Send in the Clowns - BAC 10K Challenge

RayCun wrote: »

All these 'craft beers' are very suspicious, if you ask me. What's wrong with Heineken?

Tastes like sh1t.

Yesterday: 14 miles easy/steady (8.2 miles + 6 miles)

Calf muscles still bunched, but easy pace seems to be picking up again (I just have 'time' displaying on the watch these days, which seems to help). First run was an easy hour at lunch-time around Corkagh park, @7:17/mile. Second run in the evening was around Shanganagh Park, with the spikes for the middle miles, to try and encourage a bit of leg strength and calf stretching. Great to see all the Bray Runner juniors running around the park, and having fun with athletics; a testament to all the club's junior coaches. Park was jammed with people. We'll see how jammed it is on a Tuesday night in November.

Summary: 8.2 miles + 6 miles

Pisco Sour wrote: »

Who?

Today: Jack Daniels Plan A: 2 x 20 Mins @Tempo

This was a real grind, as the legs and body are still tired from Sunday's race, but I reckon you earn super bonus triple points when you have to grind out a result on your own, when you're feeling a little fecked. Two mile warm-up, to hit the tarmac on the road to Adamstown, then did the tempo sections on the road out to (and past) Adamstown train station, which surprisingly took exactly 10 minutes, so looped back to the start to complete the segment.

2 mile warm-up: @7:30/mile
Tempo 1: 20 mins - 3.41 miles @5:52/mile
Easy: 10 mins - 1.39 miles @7:13
Tempo 2: 20 mins - 3.42 miles @5:51/mile
2 mile warm-down: @7:16/mile

The pace was almost identical to the half-marathon on Sunday (where I comfortably whipped together 13.1 miles at this pace, so it's somewhat odd that 20 minute segments at this pace should be so difficult! Nonetheless, it's done. I signed up for the Lakes 10k (this Saturday) before I made the decision to head down to the National Half marathon, so if the legs are feeling recovered, I'll head down there (for what was a very enjoyable race last year). That'll be my session for the weekend, I'll just top it up on Sunday with a 20-22 mile easy run.

Summary: 12.23 miles in 1:19, @6:28/mile

RandyMann wrote: »

Just read your half marathon report and big congrats to you for that pb you ran. Very impressive running and I just realised that you ran a half that was one minute quicker than my 10 mile pb

Horses for courses and all that! I'd say the % difference between our 200m times would be far greater than the % different in our half marathon times.

antomagoo wrote: »

Was there any need for that kind of reaction from your man you passed

You're in a tough place and struggling to hold pace in a half marathon. With 2.5 miles left to go, the finish line seems very far away and you're in a sour mood. Suddenly, along comes a clown, juggling and whistling merrily, big painted smile on his face as he cycles past you on his unicycle, with so much water, he's splashing it about.. Wouldn't you be pissed off? Ok, not an exact translation of the situation, but I was thinking about it afterwards, and my encouragement and water gesture might not have been taken at face value, and could have been interpreted as patronizing or showmanship. No harm done. We'll both live to battle another day!

Evening: 6 mile recovery run
Managed to skedaddle from work just after 7pm, so was looking forward to getting my second run done in the sunshine, but a dinner that required cooking and a son that supposedly required collecting meant a dark 8:45pm start. Down to Bray Head and back to home, in weather that felt typically Californian/ If they could all be days like today...

Summary: 6 miles in 47 mins, @7:44/mile

I know... I know... We're all sick of bloody krusty_clown race reports... They all follow the same formula.. Start with a bit of self-doubt. Throw in a bit of a struggle somewhere around the middle, and then, against all possible odds, from tragedy comes triumph, an unexpected PB, all topped up with a nice smattering of cliches. Well, this one is no different, so best skip to the end bit.

The warm-up:
I ran this race last year, and frickin' loved it. It's kind of what I'd imagine travelling first class on an Airbus A380 might be like. Surrounded by every treat and comfort a runner might possibly need. So I was hoping for more of the same this year. Had to drop Emer into Phoenix Park for 9am for her long run, so I arrived out in Blessington an hour and a half before the race (which had the added advantage of clean portaloos!). Met up with Antamagoo at registration (one of the many fantastic volunteers and marshalls), then went back to the car to settle in and wait for the start of the race. Did a 1.8 mile warm-up, during which I spied Gary O'Hanlon, Brian Maher and a handful of other faster runners warming up, so figured I wouldn't be vying for a top 5 this time around; I'd be doing well to improve on my 8th place from last year.

