly good previous year, and was prepared for the return to the pack. Last year though I reignited my PB streak but now I feel I am again facing the prospect of slowing down. Am I ready for this, no, can I do anything about it, I’m not sure and this is the problem. I have mentioned many times the mental part of running is so important and I need to ‘toughen up’ my approach as this took quite a hit after my last race.
So we’ll see what Darlington has to offer and I am hopeful I can put in a good performance, rather than excited about chasing faster times. Even typing this I feel it is an admittance of the first stage of accepting moving back to the pack and this may be a necessary journey because if the effort required to stand still is so great it becomes undoable you would soon lose your love of racing and then for me running, as the two for me are joined. I had already resigned myself for this journey in 2014 and last year was a bonus which was unexpected , albeit hard work to achieve. Is this my second attempt at accepting my times are now set in stone and no longer beatable, we’ll see, maybe as soon as this weekend at the Darlington half?
As you can see from the photograph above I did manage to keep ahead of the pace at Darlington and although I dropped a few places from my start sprint I still managed a top 10 finish so maybe I can keep myself ahead of the pack for another year or two? It’ll be fun trying……
This morning I lined up for the West Australian Marathon Club ( http://www.wamc.org.au ) Point Walter 16k (10Miles), my first race as a fifty year old. I’d ran this race twice in the last three years and managed a second place finish both times (58:24 and 59:59:07 , that 07 is important as the club (and Strava) rounded it up to an hour dead !, the first time was a PB and is important for later in this post…) I had a mini taper for this one as I was determined to go faster than the 59:59:07 I ran last year and the Race Director and Club President both knew I was out to set the record straight.
So to the start, I turned up and saw my friend and training partner Ross warming up in the car park and this threw me a bit as he had earlier commented he’d be running with the lads and Ross is on fire at the moment, winning his last two events. Mentally this was a blow as I was hoping to cruise to a podium, truth be told , and seeing Ross I knew I was probably now one place down. Speaking to Ross at the start and it seemed another ‘gun runner’ was doing the 16k (there is a 5k option as well) so I moved myself one more place down the finishing list. I was now, probably best case, gunning for 3rd. Next thing alongside me my friend Zac turns up after running a 1hr15mins half the previous week (a 5 minute PB, oh to be young again!) , so much for a cruise to a podium, although I knew Zac would probably fade he has the benefit of youth, something I can no longer draw on. This was not a good start to the race and add in a hot day , it started at around 25c and rose quickly, together with a headwind for the first 4k (it is an 8k loop twice); I was mentally finished before I even started.
Once we started I found Ross and sat behind him, cocooned between the 5k runners who went off like scolded cats and a group of 16k runners who would challenge for the podium places. At the 2.5k point the 5k runners turned and the 16k race unfolded before me. The gun runner Ross spoke off was well ahead and barring injury a shoe in for the win. Ross was comfortable in 2nd and I was just behind him with young Zac hot on my heels.
I found the initial pace taxing into the wind and came up with all sorts of reasons why I could pull the pin and end the pain, which was unusual for me. Maybe this ‘tapering lark’ is not all it’s cracked up to be, either way by 4k I was in trouble. Zac went past me about this time and moved away with Ross and with him all thoughts of a medal. This added to my anguish and did nothing for my mental state which was now at its lowest. I had spent all week reading Matt Fitzgerald’s ‘How bad do you want it’, and realised about the 5k mark I didn’t want it at all ! This was the compounded by another runner cruising past me , so I had now moved to 5th and was seriously thinking of pulling out at the 8k mark. I have raced hundreds of races in my time and never DNF’d so the thought of doing so on a 16k WAMC race was never going to happen but option ‘B’ was to start a long 8k cool down, and work out valid reasons for this approach; truth be told I could think of none. (Funnily enough I was on Facebook yesterday, as I was tapering, and replied to a comment about taking days off as a sign of weakness, here I was thinking of pulling the pin on a 16k race; karma I think! )
Right, halfway in around 28:30; on track for my sub one hour target but on the inside well and truly finished. The Race Director and Club President cheered me on and informed me I was right on time but I remember thinking they were dreaming if they thought I’d be back within the hour, never going to happen. Reluctantly I moved onto the second lap and knuckled down to endure what I thought would be more of the same. The 4k headwind embraced me and my pace started to drop above the 3:3xmin/k I had targeted, only just, but enough.
