My aim for the year is to break 4 hours at the Taipei Marathon in December. Originally that was going to be my only marathon for the year but about 8 weeks ago I decided that I was going to do the Christchurch Marathon as well.
I’d like to think I could break 4 hours at the Christchurch Marathon but the odds are really against it. My training hasn’t been about improving speed but rather about improving base fitness.
Having said that here are my goals:
Dream goal: Break 4 hours!
Optimistic goal: 4:07ish
Realistic goal: 4:15
I’m pretty confident I can hit my realistic goal and even the optimistic goal should be quite doable IF I pace for that. However, I reckon I’m going to go out and try and hit my dream goal. As you do! This might mean I blow up in the second half and do another 4:50ish or worse! If that is the case well at least I’ll go out knowing I gave it a go.
I ran the Solid Energy Huntly Half Marathon on Sunday. I’ve also been extremely slack and haven’t gotten around to writing up my race report until today!
My wife’s cousin originally asked me if I was keen to go run the Huntly Half as he’d heard there were good spot prizes there. I thought about it for about 2 seconds and said “Sure!” as I had been planning on doing it in any case.
Huntly is about an hour or so away from Auckland and on the drive down on Sunday morning we hit a bit of fog. This meant that the start was a bit delayed as traffic had to slow down and people were still flooding in right up until the gun went off at 10:15 rather than the original 10am.
My plan for the race was to run conservatively and set a PR. This seems like a bit of a contradiction but in reality it was not. My previous 1/2 marathon PR was 1:59:04 and I set that in my very first half marathon back in 2008. I haven’t actually run a proper half since then as the 2 half marathons I’ve run since then have been classified as fun runs and the courses have been a bit short so I didn’t count them as PRs.
So I set my virtual partner on the Garmin to do a 1:58 as I wanted to practice my pacing and hopefully negative split. In previous races I’ve gone out too fast every single time. This always results in a second half that was much slower than the first half!
The first half of the race was great. I got stuck behind a lot of walkers in the beginning but I didn’t indulge in lots of weaving as I figured it wouldn’t make much of a difference overall. It was probably a blessing in disguise as my first KM was the slowest of the race which is very different to my normal race outcomes.
I settled into an easy pace that was just slightly faster than my virtual partner and enjoyed the run. The scenery was quite pretty. We ran along some suburban streets then went out onto what looked like a hiking track. At about the 5km mark I realised that I had been trading places with an older lady from the YMCA Marathon club so I decided I would just fall in behind her and follow her as she was running at my target pace. This was a good move as I found the running really easy after doing that.
At the 10km mark we headed off the trails and back onto the suburban roads.
I had to give kudos to the organisers of the event. The water stops (which only had water) were positioned well and often. There were very enthusiastic volunteers manning them and it was just great.
My half way split was 57:43 which was a little fast but I felt that I was running well within myself at that point and wasn’t too concerned.
It was just before the halfway point that things started to get hilly. I must admit that the hills took me by surprise. I had thought the course was flat but from the 10km mark to (I’m guessing) 14km mark there was a serious of rolling hills which really separated the pack. I’m pleased to report I passed a lot of people on the hills which was quite satisfying.
The second half of the second half was an out and back section to the Solid Energy Coal Mine. It was quite cool as we actually ran into the mine area and ran under some mining equipment which was very different to anything I’d ever done.
I dedicated the last 4 km of my half marathon to different folks.
I started off with km 17 and thought about my mum and how proud I am of her and her efforts to get fit. Km 18 was dedicated to thinking about my dad and how he is a source of inspiration to me for taking up running. Km 19 was dedicated to my little girl and I was thinking how I’m so glad she’s only going to know a fit dad. Km 20 was dedicated to my darling wife and her support.
I had a brief problem at the beginning of km 20 when my cap caught on a tree and flew off. I fleetingly thought of leaving it there but I paid good money for that cap so I ran back and got it.
Km 21 (all .1 of it!) was dedicated to myself as I tried for a sprint finish! I didn’t quite sprint across the finish line but the last km was my fastest overall:
I managed to finish the second half in 56:39 for my first ever negative split in a race. I also finished with a fantastic PR of 1:54:22 which is a lot faster than I had aimed for. That time may be problematic next Sunday when I run the Christchurch marathon. I don’t feel that I pushed too hard but I guess time will tell. If I blow up in the marathon you’ll know why!
I really enjoyed this race and I’ll be back again next year if circumstances permit.
The seasons are changing here in New Zealand. May is normally the month where the temperature starts to drop and this May has been no exception. I’ve had to get out my blankets and yesterday morning I got my long sleeve running top out for the first time.
