Health Club Games 10K (marathondan)

I don’t understand race pacing. The “start slow, finish fast” philosophy. Why is that better than “start fast, finish slow”? If I’m aiming for a PB, surely it’s better to squeeze every ounce out of the tank early on and then crawl home? The last thing I want to do is get to the finish line and know that I could have kicked for home earlier. I reckon it’s all psychological – we want to enjoy most of the race and only suffer for the final quarter or so. Maybe for longer distances – say 10 miles plus – some different factors come into play. But I reckon that for 10K at least, “foot to the floor all the way” is the approach to take.

With this in mind I rolled up at Dorney Lake, scene of recent RC glories, and a mere ten minutes down the road from home. Organisation was fairly poor – the complaints are fairly well summarized on the Runner’s World comments, although I think anyone complaining too hard about the lack of goody bags may have their priorities wrong. But overall, the event had the air of not being organized by runners, or indeed by anyone who’d organized a running race before. Hopefully they’ll listen to the comments and improve next year.

With my fast start in mind, I allowed myself a five minute warmup and stretch, and then lined up fairly near the front of the very small field. The starter – also the registration guy, and I suspect the sole organizer of the event – proceeded to explain the route to us, which kind of suggested to me that there would be no marshals out there and possibly no route markings. The prospect of the race leader getting confused and taking the entire field down the wrong path seemed a sudden possibility – although then again, how lost can you get running round a bloody big lake?

The hooter hooted and I quickly settled into a fastish pace. The flat, open course allows you to guage your position against the whole field. With not many more than 100 runners, we were soon strung out, and I hardly passed anyone or was passed throughout the rest of the race. Two laps of the lake also breaks the distance easily into four, which helps mentally. The first quarter was a struggle, as always, and I finished it on about 12 minutes. There were no km markers – which immediately made me suspect the accuracy of the distance – but in the second quarter I noticed that the lake had markers every 250m, allowing a simple pace check. Along this stretch I managed a couple of 250s in 1:10.

By halfway through the third quarter I’d added at least another 10 sec to that 250m time, clearly paying the price for the fast start. Now was the time to decide the end game strategy. (That sounds incredibly pretentious. The end game strategy should simply be “run as fast as possible”. But one has to occupy one’s mind somehow. No doubt some people wonder how we can fill a website with essays about running. “I put my left foot on the ground. Then I put my right foot on the ground.” Etc.) I reeled in a fading bloke as we neared the end of the lake, then resolved to do the same with the woman who’d been 50m or so ahead of me for most of the race. But as we turned for home, she obviously had other ideas, and the gap was never closed. With about 2k to go, I abandoned my precious breathing / step pattern synchronization, and went for it all-out. About 1k later, with two men passed, my stomach was approaching the dry-heave threshold, and I had to cut back again. Good news in terms of the plan – I had nothing left to give. A final spurt with 50m to go saw off any chance of a challenge from the guy behind. Watch stopped on 47:01, about 20s outside PB, later confirmed by the chip. Pretty damn pleasing, given my lack of training.

But it was still noticeable that after 5 mins or so I was fully recovered. Surely if I’d given my all, I’d be completely drained? (Like one guy flat out on the tarmac.) Could I have planned it better?

Then back home I see several reports on RW of GPSs recording a distance of 10.38 km. This error is no great surprise, as per my comments above. But that would make my true 10K time… a PB by over a minute. Another victory for less-is-more training, and if I ever put together some serious training then breaking 45 mins might actually be achievable.

A final note – someone seems to have nicked the RC logo – albeit in different colours. Unfortunately I only saw the vests from the back… :)

Comments

[sweder]

Nice one Dan; another convert to 'less is more' - it certainly works for me.
I wondered about the logo - it doesn't feature on this part of the site.
I'm not sure it's copyrited so I guess it's fair game. Won't stop us knocking out some tasty purple-on-black vests though, just as soon as I can get some designs sketched out and submitted to Mr Advocado for approval . . .

[ANTONIO L.R.]

Congratulations, Dan. Perhaps you can get another PB in Brighton in November. I´ll try to do it under 55 minutes.

[Rockhammer]

Excellent run, Dan. I shouldn't worry about the alleged over-run. As I recall, the distance is officially accredited (by whom ? the IOC, or Bernie Ecclestone perhaps ?) for international Olympic distance triathlon.

I think it's more likely that the Garmin suffers systematic inaccuracy, particularly at the kind of relativistic velocities so familiar to you.

But hey, those folk at the Runners' World forums are never short of a reason to complain. That's exactly why I prefer it so much here, even if I do keep my Rockhammerhead down occasionally.

Especially after a 1-0 thrashing by the Gooners.

[Stillwaddler]

In my book you got a definite PB ;-)

I look forward to running in an RC vest. Will we have them in time for the collective onslaught on Brighton?

Although I can't help thinking about WC Fields words of wisdom about clubs...

[sweder]

Hopefully. My travel schedule is making Alan Whittaker look positively static :( - I'll try to get something worked out this weekend - it'll be a starting point, and provided we can find consensus before too long I can get a few knocked out in time for Brighton.

[Andy]

Well done, Dan. The Dorney Dash is definitely better organised, and you get free Champagne at the end.

For general info, I've created a new sub-forum on The Forum, and posted a general invitation/enticement about Almeria. No doubt someone will start a thread about Brighton there soon.

Link to the RC Forum.

[marathondan]

The organisers sent out the following by email:

"We have taken on board all of your comments regarding the HCG 10k and sincerely apologise for the problems that arose over the course of the day. We take full responsibility and we guarantee that in future events these issues will be resolved to ensure an enjoyable experience for all competitors. We are a dedicated events company and seek to provide the highest levels of service and innovation, so we hope we can welcome you back in the future to much improved Fix UK events.

This is to let you know we have put the amended 10k results online which give a more accurate time for your race."

Yes, they've re-posted the results, with times pro-rated by a factor of about 0.96. So I now "officially" have a new PB. Effectively they've said that the race finished earlier than we thought.

Guess I'll just have to do Dorney Dash next year to get a proper benchmark...

[Andy]

Hurrah! Well done on the PB, mate.

It's early days, but I'd like to think I'll do the DD again next year. It always seems to be around the end of June, so I tend to regard it as a birthday event.

Have you done the Goring 10K? Feb 24 next year. I did it once before, and enjoyed it.

I'm definitely planning to do the Reading Half next year - 2 March. I missed out this year. I really like the race. I may see if I can drum a bit of support again for it.

Wokingham Half is open too -- 10 February.

And Cliveden Cross Country -- 30 Dec.

[dan]

Yep, I'll plan to do DD next year - it's so close by that it's daft not to. I loved the course.

I did Goring in 2006 - may give it a try again next year.

I'm not keen on doing Reading again - it has fantastic atmosphere as you've mentioned, but at £24 I don't think it's worth it.

I also got my Wokingham entry form through the post, so that's a distinct possibility.

Cliveden is tricky - I never know what I'm doing over New Year in time to make the closing date. So probably not.

I'm off to the Henley Half on Sunday - they've fallen foul of the postal strike, and may be forced to hand out 2000 race packs by hand on the day. I've fallen foul of lack of training, but that's another story...