Well at 9k it happened, the whole race changed in an instant. The lead ‘gun runner’, who was well ahead, was on the side of the path and obviously out of the race. Suddenly I was in 4th place and looking up ahead young Zac was now paying the price for racing the half the week before and I was catching him. Boom ! Suddenly the voice inside my head which was shouting for mercy was now shouting for medals and it was on like donkey kong for young and old !!
The headwind didn’t help me but Zac was paying the price big time and I know from past races he is not the best finisher. (He’s young and starts every race at suicide pace, it won’t be long before he finishes the race as the same pace and then he’ll be out of my league; if not already. ) Put these two things together and I knew I was with a good chance of a podium. At fifty my days of getting on, or even near, to a podium are limited and I was quite prepared to put it on the line for the last 6k to grab one more before my time is done. In about 4 minutes I had gone from pulling the pin for the first time in my career to putting my head down, finding a second wind , and rolling in the runner in front of me. This I did at the last turn around with 4k to go. With the wind behind me I was able to maintain the sub 3:40min/k average pace and even managed to get within less than 20 seconds to Ross, who at one point was just about out of sight. How did I do this ? When the lead runner pulled out and I could see Zac struggling my whole mental approach changed, and when I convinced the mind I could grab a medal the limiters were taken off and I was allowed to run quicker, with fatigue ejected to the back of my mind.
Although this was only a 16k race I had been through the ringer when it came to emotions. I was finished at 2k, pulling out at 4k, heading to a world of pain and 8k and reborn at 9k. This running really does teach you so much about yourself. If I had pulled the pin at any time during that race I would be typing such a different post, as it is I am happy that yet again I managed to pull it out of the fire and convince myself I could finish, and finish strong.
Was the book helpful, (ref: Matt Fitzgerald)? To tell you the truth probably not, it’s easy to sit on a train on the way to work reading about all the great athletes who have dug deep when faced with impossible odds and how the mind has helped them achieve their goals. When you’re in a massive hole at the start of the race you know it’s the mind telling you to stop but ignoring it, or even convincing the mind it is wrong, it not so easy. I suppose the real answer is to trust in you training, if you’ve put in the hard yards you will come good, you may not get the PB you were chasing but you will finish; never ever stop.
Overall I managed to grab that podium and even managed a 1 second PB finishing in 58mins 22seconds, a second quicker than my 2013 time but a world apart for race experiences. Three years ago I was in the form of my life and this was another PB in a long line of PB’s, those days disappeared for a few years but I have been lucky enough now to sneak a few more. Today I had to work so hard for that 1 second PB but I’ll take it and really it is worth so much more because of the mental torture I put myself through to get it. I’ve asked this question before about how many times I can keep going to the well and pulling these runs out , eventually the well will be dry , eventually ? Until then it looks like running easy PB’s is never going to happen (not that they really ever did?) for me in the future, at fifty if you want a PB you are going to have to REALLY WANT a PB. No worries, today I have the medal which whenever I look at it I will remember the pain and the pleasure I put myself through to get it. That piece of metal is worth so much more to me, to me it is memories of another run where I asked myself some serious questions and , this time, came up with all the right answers.
This weekend I’m racing the first ‘proper’ race of the year. By ‘proper’ I would say it is a good indicator race of what the season may hold. My two previous races this year have been a 5k, which I ran so I could move between the 45-50 and 50-55 age groups for the WAMC, and my first 100k ultra which was a one off and more about keeping me interested over the festive break.
On Sunday I’m racing the WAMC Point Walter 16k, a race I have ran 2nd twice in the last three years, and it is my current PR time for a 16k , set in 2014. Last year there was some conjecture with my finishing time when I ran 59:59:xx which the club rounded up to 1 hour. I was not happy ! The next three races in my calendar didn’t go to plan and although I ran close to my PR’s I felt I could have ran better. Luckily the Joondalup half a few months later kick started my season when I ran a sub 1hour 18minute half marathon time, which at the time I thought was beyond me. From this race I then went on to probably the best racing season of my career, at 49.
Expectations for Point Walter would be a quicker time then last year (minimum) and if I can get a sniff of a PR I’ll be very happy. A PR this weekend would give me some good feedback on my current training regime which at the moment is starting to take its toll. I have been running double days now since June last year and it will be good to start to build towards race preparation rather than distance. I certainly have a serious foundation at the moment if nothing else.
