By Mike
Prologue
I ran the TriRock Seattle Olympic race today with Lindsay (not exactly an Olympic but close -- 1500M swim, 23mi bike, 6mi run). A few days before the race Lindsay asked how I was able to do a 1:35 half marathon last Sunday (the 10th) on so little training (10-15 miles a week for last 5-6 weeks or so). I don't remember my exact answer but I do remember saying I was paying for it this week. It's hard to recover from a race or near-race effort with so little training, especially with so little intense training. I was thinking I might just take it (intentionally) easy this race so as to not risk sacrificing any training.
Swim
First race with the new wetsuit. The swim was a 3-segment triangle. Started off and felt pretty good on the first segment. Found some feet for most of first segment but some person came out of nowhere with a washing machine style kick and threw me off my rhythm. Lost my feet but caught on to this person instead. Was tough to stay on but I managed. Don't know what my time was at the first turn buoy but I checked somewhere along the middle section and my watch said 11:12. Thought I was making some great time even though I didn't feel all that strong. Did some rough math in my head and thought I could come in like ~27-28 minutes which would be pretty good for me. I lost my feet for a quick second and drifted back though still had the swimmer in sight when I popped my head out of the water. I just couldn't accelerate back up however. Was really starting to feel it and swam much of the 2nd leg solo. At the 2nd turn buoy I glanced at my watch and saw 20:50. Was really starting to feel it now. Struggled the last section and came out of the water in 33:xx. I started strong but just faded.
T1
"Wobbly" experience. Took me a while to get stable. Not my finest T1.
Bike
Started off and noted how my heart rate just stabilized around 139bpm. Definitely very low for me. Just felt flat... couldn't put out anything more with the exception of a few hills where I pushed a bit harder. Dropped my chain around mile 15 just before one of the climbs (so knew it was going to happen too). Unlike 99.9% of the time I couldn't get it back on with just a simple chainring upshift. Had to get off the bike and reset it and then go back for the climb. Got passed by a whole mess of people. I was averaging around 19-19.5 mph which again is just plain slow for me... it was quite impressive given the hills and low 140bpm heart rates... we're talking sub-IM pacing here. Started to feel a little better around mile 18-19 but decided to keep the effort levels mostly constant and not bury myself and sacrifice another week of training and possibly the Seafair race the following week. Came in around 1:09 off the bike.
T2
Brief and uneventful. Wasn't trying too hard by this point though.
Run
Started the run glad to get off the bike and wondering if I could match my half-marathon pace from last week (sub 7:20). Started mile 1 with a low 7 pace. Thinking to myself it might be possible since I felt pretty good and my heart rate came up nicely to the 160s. The effort started to feel harder and harder though. About 100m after mile 1 my left calf and shin started to really hurt BAD. It was like I had just done the half-marathon yesterday. Slowed to a walk and then to a complete stop several times in miles 2 and 3. My leg "warmed up" a bit mile 4 (maybe it was the endorphins killing the pain) and felt like I could push again but decided to just keep it easy instead. Mile 5 came around and decided to give it one final push. Run time was ~50:xx or so for a 8:13 pace.
Overall time was a 2:37... horrible race but solid training day (well minus the stopping and walking parts). 2011 will need to a be a rebuilding year. I haven't done much of anything until June and it's been hard to start a normal training program in the middle of race season. I have a race next weekend but I probably won't go full force even if I do recover. I'd like to complete 4 solid weeks of training at 8+ hours a week before I start thinking about truly "racing".
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Race Report: Ocean Shores Half Marathon
By Mike
Coming into this race it was very hard to predict how I'd do as I had just began my training program a few weeks back. I did a 5K (21:03) a month ago on June 12 (was effectively my training kickoff) and was quite happy with how well I did given the lack of training. I did a disappointing 45:21 10K the following week and noticed that I just wasn't ready to put out heavy efforts on so little effort. I pulled way back on my training intensity over the following weeks and focused more on nice easy steady consistent efforts with the goal of eventually ramping up to 10 hours a week of training (not there yet) before adding intensity again. Actually I've been feeling weak on recent workouts... struggled to hit the higher intensities and higher heart rates.
