Friday nigh before the race was just plain weird. I rested Thursday and Friday not doing a whole lot of anything physical. I had been working Evening Shift and arranged to be off at 8pm as working until midnight then getting up at 5am just doesn't work out very well. Friday Eve at work I was exhausted, even felt like I was getting sick. When I went home at 8pm I was incredibly tired which is never me and especially because I was so well rested. I have notice that I have felt this was on the eve before a race in the past! I really think there is some kind of subconscious body behavior going on knowing what it was I am about to do the next day ....strange but true!
Race morning was more or less routine....could almost cut and paste from the dozens of previous race reports. The tired feeling from the night before carried over but I wasn't too worried about it this is usually a sign that I am going to have a good day!
Having done this race so many times really helps when it comes to developing a race plan. Before I started I knew how much water I would get at each aid station and where I would Gel on the course. Every 12.5K lap I would consume 2 Gels and about a 1 Litre of Water. I was also super conscious about overdressing so I was out there in Shorts and a Tech T with Cotton Gloves. I knew I was dressed approprialtey when others at the start asked me if I was going to be warm enough LOL! It was a cool and windy day with temps hovering somewhere around 7C.....cold and cool but perfect for running, just don't stop.
The theme of the run was all about watching and managing my heart rate. Through 25Ks I was able to mostly keep it in the 130's sometimes spiking into the 140s. By the time I was through 25K I had burned up all the glycogen and was running on body mass so the third and certainly 4th lap heart rate was in the 140s rarely dipping into the 130s but that was what I was expecting and it really wasn't too fatiguing....just aimed at keeping it under 150...max is 164 BPM.
Here is the data from the Fitbit .... the drops near the end of the day were a result of the watch not picking up my heart rate.
So I more or less ran each of the 4 12.5 K laps the same slowing down a little bit each lap.
Splits are ...
Lap 1 1:32:37
Lap 2 1:34:53
Lap 3 1:37:38
Lap 4 1:40:49
I am not doing any runs longer the 50K but I am running more then a dozen of these events this year. I am also doing the full Endur series so I had to rethink the things I do between races. I haven't done any runs longer the mid 30Ks this year and I the last long one was 4 weeks before PYP just at the beginning of April. I have been trying to get the most out of the time I spend running even daring to work on speed a little bit. I have always been weary of speed work because it has a tendency to put you more at risk for injury and make all the little things that Hurt , Hurt! I have been in Hookas now fro a few years and they really agree with me so far there has been no problems with the speed work and I credit the Hookas for carrying around this 175 lb 56 year old frame. Speaking of getting the most out of a run I have been pushing the HR to the V02 Zone for 10 minutes 5 times weekly ... the " Lunch Runs "... aka Heart Run! Another cool thing going on is I have more or less been able to get my trail legs under me early doing lots of trail runs through April. May years PYP was the first trail run of the year , nature was good to us this year!
Up next is Seaton in 2 weeks... not going to do too much between now and then. Will only have to do the occasional long run here and there through the Summer the way I laid out my race calendar the race is the training for the next race...bring it on!
1 comment:
Way to go Ron! Can't believe I managed to miss you out there - hope you have a great season!
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