Last year I went out too quick chasing my friend Jon Higgens. Jon ran sub 57 minutes so it was a strategy fraught with danger and in the second half of the race I dropped some time due to the legs not responding to the request for more pace. Luckily I was comfortably in second place so managed to hang on for a podium finish. This year I will try and pace the race better but the old adage about teaching old dog’s new tricks perfectly sums up most runners. The moment the race starts it’s normally on for young and old and all race strategies are quickly forgotten as you chase a fellow competitor, no matter what pace or experience.
Funnily enough when I PR’d this course back in 2014 I was chasing my Steve ‘Twinkle Toes’ McKean who had conveniently forgot to tell me he was running the 5k, imagine my surprise at the initial pace and I remember thinking Steve was running well. The truth was revealed at 2.5k when Steve turned in second place for the 5k and I was let loose to continue , in the lead, for the 16k after starting at 5k pace. I actually managed to recover and run a PR so maybe this start fast and hang on strategy is the way to go. I had a similar story when I ran my first sub 35min 10k , I was running with the lead 5k runners and at the turn around just continued at that pace with one other runner. We basically flat-lined it to 5k and again I managed to hang on for my first sub 35min 10k. All thought of pacing went out the window when the gun went off and I knew I was running too quick but was determined to see how far I could go without blowing up. Luckily it was 10k and a good PR.
The moral of both of these stories is sometimes I feel you can pace yourself out of a PR. If you have a pacing strategy you will, at best, hit your goal but rarely beat it by a significant amount. The risk is of course you are in form to go faster but only realise in the latter stages of the race and by then your ability to do some serious damage to your PR time is minimal. Of course the flip side is also true where if you do go out way too quick and you’re not having a good day there is a world of pain awaiting you and no matter how short the race the ‘pain box’ is an uncomfortable place to be if you’re not expecting it. A classic quote below from Steve Profontaine sums it up nicely….
The best thing of course is to trust in you training and have a realistic time and pacing strategy prepared. Massive jumps in PR’s for me, at my stage of my running career and life in general, will be unrealistic expectations and just getting close to previous records will be a win; albeit I have a few PR’s that I might nudge this year if all goes well. New runners starting out capture PR’s every time they put on a bib and this can become addictive. Nothing beats running faster than you have ever run before and for me this is what racing is all about. Forget the runners around you, you are racing yourself and this is what makes running such an honest sport. It really is you against the clock and records set in previous races and the continual battle to get faster.
I will start a mini-taper for the race tomorrow when I will only run my morning progressive 14k giving myself the afternoon off. Friday will be a similar story with one run only. (How did two runs a day become the norm?) Saturday will be my third day off for the year, the other two days off no running was the day before the ADU 100K ultra and the day after. This taper should give me the best chance of a good time on rested (?) legs. Conditions will of course play a large part as this week has been particularly humid but as the race starts early this shouldn’t be a problem.
Racing week is a special time and normally I start thinking about the race early in the week. This one has been playing on my mind since Monday but this is a good thing as it means I am anxious, nervous and excited about the prospect. A runner needs to be on edge and only really relaxes when the gun goes off and experience takes over. Of course it is going to hurt like hell towards the end, it is a racing, but when you’re racing all you need to do is keep moving forward as fast as you can, the pressure really is off. The photo below shows the look of a runner who has really run out of fuel and is hanging on for the finish, it is to be noted on the inside I am smiling, I think?
Being Sunday it was the normal early morning alarm call and the obligatory long run with the boys. This morning it was a 2 hour easy run, not worrying too much about pace but more time on legs, the bread and butter long run. We set of from Hillary’s car park and move gingerly towards City Beach which was 13k to the South and would make a good turning point. As it was we reached City beach dead on 13k and 1 hour , perfect pacing.
Of course on the way back we up’d the pace as we got closer to the finish and the lure of coffee enticed us quicker kilometre by kilometre. A good negative split of 3 minutes and a quick last 5k was always on the cards and yet again we all probably failed in our main goal of a time on feet, easy long run.
