On April 18th I ran my first real race of the season out in St. Albert over Ten miles. You may think that this should really be my third race of the 2010 season, but I’m not thinking of the 10K in Calgary as being a real race, yes I ran hard and finished around my normal 10K time but I got the pacing all wrong, went out way too fast and then paid for it in the second half. I think of it as more of an indicator of how much fitness I have after a long winter. I’m not really counting the 3K (indoors) either as that was more of a time trial than a race. That’s not to say that anyone that took part in either of those races should think of them as I do. The 10 Miler went well, I was very happy with the race as I ran a new PB for the distance, I finished in a time of 56:32 which is almost 3 minutes faster than the year before.
On April 25th I ran my first half marathon of the year, yes a week after running a 10 mile race. This probably wasn’t the smartest idea that I’ve ever had. But that’s how I drew up my training plan for this spring. I trained pretty easy during the week, and only ran one Fartlek type workout of 8 x 2 minutes on 1 minute off. The other possible dumb idea that I had was getting adjusted by my chiropractor the day before because adjustments usually make me very tired. Considering how cold it was on Sunday morning (there was a trace amount of snow on the shed in our back garden @6:30am) and how tough the course was, it has to be one of the hilliest half’s in the city, I was happy with the time (have to be, right?) of 1:17:20 it’s a new PB for the distance.
I’d also like to tip my hat to the guy that came second at the half marathon. I’d never heard of him before that race (that doesn’t mean anything though) from checking the results last year he was also second to Jack Cook, but on Sunday he ran about 4 minutes faster than the previous year. So it looks like he should have a pretty good future in road races.
I was going to bore you with how each race went mile for mile, but I won’t....I’ll spare you. However once I get this Garmin figured out I’ll post a graph comparing the two races.
St. Albert vs. Policeman's Half.
ReplyDeleteTravis Mckay(and the winner of both races): 11 seconds/km slower
Torrance: 9 seconds slower
McGrath: 9 seconds slower
Ian Hardeman: 7 seconds slower
Either you all were tired from St. Albert or the Policeman's half is a VERY tough course.
Your Ten-mile time suggests a Half time of around 1:15. I predicted due to the hilly nature of the course that you would be around 1:17 (Don't like to blow my own horn, but toot-toot).
You are becoming one of the "wicked fast runnahs", don't be too hard on yourself.
If you look at the McMillan running calculator, I shouldn't be running 2:40 something for the marathon (is that where you're getting the 1:15 from?) Weird thing is according to that calculator I should be able to run faster than I do for all distances lower than the marathon and then slower than I do for the marathon.
ReplyDeleteOn Sunday I think it was a combination of low temps/tiredness and a tough course. I'm going to run over it again tomorrow as part of my long run. But since everyone was off a little I'd suggest that low temps and tough course are the common factors for the slow down.