Competitive Jerks Racing and Training - 2023 (Read 574 times)

hi! Bouncing back on to kind of get some foothold here again. I'm going to try and change my style of posting a bit, to perhaps be less annoying to some of you and also better for me. I don't know anything about hockey, and also never touched an Olympic medal, but that's really cool for the kids, Andy. And I'm sorry to read you got sick, Flavio. That happens to me a lot too when I adjust across 6+ time zones. I narrowly avoided getting sick this time, I hope. Hope your return is safe and you don't get sick again after that, too. Longboat, keep it going. As Falvio said, recovery is hard, and your discipline is inspiring.

Re Germans in Brazil: I knew Germans had migrated to Brazil in the 19th century, but it's really interesting to see that legacy there, and I guess particularly in your parent's area, Flavio. Cool. It was before Germany was even "Germany," which is why I also highly doubt I'd be able to understand them, though I'm sure there will be some recognition of Brazilian Hunsrückisch, just like with Pennsylvania Dutch. Dave, I think you're thinking of Argentina for post-WWII, though I know much of South America was a haven to both Jewish-Germans and Nazis...

To recap my summer shortly, and if anyone wants to recap theirs for my benefit, be my guest :

I didn't run a lot, going so far as to take 10 days off in the middle of July in the hopes that my patellar tendon pain (that started in May) would go away. Nope. But I decided this is an issue I'm just going to have to keep an eye on and slowly started ramping back the miles up these last few weeks to get to a solid, if low, base for Philly. 3 months left and it's time to get serious. While that sounds very unideal (it is) and annoying to have been limited in running partly by external factors (it was), I was really active these last two months, doing lots of walking, biking, and swimming. I could often have run faster than I rode, but it must be good for something. I got back to Florida right in time for the most hot and humid days, and hurricane season is ramping up, so we'll see what effect that has on my training. MP pace is feeling decent, all things considered. But I have to see how that holds when I actually get back to workouts.

Dave, while it seems it's the general consensus anyway, just thought I'd add that my coach gave me a 10k two weeks from my Feb marathon, so it seems a legit option, even if my results cannot certify that.

😈 and so is the US (And Argentina)

flavio - Well I had in my head the movie The Boys from Brazil. But yeah probably more so Argentina, and across SA in general. The US - absolutely! Including very special and even heroic treatment given to some of the scientists that came over and helped the military effort - "Operation Paperclip." The most famous was probably Wernher von Braun; this was well-captured in a song by 1950's satire-comedy-musician, Tom Lehrer. That book you linked looks very interesting - did you read it? I just added it to my to-read list. There's a show on Amazon Prime called Hunters, about a group of vigilante Nazi-hunters in the 1970s. It's pretty good, but tough to watch in parts - particularly some of the concentration camp flashbacks. And it ends up begging the question of whether to root for the vigilantes, because they're pretty brutal.

 

On the other prelims a teenager from Latvia (Agate Caune) decided to run away from the pack at some point she was 120m ahead, and ended up 4th place on their prelims, it also made for a nice cat & mouse style of race.

An unusual, but smart move. If she had stayed with the pack, it's almost a certainty that she would have been outkicked and not make the top 8.

How’d you become a Wings fan? 

In 2008 I had only been living in that area a couple years. But I started asking neighbors and of course they all knew Lidstrom lived nearby. He was the first of the wave of Swedes to join the team, and all the ones that followed ended up moving to the same part of town. People whose kids played hockey said sometimes Nik or the other Swedes would show up at practice and give the kids some pointers.

I moved from Detroit to Seattle in 2015, escaping just in time to avoid the Wings’ steep downhill slide.

I seem to recall seeing ice hockey on TV sometime when I was a kid in the early 1990’s and just decided I liked the red team. In hindsight it was actually pretty surprising that was even on TV in NZ at the time as I think that was before the era of pay TV here and we only had 3 channels at the time. 

So does that make you a Kraken supporter now?

 Loved the 1500m men’s final with Josh Kerr beating that cocky Norwegian. 

^^ This. How I would've loved it, had the other Norwegian run 0.04 secs. faster and beat him as well. Maybe in the 5.000 .

Canterbury Road Running Championships 10km

This is a build up race looking towards the Run Prix half marathon on September 24, but I'm still way more prepared than I've ever been for a 10km before, so I wanted to go for a PB + a sub 40.  My 5km time of 18:52 points towards low 39s being possible but after a 30 minute LT test a month ago where I averaged 3:56/km, I thought it would be very close to 40.  The course is fast, albeit with 8 180 degree turns.  The out section of each lap has a slight false flat with a slight headwind but the course is on a road in a pretty thick forest so it's nicely sheltered.  The race started at 3:30pm which meant a quiet day and long time to think but I did some study and the day went quite fast.