So yet again our long run turned into a progressive, my third for the week, and I realised that running in a group you are always going to end up with a progressive finish, it must be a ‘man thing’ , too competitive. Maybe we need to try and get more females into the Sunday long run group to try and calm the testosterone that eventually always comes to a crescendo when you can smell the coffee, around the last 5k mark. On the bright side because Mark Lee decided to have a lie in we weren’t running sub 4min/k average for the last 5k and the finish was testing but not ‘pain box’ suffering. Looking back through my last few months of long, easy runs and I seem to have this ‘fast finish’ spurt on all of them, if it’s not Mark it’ll be Ross or the T-train pushing the pace and I’ll hang on because what other option is there ? All thoughts of a long easy run are forgotten and it becomes a ‘last man standing’ sprint to the finish. Maybe I’ll get Matt Fitzgerald alone on one of these long easy runs and see how he goes with 5k to go and the smell of caffeine in his nostrils !! I’m sure he’ll be sprinting to the finish with the rest of us.
An article below from Matt Fitzgerald explains the theory behind junk miles and recovery runs, good news if you like to run slow, which unfortunately me and the boys don’t do on a Sunday. Maybe I’ll print this and hand it out before the next ling run and we’ll discuss it’s merits. It won’t help of course because with 5k to go you know it’s on for young and old……
I won’t go quite so far as to say that recovery runs are more important than tempo runs, long runs, and intervals, but I do believe they are no less important. Why? Because recovery runs, if properly integrated into your training regimen, will do just as much to enhance your race performances as any other type of workout. Seriously.
It is widely assumed that the purpose of recovery runs—which we may define as relatively short, slow runs undertaken within a day after a harder run—is to facilitate recovery from preceding hard training. You hear coaches talk about how recovery runs increase blood flow to the legs, clearing away lactic acid, and so forth. The truth is that lactic acid levels return to normal within an hour after even the most brutal workouts. Nor does lactic acid cause muscle fatigue in the first place. Nor is there any evidence that the sort of light activity that a recovery run entails promotes muscle tissue repair, glycogen replenishment, or any other physiological response that actually is relevant to muscle recovery.
In short, recovery runs do not enhance recovery. The real benefit of recovery runs is that they allow you to find the optimal balance between the two factors that have the greatest effect on your fitness and performance: training stress and running volume. Here’s how.Training stress is what your body experiences in workouts that test the present limits of your running fitness. You can be fairly sure a workout has delivered a training stress when it leaves you severely fatigued or completely exhausted. The two basic categories of workouts that deliver a training stress are high-intensity runs (intervals, tempo runs, hill repeats) and long runs. A training program designed to prepare you for a peak race performance must feature plenty of “key workouts” that challenge your body’s capacity to resist the various causes of high-intensity fatigue (muscular acidosis, etc.) and long-duration fatigue (muscle tissue damage, etc). By exposing your body to fatigue and exhaustion, key workouts stimulate adaptations that enable you to resist fatigue better the next time.
Running volume, on the other hand, has a positive effect on running fitness and performance even in the absence of exhaustive key workouts. In other words, the more running you do (within the limit of what your body can handle before breaking down), the fitter you become, even if you never do any workouts that are especially taxing. The reason is that increases in running economy are very closely correlated with increases in running mileage. Research by Tim Noakes, M.D., and others suggests that while improvement in other performance-related factors such as VO2 max ceases before a runner achieves his or her volume limit, running economy continues to improve as running mileage increases, all the way to the limit. For example, if the highest running volume your body can handle is 50 miles per week, you are all but certain to achieve greater running economy at 50 miles per week than at 40 miles per week, even though your VO2 max may stop increasing at 40 miles.
You see, running is a bit like juggling. It is a motor skill that requires communication between your brain and your muscles. A great juggler has developed highly refined communication between his brain and muscles during the act of juggling, which enables him to juggle three plates with one hand while blindfolded. A well-trained runner has developed super-efficient communication between her brain and muscles during the act of running, allowing her to run at a high, sustained speed with a remarkably low rate of energy expenditure. Sure, the improvements that a runner makes in neuromuscular coordination are less visible than those made by a juggler, but they are no less real.
For both the juggler and the runner, it is time spent simply practicing the relevant action that improves communication between the brain and the muscles. It’s not a matter of testing physiological limits, but of developing a skill through repetition. Thus, the juggler who juggles an hour a day will improve faster than the juggler who juggles five minutes a day, even if the former practices in a dozen separate five-minute sessions and therefore never gets tired. And the same is true for the runner.Now, training stress—especially key workouts inflicting high-intensity fatigue—and running volume sort of work at cross-purposes. If you go for a bona fide training stress in every workout, you won’t be able to do a huge total amount of running before breaking down. By the same token, if you want to achieve the maximum volume of running, you have to keep the pace slow and avoid single long runs in favor of multiple short runs. But then you won’t get those big fitness boosts that only exhaustive runs can deliver. In other words, you can’t maximize training stress and running volume simultaneously. For the best results, you need to find the optimal balance between these two factors, and that’s where recovery runs come in.
