Thursday, September 12, 2013

Edmonton half marathon race review 2013

On August 25th I ran in the Edmonton Half Marathon, a year after having a re-occurrence of my Achilles issues. I ran pretty well, but not as well as I would've liked. I guess part of that is because I know I can run faster, and have run faster in the past. But those times were run preinjury and to tell you the truth I haven't really run that well since.

A year has gone by since the last time I updated this blog and lot has changed in that time. Most of it for the better, but some of the changes lead to a period of time I wasn't interested in training/racing and generally felt sorry for myself and kind’ve withdrew from everything. But we don't need to go back there and the only person that can change the things you don't like in your life is you!!

In April according to my GPS I started training again. Slowly building up mileage on the bike and running as well as swimming when I had the chance, all with the idea of qualifying for the ITU World Cup Finale that will be here in Edmonton about a year from now.

I made the team for 2014 but only just (last spot in age group), which is what I was aiming for as it was the only triathlon I was going to do this year. But it also made me realize how far behind I was in my training. Could probably count on one hand the number of times I swam between February and the race. I also ran in the Canada 15K and while I started out running pretty good, the engine room just wasn't producing the power needed to run well. So I made the decision to slow down and just take it easy. Since July 1st I started to run more during the course of the week and so I entered the half marathon knowing I would only have about six weeks of pure running completed. The week ending Sunday before the race I completed my biggest week of running in a long time.

During the week leading up to the race I felt pretty good, not super just good. I did my last workout on the Thursday; a progression run which went well, from then it was just easy running until race day. As I said the race went pretty well, I just wasn't as fast as I had envisioned I would be. I was with a small group (Simon S, Greg M and AJ) in the beginning and we went through the first Kilometer in 3:30, but then the group started to split up. I slowed a little to around 3:39 per K which meant that I was running most of the race on my own. I slowed own bit more as I averaged 3:45 per K for the race. I was able to use the people from the other races as a goal to catch them, pick them off one at a time or in a group. This worked for me until about 3K to go when I could hear someone coming up behind me. My pursuer caught me with about a 2K to go and in my head I said to let him go but he wasn't going away from me so we ran together until made the last turn, I was starting to feel like I was done even said well done to him. But I guess I wasn't done yet as I was able pick it up and finish fast.

In the days since I've come to realize that I haven’t had the training needed to run as well as I know I can and as well as I want to be able to run. One of the things I am happy about is the fact that my Achilles is good.

Things can only get better from here on out, I now know where I am with my fitness compared to where I was. All I have to do now is train hard and most importantly SMART to get to where I want to be. I have a couple of races planned that would bring me up to the end of October. No marathons for the time being.