Recovering to Race

For once I have to say I quite enjoyed my recovery week. After my aqua jogging on Monday I did my only planned session of the week on Tuesday. When I got back to Denmark on Monday night there was a pretty thick covering of snow on the ground and as there was no real sign of the temperatures creeping above 0deg C, it was going to stick around for a few days. As a result I didn’t even attempt to make it to a running track so instead found a stretch of cycle path that had been salted. This being Denmark wasn’t difficult. Did 8x400m with 2 minutes recovery. As there was a slight gradient the uphill ones went from 82 to 80 while the downhill ones went from 77 down to 73. Total 8 miles. Followed the session up with well, a session of a different nature. After starting with a glass of water (I was at a gig) I managed to rack up a fair few pints followed by a trip to McDonalds while I waited for my train home which never showed up!

Despite my ropiness on Wednesday I managed another easy 8 miles (@7:22 HR135bpm).

I was back to full cylinders Thursday and did an AM run (8.4miles @7:05 HR136bpm). It was nice to be back running close to 7min miles. Did 5 miles on both Friday (PM) and Saturday (AM) to give myself a real rest before a race on Sunday. (5miles @7:05 HR134bpm and 5miles @7:20 HR133bpm)

Might have ran faster had I known I was being chased by a Ninja

So onto the race, which was a metric 10miler, or 15K in other numbers. Felt pretty confident and set myself a target of worst case 55 minutes and best case below 54. The snow disappeared on Saturday but unfortunately it was replaced by a biting wind. I consoled myself with the knowledge that the route changed direction quite often so we wouldn’t be running into it for too long at any one time. Did a very easy 2 mile warm up with a few strides. Once the race got started I settled into a group and felt comfortable going through the first mile in 5.42, just under my target of 5.45 (but we had a tailwind/downhill). The next few miles all felt comfortable but the wind was quite strong at times and I was expending a little more energy than planned, splits were 5:48, 5:48, 5:43, 5:46, 5:49. Unfortunately I went from pushing the pace one minute to letting the group I was in go. I lost concentration and was expecting to be going with the wind but found ourselves heading into the wind again – I shouldn’t have let it affect me but it did. Despite this the next mile was in 5:44. I was alone but there was a guy just behind me. I used him to push me on but try as I might to drop him, I couldn’t, which was actually great as he really was pushing me. We were now heading into the wind for pretty much the next two miles and had a slight drag to boot. At one stage we went through a section of dirt and the dust was blinding. My pace had dropped right off and I had a 6.00 followed by a 6:05. Finally we turned for home with about a Km to go and I just dug as deep as I could not to get caught by any fast finishers including my buddy who was still there. It was hard to judge exactly how far was left when I saw a guy up ahead going left instead of to the finish which I knew to be on the right. Oh no!! (although the words I used weren’t as polite) I thought as it dawned on me there was another little loop before the finish. It was only another 200m’s if even but still. I managed to keep the hammer down and as I rounded the ultimate bend I felt fairly confident that my 3 pursuers wouldn’t catch me. I could see the clock ticking towards 55 minutes and did my best to get under it but had to make do with 55:03 for 24^th overall. Despite not being ecstatic, it was definitely progress but still a long way short of where I want to be for Ballycotton (McMillian gave a 10 mile equivalent of 59.23). Will hopefully be able to bear this in mind for the next 3 weeks.

Ran to work this morning and felt reasonably well. A little slower than of late but still fine: 8.6miles @ 7:13 HR135bpm