The other major difference is that it is dark out when I’m running!
I’ve had a few emails asking why I haven’t been posting as many photos lately and as you can see from the photo to the left it is because it is slightly hard to get good photos on my cell phone camera when it’s dark out!
Running in the dark is quite nice as the temperature is quite cool. All my normal running routes are quite well lit except for Cornwall Park which is extremely dark as there are no street lamps inside it. I ran through it on an overcast morning recently and I could literally not see the road. I had to use my cellphone as a flashlight.
Anyway, this week I’ve run 19 km on Monday, 16.2 km on Thursday and 16.1 km yesterday for a total of 51 km (32 miles) so far. I’m planning on doing a 32km run tomorrow morning (20 miler). I think that will be my last long long run before the Christchurch Marathon.
It was a really good week up until about Friday. Work has been really busy this week and I had to start early and stay late every day from Thursday onwards – including the weekend. As such, I was out of routine and didn’t get my runs in and, even worse, I subsisted on junk food mainly. But such is life sometimes. I really needed to enter the latest weekend warrior challenge but it slipped me by I’m afraid.
Anyway, even after all that I’m down .32 kg this week. My physics diet weight is 86.54kg (goal is 86.4kg) so I’m so close to officially being there. My actual scale weight was as low as 84.9kg this past week which is the lowest I’ve seen since I passed it (going up!) as a teenager I guess.
The year itself is looking good:
April has been a record breaker for me in terms of my running. I ran over 300 km (187 miles) in April which is the most I’ve ever run in a single month. I suspect I won’t be running as much in May as I’ll be tapering for the Christchurch Marathon for the latter half of it.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my running dreams goals is to break 4 hours in a marathon. My current marathon PR is 4:54:53 so that goal is fairly ambitious at this stage. This year I’ve made the resolution to give Low Heart Rate training a proper go so I’ve been running long and slow most of the time. However, my first marathon of the year is 6 weeks away today so I thought that this week I’d better try a few tempo runs.
On Monday I did a 5K in 26 minutes.
Tuesday I did 16.1 km in a very easy 1:42.
Wednesday I did 16.1 km in 1:30 which was a full 12 minutes faster than my Tuesday run and also (more importantly) was at sub 4 hour marathon pace.
Friday I did an easy 13.1 in 1:23.
Saturday I did a brilliant (by my standards) 32 km in 3:12:00.
I want to talk a bit more about my Saturday run. I headed out bright and early and the conditions were just perfect. We’re in a bit of a drought situation which has meant that I’ve only been rained on about twice in the last 5 months or so which is great for me but not so great for our farmers.
I set my virtual partner to run at a 6:15 min/km pace (like I did last week) as I wanted to practice keeping my pace steady (or hopefully negative splitting). I have to admit I haven’t used the virtual partner much but I’m starting to like running with him.
The first km from my house is all uphill and I like to ease into my long runs so he pulled ahead quite quickly. But I slowly reeled him in and by the 6 km mark I was a few metres ahead. The aim of a long run is to run easy so I was keeping my average heart rate under 148 beats which is what I’ve been using for my low heart rate training.
I got to 16km in 1:37:43. I just felt very good and for the rest of the run I managed to keep pulling away from my virtual partner without unduly extending myself. I did the second 16km in 1:34:17. I was extremely pleased with that 2nd half as it was more uphill than the 1st half and it was faster! I also managed to keep my average HR for the run to 146 so it was a good day all round.
Shauna (Dietgirl) and Carla (Mizfit) published episode 11 of their “Two Fit Chicks and a Microphone” podcast today. The episode title is “Let’s Hear It For The Boys.” It’s all about men and blogging and they were particularly interested in why there appears to be fewer men than women participating in fitness/healthy living blogs.
I was lucky enough to be invited to participate and I think my contribution is enough to reinforce my opinion that I’ll never be a podcaster! Have a listen as I think it’s pretty interesting overall.
I listened to it while out on a run this morning. I did 15.4km on a bright sunny autumn morning and it was great!
In other news I’m changing my half marathon entry in the Christchurch Marathon to the full marathon!
It got cold overnight in Auckland! We had single digit temperatures overnight for the first time in a loooong time. So my run this morning was a bit chilly. Having said that it was fantastic. Slightly chilly is the best temperature for running!
I ran out to the Harbour Bridge and then to work this morning. I stopped and took this panoramic shot with my cellphone:
I’m mighty impressed that my cellphone can stitch photos together so well! As you can see it is an absolutely beautiful day here in Auckland.
