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

Dave - it’s common for championship, club and cross country races but definitely not if it’s run by a company. The turns may have cost a few seconds but not the 40 my coach thought it might be. It was a little slippery too, not a lot of sun gets in there.

Fisk is fricken hilarious. There’s another season but it’s not on Netflix.

 

Steve - Congrats! And for the record - I told you so .

That's impressive!  I'd like to go sub 39, especially after I turn 50 because that's the standard for Canterbury selection.  Even if I came last at Nationals, I'd love to wear the red and black singlet.  At my current age I need to go sub 36:30 which is very unlikely.

Steve - Big congrats on the 10k PR which pretty much lines up with your 5k and they are obviously your strongest distances. I would suggest improving your speed even more which will build up confidence if you plan to eventually run another marathon. You can still run high mileage for 5/10k races as the elites run about 120mpw. (I’m not sure how much lower that is compared to the elite marathoners).  Btw my 10k PR start time was 7pm which was weird as I very rarely run at that time!

Netflix - I’ll have to check Fisk out. I’ve just finished watching At home with the Furys and I’m not surprised Tyson has suicidal tendencies…I mean how could anyone cope with 6 screaming kids in a mansion! 

My week: another solid one. 

Still kind of winging the training plan. Last week was 6x1-mile tempo intervals; I’d repeat it if it had not gone well, but in fact it had. So I thought I’d move to 4x1.5, but for some reason, after starting the first rep, I decided to make it 3x2. Target for tempo intervals is 6:45-6:50, and they were all right there. In each case, the second mile a bit faster than the first. It was tough, but I was happy with the result. 

For the LR I planned 8 easy + 10 MP. I was a bit worried because it was kind of smoky out. AQI was 110-120, not high enough to skip the run, but enough so I’d probably feel it. Also most of my LR routes are hilly, but I decided I did not need that, and kept the MP portion on flat ground to get a better indicator. My goal for a flat race would be 3:15, or 7:26 pace. I managed to keep the splits pretty consistently in the 7:25-7:30 range, with the last two 7:22 & 7:20. Also I decided to add 2 miles cooldown to make it 20. The effort to hold that felt harder than it should, but (1) I assume I was feeling some smoke effect, and (2) I’ve never ever done one of these workouts and said “yeah I think I could hold this for 26.2.”

We talked about ability to recover quickly being a good fitness indicator. I expected today to be a stiff, sore slog after yesterday’s workout. But in fact it felt pretty much just like any other easy run. So with 3 weeks to go, I’m feeling pretty good about things. Unless race day is warm and/or smoky, which are distinct possibilities. I’ve already looked ahead and found a backup race option 2 weeks later. Still tentatively planning a 10k next weekend, but may bail if it’s too warm or smoky.

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

Totals: Time: 10:27:30 - 🦅Imperial: 72.33 mi - Metric: 116.38 km

Flavio - That is a very good week any week, let alone with all that travel and still recovering.  How are you not exhausted???

Dave - Tracking along really nicely.  2 days after a hard 10km I feel mostly recovered but considering you'll be tapering, I think you'll be fine.  My coach is tentatively planning a 5km for me, 1 week out from my half which I guess is similar to a 10km 2 weeks out from the marathon.

mmerkle - Yeah it's possible I could have gained 10+ seconds without those turns but I'd need to find a perfect loop type course to find a faster one, and get really good conditions.  I think it was as perfect as you could expect for a PB attempt.  Having said that, the half in 4 weeks is 4 laps of Albert Park Lake on the grand prix track - smooth asphalt and smooth corners.  If I get good conditions as well, it's probably as perfect as it gets.

