This week saw only a couple of easy 5 milers to keep the legs ticking over.
Race day, Dumfries Marathon Sunday 19th March 2006, provisional results 3 hrs 39 mins 13 secs and 75th place out of 180, a bit slower than intended.
1st mile or so at 7:30 pace, a bit quicker than planned, not a good idea, managed to slow it to the planned 7:50 pace from miles 2 to 7, mile 8 pace slowed going up the hill, didn't like that, indication that maybe this pace is a bit too fast. More of that later.
The next 2 or 3 miles are downhill, back to target pace without any noticable effort, but mile 12 too fast at 7:30, caught 4 or 5 people over these miles, too early to start that nonesense!
Next 3 miles at target 7:50 pace.
Miles 16 to 21 pace gradually drifts through 8:00 and on up to 8:30, working too hard, getting stressed, and people passing me now.
Just after the 21 mile marker sudden and severe cramp - had to stop twice within 10 yards and stretch, lost about 3 mins to plan, therafter shuffled in at around 10 min mile pace - couldn't go any faster.
All in a good race, only a minute or so down on the PB run from my last marathon in London 4 years ago.
Will I run another? who knows, but some lessons would need to be learned, even with the more balanced programme used this time the target improvement of 8 to 10 mins is probably too much with the same mileage. Instead of the target pace of 7:50 possibly 8:10 would have brought me home in one piece, remember it is a marathon, hindsight might have been a wonderful thing.
Scenic course, pretty flat, hills at 8 miles and 23 miles plus a few undulations in between, nothing serious.
Race organistation excellent with feed stations, water and orange juice about every 3 or 4 miles. Collected energy drink sent out to mile 12.
Weather was good, cool, no wind, some weak sun and one short light rain shower in the 2nd half.
Hopefully I can carry fitness on to this years real races on the Hills...
Monday, March 20, 2006
Monday, March 13, 2006
Progress Wk 13
2nd taper week, even less miles, easy or not, switched the plan around to give a run every second day - couldn't miss a run for 2 days in a row! 2 m6 steadies in 48:39 & 48:08 hopefully reflect move towards race pace. Sundays easy 10 miler was made a bit more difficult in the snow but made use of the empty lochside roads to reduce the effort. It's pasta, pasta, pasta from now on. 30 miles completed to a plan of 30.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Progress Wk 12
1st taper week, drop some of the easy mileage, cut back overall distance. Week starts with an m8 steady run in 65 on Tues, couple of easy runs then another 10 Yasso Friday, Cut down Sunday.
42 miles completed to a plan of 45.
42 miles completed to a plan of 45.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)