One thing I was thinking about while running today is that how I’m in danger of becoming derailed from my healthy eating plans as I’m extremely comfortable with where I am at the moment. I find that I’m not eating as clean as I could because I’m not that fussed about losing weight anymore. I just want to not gain weight if that makes sense. The danger with this approach is that it is very easy to tip from having the odd snack to having a lot of snacks and then regaining the weight. I reckon if I wasn’t running as much as I am I’d be in much greater danger so my motivation to keep running is high.
I guess eternal vigilance is required. How do you folks deal with this?
I fully expected to gain weight this week. I’ve had a really nasty cold that meant that I only ran on Monday and Sunday. I had to stay off work two days as I was just feeling really crap. And when I’m feeling crap I tend to crave the more solid comfort type foods and so I ate quite a bit more than I usually do – and of the wrong food types too! Couple this with no running and I though a gain was a near certainty. But surprisingly no. I actually lost weight.
It’s still a green year:
I also ran the Round The Bays fun run yesterday. Turnout was great with 70 000 or so runners and walkers. Round The Bays is a gentle 8.4 km fun run that winds around the Auckland Harbour. My everyday running route normally incorporates the route so it’s one I’m intimately familiar with.
We had a work team and my job was to organise the end of race festivities so I was on site at 5AM to get a great spot and set up the tent, bbqs etc.
My original plan was to run the race with my wife but on the morning I was just longing for a longer run (after a week of no running) so I ran the 8.4 km to the start and then ran the actual event back to our bbq site. My colleagues thought I was nuts but it was great. I took it real easy on the run in and got to the start line nicely warmed up. I had timed it perfectly so that I was about 50 meters from the start when the gun went so I just turned around and started heading back to the finish! Normally it takes about 5-10 minutes to get to the start line due to the number of people but not for me this year! I’m sure I annoyed a lot of the folks who had been queuing for hours but oh well.
I felt really strong during the run itself and I ran faster than I’ve run in a long time. I think running with other people always makes the running feel easier. For the first time ever I ran a very solid negative split and it makes me think my training is paying off. 8.35km in 41.10.
The best part of the day was the 3 veggie hot dogs that I got afterwards. Here’s the half of our work team that were present when we took the photo:
In other news I had a good run in to work this morning. I took the long way and did 16.3 km. The coastal part of my route is the Round The Bays course:
I ran into work with the Queen this morning. The Queen Mary 2 that is! Apparently it is the world’s biggest and most luxurious ocean liner and it’s in Auckland today.
The only photos that I could get of it were actually from quite far away:
You can see it on the right. It is huge when you compare it to the size of the city!
I ran out on this little (200 metre long) jetty to get that shot above:
I’d hoped to get a better photo once I got closer to the city but unfortunately the container terminal blocked the view! The QM2 is so big that it had to go berth at the container terminal rather than the passenger terminal.
Overall, it was quite nice to see glimpses of it but it was even nicer to be out for a run this morning. 14.3km and conditions were absolutely perfect for running.
I was listening to Burning 2010 this morning and one of the points Adam was making is that no matter where you live there are beautiful places to run. Well in my city that is the rule rather than the exception I think!
It’s been a bit of a slack week with regard to my running. Monday and Tuesday were great. 14km and 13km respectively. Wednesday I was away all day at our local Microsoft headoffice as I had some student groups presenting in the Imagine Cup finals. Thursday we had a staff retreat and on Friday I had to go in very early to catch up on the work that I hadn’t done while being out of the office. I probably could have done a bit better with my planning and gotten some runs in but I think the rest will do me good so I’m not too fussed.
This morning (it’s Saturday here in NZ) I got up early (5AM) and headed out for a run. I love the early runs as I love running along and watching the sun come up:
Conditions were great and it was really nice to get out and stretch the legs. Once the sun was up it got a bit warmer:
But it was still great!
I’ve done 252 km in February and 516 km (321 miles) for the year so far. That’s not bad if I say so myself.
In other news, Brandon over at So long, fatass has issued a Weekend warriors challenge which I think I’ll enter. He’s noticed that he’s great at healthy living during the week but not so great on weekends. That’s one of my biggest weaknesses as well. So the idea is that next weekend we live healthy as well and see what results we can get.
Kepa, from The Lazy Fat Guy (and a fellow New Zealander), met and fell in love with Mary over at A Merry Life. She’s recently been here in NZ to visit him and now that she’s back in the States he’s pining away for her. He wants to visit her but he’s a poor student so he’s asking for donations. The blogosphere has been very kind to him so far and he’s almost raised enough money for his trip. If you’ve got a minute head over to his blog and read his story. He’s quite an impressive fellow who started off at over 500 pounds and has recently hit his first goal of getting under 220 pounds. He got on the TV news for that!