Race Course
This race (Ocean Shores Half) was flat however (perfect for a PR) and I knew I had strong underlying fitness but was very unsure how strong of an effort I could sustain for ~100 minutes. I did a bit of race recon the day before the race and was a bit surprised to see that there would be about 2 stretches of ~2.5 mile sandy beach runs. Was not expecting that and would not have brought my K-Swiss Blade Light shoes (they have holes in the bottom that pick up sand) if I knew any better. I was wondering if it would be worth it to take my shoes off after each beach stretch. The race day temp was expected to be mid 50s with low humidity and some sun and very light wind ~5mph... Great conditions on flat easy course minus the beach sections. All these factors combined with fitness, fatigue, etc made it tougher to really predict how I'd do. I made it a goal to ignore time and focus more on trying to put out a strong effort with high heart rate.
The Race
The race started about 6 minutes early so I barely had a chance to warmup and didn't have a chance to use the bathroom or take in a drink with my Roctane (decided not to take one at the start actually). There were maybe 30 people at the start (supposedly 200 registered) so either the number was off or a few people got caught off guard with the early start. Since it was chip timed, it was impossible to know if any fast people started behind us (Lindsay and I ran together).
The race started off fast with about 10 folks going out ahead of us... 4-5 of them women.. wow.. what a fast start. Lindsay and I decided to keep an easy pace as we figured they'd burn out and we'd reel them in later. Well we did reel some people in but only a few. Actually we started pacing together at in the low 7's... with me drafting the group for much of it... I think the other runners didn't "get" the benefit of drafting because they just let me hang on. We hit the sand shortly after 2 miles and it was annoying to say the least. After the soft sandy part though it wasn't too bad on the packed wet sand by the water. We even saw a baby seal on the beach.. can't say I've ever seen that in a NY race.
At the half-way point a woman came up from behind us and was running hard. I accelerated (from ~7:15 to 6:45) and latched on and so did another male runner in our group. We went from a group of 5 to a group of 6 for a short while to groups of 3 and 3. The 6:45 pace didn't last however and we slowed to about 7:05; however the group was already split by this point. The other male runner started breathing heavily.. I could tell he wasn't going to last and he eventually dropped off at around mile 9 before the second beach section. The beach was no more fun the second time around :) but I was happy to keep a nice strong pace. I stopped drafting her on the beach (I should have continued) figuring it was close enough to the end to try and pull off, test my legs and run along side the other female runner. After we hit the 4th and last soft sandy section on the out part of the beach there were ~2 miles left and I decided it was time to accelerate. I dropped her quite easily but she didn't stay that far back. With about a mile to go however I made a wrong turn on a poorly marked section (actually there was a volunteer but she was in her lawn chair eyes down, half asleep, reading a book)... I lost a few seconds here but it was enough for the other runner to bridge a big part of the gap I opened up. I decided to let her catch up to me and then accelerate again once she caught on (like Macca did to Raelert. My legs were starting to burn but I did manage to open up a small gap again. I won this mini race on gun time, but she did win on net time since she started a bit later... ugh! I came in 10th overall and 6th male overall... got chicked x4... this was one tough women's field! Lindsay finished soon after me.
Results:
Mile Splits/Paces:
7:16
7:15 (1x Roctane here)
7:37 (sand!)
7:40
7:21 (mostly out of sand)
7:16
7:05
7:05
7:07 (1x Roctane here)
7:23 (sand again!)
7:28
7:13 (mostly out of sand)
6:54
1:05 @ 5:57 pace for 0.18 miles.. course long
Total: 1:35:45 @ 7:17
I averaged 167 bpm for the full effort, which was only about 3bpm below what my theoretical max (fully tapered, rested) would have been for a ~100 min effort. I was happy with that! It happened to be a PR for me by 3 minutes as well which was also pretty sweet... my previous PR was on the much hillier course of 2+ loops of Central Park, NY. Really I'm quite happy with this as I had almost no expectations today. This bodes well for some future races where I'll hopefully have a bit more fitness and some more rest. I'm getting close to that elusive sub 1:30! May not happen this year but I'm definitely gunning for it regardless.
Coming into this race it was very hard to predict how I'd do as I had just began my training program a few weeks back. I did a 5K (21:03) a month ago on June 12 (was effectively my training kickoff) and was quite happy with how well I did given the lack of training. I did a disappointing 45:21 10K the following week and noticed that I just wasn't ready to put out heavy efforts on so little effort. I pulled way back on my training intensity over the following weeks and focused more on nice easy steady consistent efforts with the goal of eventually ramping up to 10 hours a week of training (not there yet) before adding intensity again. Actually I've been feeling weak on recent workouts... struggled to hit the higher intensities and higher heart rates.