I don't think I'm ready for no watch checking - if I was to do that it would have to be the shorter distances because of the risk of going too fast when feeling fresh in the half and full.  My coach may pace me for a 5km in 3 weeks so that would be a good opportunity to not look at my watch.

mikkey - Thanks!  I think I can still improve the 5km and 10km times because I've never run either distance as an A goal race.  I'm hoping the half can be added to my strong distances.  Then it's just the marathon as a big outlier - I'm planning on a big summer foundation build and lots of planning/theorising about how to conquer the cramp issue.  McMillan predicts a 3:03 marathon from my 10km time.  Maybe one day but for now I've just got to get through one unscathed which would mean a big PR.

By the way, the 10km course was certified and I've found some people on Strava who did manage to connect - I've seen it measure from 9.98 - 10.14km.  Oska (guy on the committee) said the laps were 2.515km so I think it's probably around 10.06km.  Given how many people couldn't even get a GPS signal, I'm relying more on the wheel than the GPS.

Dorothea - By school, do you mean college?  We don't have a lot of that, our sports are generally at club level.  The championship races over summer would be on the track so some could start at 3:30pm - I would note that our summers are dry and we only get a few days of extreme heat (35C+) so it's nothing like afternoon starts would be in Florida.

Steve - weirdly, some of my better performances have come without a taper either.  The 10,000m race in my sig was one example.  Getting to wear the regional uniform is pretty cool, albeit you'd want to do it in a year where they have a decent course.  Last year would've been good if not for the wind, this year its in Palmy and the course looks pretty slow thanks to a big hill.  The course they had pencilled in for 2020 at Mystery Creek actually looked really good; unfortunately that never happened.  The Auckland course at Bruce Pulman Park is pretty bland and also quite exposed to the wind from just about any direction.

DK - thanks... it was 15 mins, 15 mins, 10 mins, 10 mins, 5 mins, 5 mins, basically just trying to go up a notch each time.  Good to see you back here!

Flavio - looks like you got a decent amount of work done despite being sick and on planes.

Dave - half marathons and marathons are generally all morning starts, anywhere between 6am-9am depending on time of year and location.  Afternoon is pretty much only club, regional and national champ events of 10km or less (and those are pretty much all winter events).  These are generally run on closed courses that don't need traffic management otherwise they'd be early morning too!  Fingers crossed for good air quality for your planned race.

Darkwave - you don't need to run forever, only 26.2 miles!

mmerkle - resist that voice in your head!! You've put in a ton of work and there's only two weeks to go now anyway - extra mileage would hinder you rather than help you at this point.

Steve - I am indeed exhausted, even more so than usual. Gonna have to catch some extra sleep this next week.

DW - Yup, feeling good, thanks for asking!

Mark - I suppose those championship races are fine so long as you're focusing on placement rather than time. It seems to me championships are rarely a good chance to PR. That said, you've got to be very fast to be aiming for the top places, here in Portugal the dudes are running low 14 minutes for 5ks on these races LOL, and low 16s for the over 50 males.

Keen - I'm always more impressed that you run over 15 hours, nearly 10% of your week, than the 100 miler per se.

Yup, I'm over the cold.
I don't have a preferred airline. I go to Google Flights and do some extensive research of the options available (it uses a capped down version of an old site called matrix.itasoftware or something like that, and it contains some pretty cool search features, like what are the direct flights out of Europe and into Brazil during March).
This time I was able to find direct flights from Lisbon to Porto Alegre (first place we visited) and then another one from Sao Paulo to Porto, that saved us quite a bit of time, even if the tickets were quite a bit more expensive.
The Torins seem to be just as much shoe as I need for my long runs. I certainly couldn't run that far on the Escalantes, I'm just too heavy and have poor running economy.
And yeah, my solution was to just cut the top of the tongue, so it does not cause abrasion on my ankles.
The Torin 5s are excellent otherwise and I've just bought another pair which I intend to use for my remaining long runs + the half and the marathon race.
I believe I mentioned that I've recently bought the Torin 7, but that's a completely different shoe, which I I'm gonna throw in the garbage bin as it's not very firm and whatever propulsion it's got on the forefoot is working against my gait.