By sprinkling your training regimen with relatively short, easy runs, you can achieve a higher total running volume than you could if you always ran hard. Yet because recovery runs are gentle enough not to create a need for additional recovery, they allow you to perform at a high level in your key workouts and therefore get the most out of them.
I believe that recovery runs also yield improvements in running economy by challenging the neuromuscular system to perform in a pre-fatigued state. Key workouts themselves deliver a training stress that stimulates positive fitness adaptations by forcing a runner to perform beyond the point of initial fatigue. As the motor units that are used preferentially when you run begin to fatigue, other motor units that are less often called upon must be recruited to take up the slack so the athlete can keep running. In general, “slow-twitch” muscle fibers are recruited first and then “fast-twitch” fibers become increasingly active as the slow-twitch fibers wear out. By encountering this challenge, your neuromuscular system is able to find new efficiencies that enable you to run more economically.
Recovery runs achieve a similar effect in a slightly different way. In a key workout, you experience fatigued running by starting fresh and running hard or far. In a recovery run you start fatigued from your last key workout and therefore experience a healthy dose of fatigued running without having to run hard or far. For this reason, although recovery runs are often referred to as “easy runs,” if they’re planned and executed properly they usually don’t feel very easy. Speaking from personal experience, while my recovery runs are the shortest and slowest runs I do, I still feel rather miserable in many of them because I am already fatigued when I start them. This miserable feeling is, I think, indicative of the fact that the run is accomplishing some real, productive work that will enhance my fitness perhaps almost as much as the key workout that preceded it. Viewed in this way, recovery runs become essentially a way of squeezing more out of your key workouts.
Recovery runs are perhaps the most neglected type of running workout, probably because most runners don’t see them as making a positive contribution to running fitness and performance. There is a tendency to assume that a run doesn’t really “count” unless it’s at least somewhat challenging, and to train accordingly. Consequently, all too many competitive runners never really do any proper recovery runs—runs that are short and/or slow enough to create no need for recovery. As a result, these runners are seldom as fresh as they ought to be for their key workouts, they don’t perform optimally in them, and they don’t get as much out of them. At the same time, because they go at least moderately hard in every run, these runners are not able to handle as much total running volume as they could if they did true recovery runs.
If this sounds like you, I hope I’ve convinced you that recovery runs can help you race faster, just as tempo runs, intervals, and long runs can, and I hope that this new understanding will motivate you to plan and execute recovery runs with as much care as you do these other workouts.
Now that I’ve sold you on the benefits of recovery runs, let’s look at how to do them so that they most effectively serve their purpose of balancing training stress and running volume in your training.
- If you run fewer than five times a week, recovery runs are generally unnecessary. Recovery runs can only serve their purpose of balancing training stress with running volume if you run five or more times per week. If you run just three or four times per week, you’re better off going for a training stress in each run, or at least in three out of four.
- Whenever you run again within 24 hours of completing a “key” workout (i.e., a workout that has left you severely fatigued or exhausted), the follow-up run should usually be a recovery run.
- Do key workouts and recovery runs in a 1:1 ratio. There’s seldom a need to insert two easy runs between hard runs, and it’s seldom advisable to do two consecutive hard runs within 24 hours. A good schedule for runners who run six days a week is three key workouts alternating with three recovery runs, as in the following example:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Off Key Workout(high intensity) Recovery Run Key Workout(high intensity) Recovery Run Key Workout(long duration) Recovery Run
- Most elite runners who train twice a day do a hard run in the morning followed by a recovery run in the afternoon, or a hard run in the afternoon followed by a recovery run the next morning. The frequency is twice that of the above example, but the ratio of key workouts to recovery runs remains 1:1.
- Recovery runs are largely unnecessary during base training, when most of your workouts are moderate in both intensity and duration. When you begin doing formal high-intensity workouts and exhaustive long runs, it’s time to begin doing recovery runs in a 1:1 ratio with these key workouts.
