RunningCommentary

25th Henley Half Marathon (marathondan)

I continued the "less is more" race preparation by going out for dinner the night before - although I was relatively abstemious on this occasion. Little Naomi then made her own contribution, waking up just after we got home and keeping me up till about 1.15 am. As I began to nod off in the rocking chair next to her cot, I realized I didn’t have much of a race plan. My sleep-deprived brain tried to multiply various numbers by 60 - 8 minute miling, that’s about 1:45 pace... 9 minute miling, about 2 hour pace. 8 minute miling sounds a scary pace to me, it’s not something I can sustain in training for very long. Surely the race day buzz doesn’t count for that much? But that was the ballpark time I was aiming for, so somewhere between 8:00 and 8:30 pace it was to be. Zzzzzzz.

It was a mighty fine Autumn morning. Due to the recent postal strike, the first 1,100 chips sent out had been cancelled, with all chips and numbers to be collected on the day, so we’d been asked to arrive at least an hour before the start. We took the sensible route into Henley this year (not via the bridge) and breezed in shortly before 9.00, while the queue arriving from the other direction tailed back into the distance. Any fears I had about the distribution of 2,000 race packs were quickly dissipated, when I realized we were in the hands of the formidable Henley Bridge Rotary Club and the local Air Cadets. I queued for 30 sec at an alphabetically-labeled table, and was sorted. Compare and contrast with the recent HCG 10K, whose organizers didn’t seem to be aware of the existence of the alphabet.

We were off dead on 10 o’clock, with a lap of the field and then out into the town streets. There wasn’t a huge amount of space, so I took things easy to start with. It’s a lovely route: from the rugby club, over the Thames bridge in the middle of town, then along the river – mostly tarmac, but stretches of grass and gravel path – back into town for some welcome support and to cross over to North of the river, then out again to the countryside, up the notorious Fawley Hill, and back to the rugby club.

I was startled to see the first mile come up in 7:45 – had I done that in training I’d be feeling awful. The race-day buzz continues to amaze me. OK, I thought, I’ll see how this goes, maybe 8 MM and sub-1:45 is well within my grasp after all. We meandered out of town and back again, with cows, sheep, narrowboats, cabin cruisers, rowers and canoeists for company – all of whom seemed to be having a more relaxed time than us. Heading back into town, the support increased to a good level and was very welcome. Over the bridge again, and back out again towards the North, cutting through the grounds of Fawley House retreat centre, with church service in full swing, and then onto a single-track tarmac lane.

I was checking my time at every mile, and holding 8 MM quite comfortably, with a 30 sec cushion. Then the road started to acquire an... upward quality. It’s always annoying when that happens to roads. This must be The Hill - apparently the only one of note on the course. This was round about mile 8. I think all would agree it’s a decent hill – it must go on for at least a mile; a slow, steady climb, definitely runnable (although I did take a short walk break) but hard work on the quads and the lungs. Until then, I had felt fully in control. After the hill, I was in survival mode. The next mile post showed I’d lost about 3½ minutes on the hill, and my 1:45 target was exposed as folly. Still, onwards and upwards. Well, downwards now, as I coasted down the other side. I felt that with only 4 miles or so to go I could afford to pick up speed. At the bottom I immediately regretted it, as my hamstrings pulled as tight as the ropes on a millionaire’s privately-moored yacht.

10 miles, at last. The beginning of the end. Head up, stretch out the stride, step up the breathing pattern, dig in. This last stretch was a little reminiscent of the desolate equivalent in the Reading course – along a main road, with traffic streaming past. However, as we entered the last mile, the support really stepped up in number and volume, and was very welcome.

Time seemed to slow down now, with every 10 seconds now taking a minute according to my watch, but I finally turned back into the rugby club and managed to find a 50m sprint to the finish. I crossed the line in 1:48 with a huge smile on my face, partly due to seeing my family at the finish line, and partly due to just being part of a well-organised, well-attended, well-supported, weather-blessed, damn nice race.

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… :)

Brick (marathondan)

Pretending to be a triathlete.

I tried something different this evening. A few weeks ago, while splashing with the kids in the local pool, I suddenly felt the urge to come down one evening and go for a swim. Lifting children is actually pretty good for the biceps, but it's the only upper body workout I get. Then I realised, for the first time in nearly three years, that my regular running circuit goes right past the pool. Then I remembered that a while back I had a foolish hankering to try - sorry, attempt - a triathlon. So I thought I'd try what the trialthletes call a brick - training two disciplines back to back. Of course, a true brick would be swim-cycle or cycle-run, but I plumped for a 3.5 mile run with a 1 km swim in the middle. Small fry, but about all I can manage in these days of struggling to get into double digit miles for the month.

Having finally glued the foam back on my swimming goggles, thus removing the last excuse for not going, I dashed out the door before I changed my mind, armed only with keys, cash and the rejuvenated goggles. No towel for the hardened triathlete; I would run home still in my Speedos and dry off as I went.

It was all quite enjoyable in the end. I generally swim about once a year, so am not exactly in practice, and the km took me 36 minutes. I tried alternating crawl and breast stroke, but this turned out to be the aquatic equivalent of fartlek - by the end of the breast stroke length I'd just about got my breath back. The goggle repair proved less than satisfactory - I gained plenty of crafty recovery time messing about with the strap, turning them upside down, etc - until finally I just tightened them as much as I could. My head swelled to twice its normal size under the pressure (which helped with the buoyancy no doubt) but at least I didn't get sore eyes.

I was dreading the run back - less than 2 miles - but I felt remarkably fresh, suggesting that any difficulty in the swim workout was down to poor technique rather than extreme effort. I dried off pretty quickly too - but the cool air was still quite a shock, and I guess in midwinter that could be a dangerous thing to try.

Questions for any proper swimmers out there:

1. Should I be looking at the bottom of the pool during breast stroke? It feels more efficient, but is it right?
2. Any obvious golden rules for front crawl? My style is terrible.