It's a 40 minute drive to the coast and I arrive at 2:30pm, head to the start/finish to enter then back to the car for a 20 minute warm up, then shoe change.  I see my coach just before the start - he'll be in the front pack targeting 30:30.  His training partner Oska is using it as a build up for the World Half marathon champs in Riga.

With 5 minutes to go I hit the button on my watch.  With 2 minutes to go I notice it still hasn't connected, then with 15 seconds left I realise it's not going to.  This is a spanner in the works, as I'm a notorious watch watcher.  The gun goes and we're off and the first km my head is all over the place.  Am I too fast, too slow?  My effort feels solid and I feel comfortable so I'm mostly worried I'm too slow.  I'm thinking that if I get my goal I won't have a record of it, and other similarly stupid thoughts.  I go around the first turn and notice for the first time the return part of the leg is very slightly downhill.  I'm behind a pack of old guys who may be doing the 5km or 7.5km (no idea why there's a 7.5km).  Heading to the bottom turnaround we go past the start/finish and I see 8:50 on the clock and then on the way back past it says 9:42 for a pace of 3:53/km.  I'm feeling it more than I think I should be and work out I'm on sub 39 pace.  It feels like I've gone out too fast so I ease off just a touch.  The pack has moved about 10 metres ahead now and I try to get into a rhythm.  My watch is still trying to connect and beeping at me.  I figure if/when it does I'll just use it to confirm pacing.  Back down to the end of the lap and go through in 19:31 for a lap time of 9:49.  I've dropped back to 3:54/km and I'm still close to 39 pace.  I'm hurting a bit and my brain doesn't help by working out I can drop to 4:06/km and still break 40.

I feel like the third lap is the key lap - if I can hold on until the last lap, I can hopefully see it home.  I start passing people during this lap, the group has splintered but I gradually pass all of them and a couple of women.  Back through the start/finish, the clock says 29:24 for a lap of 9:53.  Even though each lap is slightly slower, I'm happy with how I'm holding on and still putting a significant gap between me and 40 minute pace.  My watch comes online at about 6km and shows me holding steady at around 3:55/km, although it drops to 4:10 for 20 metres or so at each turnaround.  I'm in a good headspace now, telling myself I'm in a position to get my goal but I still need to finish the job.  The last time around the the top turnaround is a boost, I'm heading for home with the breeze behind me.  I hold steady until I get around the bend and can see the start/finish in the distance.  I'm next to a guy for around a km and with 1km to go I decide to lift it and really empty the tank.  I'm breathing really hard, legs are hurting a bit but I'm giving it 100% to the finish line.  Around the bottom turnaround then there's about 100 metres to go.  "Oh my god, I've got it" goes through my head but I'm not easing off now.  I go through the finish in 39:10 for a final lap of 9:46.  Second in my age category.

It feels amazing, I'm still on such a high.  It's nice to overcome the GPS issues which definitely impacted my race.  I definitely didn't want my first lap to be the fastest but I didn't crash and it actually may have pushed me to a better time.  If I'd hit 10 minutes as planned, would I have had enough to get those 18 seconds back later in the race?  Who knows, who cares...

My coach (Andy) got dropped by Oska and Chris Dryden then got passed late to come in 4th.  Oska was outkicked by Chris who won in 30:31.  To be fair to both Andy and Oska, it was just a tune up race for them and they've been doing some epic training.  Andy said afterwards he thinks low 1:27 or even 1:26.xx is possible in Melbourne.  I'm not so sure about that but this is a big confidence boost and great reward after so much training for little reward.

Steve - that's excellent stuff, well done. That forest course would've been great as it would've cut the wind out even if there was any. I'm wondering if not having the GPS actually helped too as it would've meant you were just focusing on getting into the rhythm.  By all accounts those splits look very consistent so I daresay you didn't really need it.  Finally a decent reward for a lot of hard work and hopefully bodes well for your upcoming HM.

I had a pretty decent training week, helped by good weather.  Tuesday was a big progression run, I haven't done one of those in a while.  Started around MP and finished up around 5k effort.  Final Xterra event of the series coming up next weekend and it looks to be the muddiest of the lot.

Weekly for period: From: 21/08/2023 To 27/08/2023

Totals: Time: 07:01:24 - 🦅Imperial: 62.82 mi - Metric: 101.08 km