- There are no absolute rules governing the appropriate duration and pace of recovery runs. A recovery run can be as long and fast as you want, provided it does not affect your performance in your next scheduled key workout (which is not particularly long or fast, in most cases). Indeed, because the purpose of recovery runs is to maximize running volume without sacrificing training stress, your recovery runs should generally be as long as you can make them, short of affecting your next key workout. A little experimentation is needed to find the recovery run formula that works best for each individual runner.
- Don’t be too proud to run very slowly in your recovery runs, as Kenya’s runners are famous for doing. Even very slow running counts as practice of the running stride that will yield improvements in your running economy, and running very slowly allows you to run longer (i.e. maximize volume) without sabotaging your next key workout.
Sunday morning is the long run with the lads, although over the years this may have morphed from a Saturday to a Sunday , the weekend long run is the bread and butter run of marathon and long distance runners. We all know that , in the foundation stage at least, this run should be about time on feet. The long run is a reward for all the hard runs you may have completed in the week, it’s a time to smell the roses and eat the pancakes, while enjoying great coffee. Hell, it should actually be time to enjoy running for the pure pleasure of just running. No need to look at the watch (but you must wear a GPS enabled Strava friendly watch of course, otherwise the run never happened!) and time to look up from the pavement and actually enjoy the view of your running surroundings. (Living in Perth and running normally on bike paths close to the ocean this may be a tad easier for me but still you can find beauty anywhere, you may just need to look a bit harder sometimes.)
Over the last 6 months I have been adding distance and doubling up daily and this has been a success, as you can see from my Strava extract. Since Christmas, there has been no slacking off and I feel my body is getting use to the extra workload and I still look forward to every run but….
Recently my friend Mark ‘one speed’ Lee has been joining me for some of my early morning 10k ‘old faithful’ runs and this has made the pace a tad more competitive. This Monday for instance we ended up finishing sprinting up the last hill sub 4min/k pace, on an easy recovery run after the Sunday long run in Bold Park. Not a good idea for us distance fans. This was compounded by a couple of runs early in the week with Justin ‘one pace and it’s quick’ Kelly, after I specifically told him recovery. To add to my pain the runs with Justin were in the middle of the day, so add in heat !
This mornings 24k was again meant to be a time on legs, still recovering from the ADU 100k a few weeks earlier, type of run. Not a chance, with Mark leading from the front we went out pretty hard and came back even quicker. Mark did leave us at one point allowing me to slow the pace a tad but unfortunately (for me) he got lost and rejoined us for the last 5k.
I think you can see the Mark effect from about 20k onwards. Of course you can let Mark go on his merry way but he has the knack of drawing you in and before you know it you’re in a mad dash to the finish. Call it a competitive nature or just plain silly, I suspect at my age it is the latter. (I’m fifty now you know.)
The moral of this story is this week I have been feeling the extra pace thanks to my training partners from hell Mark and Justin. Both are younger, faster and ,at the moment, running less weekly kilometres; add these three things together and you have one very tired 50 year old runner. There is a silver lining to this week of pain of course. If you can survive the experience I believe you come out the other end a better runner but there is the caveat that too many of these weeks will eventually lead to exhaustion and fatigue , which in turns leads to injury. Running the weekly distances I’m currently running I need to be mindful of the 80%-20% split with 80% being easy runs , not the mark Lee version of 20%-80%. (Matt Fitzgerald would not approve!)
The long run is probably the one run just about every runner gets wrong, it’s not in our nature to slow down to a point that you feel there is no benefit. A favourite run of mine is the last 5-10k at marathon pace which may be down to the fact that I feel I haven’t done enough so flog myself so when I’m wolfing down the post-run pancakes I don’t feel guilty. Is this the right approach, according to most coaches probably not but we are fickle things us runners and although we set of with good intentions the next thing you know you’re chasing Mark Lee at the end of your long easy run at sub 3:50min/k pace ! Trust me it happens, I’m sure every running group has a Mark Lee type runner who will push the pace and like rats following the Pied Piper we will follow. On the bright side the pancakes do taste better when you feel you’ve put in a big effort but that’s not the point of the run.
So what to take from this post.? Google ‘Long Slow Run’ and read the results, they will backup the ‘it’s a time on legs run‘ predominately, then next weekend when you are just about done and someone starts to up the pace think about this post and let them go. Long term it’s the thing to do. I reckon the post run pancakes will taste just as good, probably ?