Race Course
This race (Ocean Shores Half) was flat however (perfect for a PR) and I knew I had strong underlying fitness but was very unsure how strong of an effort I could sustain for ~100 minutes. I did a bit of race recon the day before the race and was a bit surprised to see that there would be about 2 stretches of ~2.5 mile sandy beach runs. Was not expecting that and would not have brought my K-Swiss Blade Light shoes (they have holes in the bottom that pick up sand) if I knew any better. I was wondering if it would be worth it to take my shoes off after each beach stretch. The race day temp was expected to be mid 50s with low humidity and some sun and very light wind ~5mph... Great conditions on flat easy course minus the beach sections. All these factors combined with fitness, fatigue, etc made it tougher to really predict how I'd do. I made it a goal to ignore time and focus more on trying to put out a strong effort with high heart rate.
The Race
The race started about 6 minutes early so I barely had a chance to warmup and didn't have a chance to use the bathroom or take in a drink with my Roctane (decided not to take one at the start actually). There were maybe 30 people at the start (supposedly 200 registered) so either the number was off or a few people got caught off guard with the early start. Since it was chip timed, it was impossible to know if any fast people started behind us (Lindsay and I ran together).
The race started off fast with about 10 folks going out ahead of us... 4-5 of them women.. wow.. what a fast start. Lindsay and I decided to keep an easy pace as we figured they'd burn out and we'd reel them in later. Well we did reel some people in but only a few. Actually we started pacing together at in the low 7's... with me drafting the group for much of it... I think the other runners didn't "get" the benefit of drafting because they just let me hang on. We hit the sand shortly after 2 miles and it was annoying to say the least. After the soft sandy part though it wasn't too bad on the packed wet sand by the water. We even saw a baby seal on the beach.. can't say I've ever seen that in a NY race.
At the half-way point a woman came up from behind us and was running hard. I accelerated (from ~7:15 to 6:45) and latched on and so did another male runner in our group. We went from a group of 5 to a group of 6 for a short while to groups of 3 and 3. The 6:45 pace didn't last however and we slowed to about 7:05; however the group was already split by this point. The other male runner started breathing heavily.. I could tell he wasn't going to last and he eventually dropped off at around mile 9 before the second beach section. The beach was no more fun the second time around :) but I was happy to keep a nice strong pace. I stopped drafting her on the beach (I should have continued) figuring it was close enough to the end to try and pull off, test my legs and run along side the other female runner. After we hit the 4th and last soft sandy section on the out part of the beach there were ~2 miles left and I decided it was time to accelerate. I dropped her quite easily but she didn't stay that far back. With about a mile to go however I made a wrong turn on a poorly marked section (actually there was a volunteer but she was in her lawn chair eyes down, half asleep, reading a book)... I lost a few seconds here but it was enough for the other runner to bridge a big part of the gap I opened up. I decided to let her catch up to me and then accelerate again once she caught on (like Macca did to Raelert. My legs were starting to burn but I did manage to open up a small gap again. I won this mini race on gun time, but she did win on net time since she started a bit later... ugh! I came in 10th overall and 6th male overall... got chicked x4... this was one tough women's field! Lindsay finished soon after me.
Results:
Mile Splits/Paces:
7:16
7:15 (1x Roctane here)
7:37 (sand!)
7:40
7:21 (mostly out of sand)
7:16
7:05
7:05
7:07 (1x Roctane here)
7:23 (sand again!)
7:28
7:13 (mostly out of sand)
6:54
1:05 @ 5:57 pace for 0.18 miles.. course long
Total: 1:35:45 @ 7:17
I averaged 167 bpm for the full effort, which was only about 3bpm below what my theoretical max (fully tapered, rested) would have been for a ~100 min effort. I was happy with that! It happened to be a PR for me by 3 minutes as well which was also pretty sweet... my previous PR was on the much hillier course of 2+ loops of Central Park, NY. Really I'm quite happy with this as I had almost no expectations today. This bodes well for some future races where I'll hopefully have a bit more fitness and some more rest. I'm getting close to that elusive sub 1:30! May not happen this year but I'm definitely gunning for it regardless.
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