Had a quick chat with Ger and Rocky 6, and then lined up in the sub-35 minute corral, behind the elite runners. Last year, sub-35 was just an area you lined up if you were hoping for a time in the region of 30-38 minutes. This time around, I was lining up there with intent. I had run 35:23 in Dunshaughlin a few months back, but I have about a million miles in the legs since then and a decent outing last weekend, so sub-35 was my goal. I placed a quick call to my buddy Mr MacMillan and he told me I'd need to average 5:36/mile to safely hit my target. I stuck 'average pace' and 'time' on the watch, and waited for the games to begin (cliche!). Fast forward to the start of the race...

Wait.. the self-doubt bit:
I've had great results from the extra mileage I've been doing, however, none of my recent running has been faster than tempo pace (around 10 mile race pace). One good thing about following a P&D plan, is that you do lots of running at 5k pace, so are well set up for a 5k or 10k race, but my makey-uppy plan doesn't include anything faster, so how do you know if you can go any quicker? You have a pop and trust in Vishnu to do the rest (I'm trying out some new religions this week).

Start of the race:
Started in what I thought was around 16th place, but it was the typical race start, where pumped up with adrenaline, some runners feel invincible for the first 250m of the race. But a sprint it ain't, so I made up around 5 places over the first mile, as the over-zealous drifted backwards, hearts exploding and predictably sucked up by the herd. I tried to count the runners ahead of me, so I'd have an idea of what position I was in, but with the bends in the road and the fact that most runners were in a line, it was bloody difficult. I knew one runner ahead of me, and he typically crossed the finish line more than a minute in front. He had a runner in his shadow (who I suspected might be a competitor in the 'ould lad competition'), but the two of them were moving away from me, so I reckoned they'd finish in the low '34's, so beyond my reach. I figured I'd be 'krusty no mates' for today's race. They drifted away, to around 100m ahead, but seemed to hold position, so our paces weren't hugely dis-similar.

Mile 1 was 5:33, so slightly ahead of schedule, but there was good cloud cover and despite the threatening heat, it was nice and cool. During the second mile, there were a few twists and turns in the road, and at one point, I realized I couldn't see or hear any runners ahead or behind. Business as usual (chalk up another cliche).

The struggle somewhere around the middle bit:
The sun burst from the clouds (this is Ireland?) and the pace started to feel like a struggle. Left to my own devices (third time's the charm!), I had only the Garmin to let me know how I was doing. I watched my average pace move from 5:33 -> 5:35 -> 5:38 and on-wards. Mile 2: 5:41. Save me Krishna! I didn't want to watch as my average pace hit rock bottom (oh yeah!), so I switched my Garmin around to show distance only, as watching my own demise just seemed a little ghoulish. Better. As I rounded a corner, I could see the two runners ahead, so I focused on just keeping the distance between us constant (around 150m).

Just after mile 3 (5:42) we hit the half-way point and a long straight section of road. I could see all of the runners stretched out ahead. I watched as they passed the water-station (handy 250ml bottles) and didn't spot any of them taking any water. By contrast, I greedily snatched my water from some poor unsuspecting 7 year old, took a small sip, and threw a lovely squirt down my back. I took some solace from the fact that we were homeward bound (and the cliches keep coming) and with the other runners in sight in the distance, kept the head-down, and kept plugging away (mile 4: 5:41).

I had no idea how fast I was running. I was just focusing on keeping the two runners ahead in sight. Then the hill came. I faced it last year, with a head wind. This year, there was no head-wind, but instead, we had beating sunshine. But I had a secret weapon.. I was just back from a holiday where I had been running up 300m hills in 37'C heat. By comparison, this was a teeny-tiny hill on a cool day.

Tragedy from triumph:
Suddenly, everything changed. The two runners ahead were making ground on another runner, and within a minute, were passed him. Within another minute, I had passed him too, giving a bit of a kick, to make sure he didn't drop into my wake. I really didn't think I would pass anyone after the first mile of the race, so this was a real bonus. As we struggled further up the hill, I noticed that the familiar runner was actually coming back to me. This was really unexpected. I kept up the same work-rate (thinking that my pace had suffered dramatically) and slowly but surely he got closer and closer. We crested the hill and I drew level with him and took a few moments to recover (mile 5 a really suprising 5:37) before pushing on. I zigged a little, to selfishly stop him from using me as a wind-breaker and was amazed to hear his footfalls retreat.

Just over a mile to go, the runner in red was my next target (possible challenger to the m35-m45 title). I wasn't monitoring my pace, but I didn't seem to be slowing down, and with around 800m to go, I was on his shoulder. I relaxed to his pace for 10-15 seconds to take a quick break, and when the moment felt right, went for it. He stuck pretty close to me, but I was feeling strong, so picked up the pace to try and shake him off (mile 6: 5:27). With quarter of a mile to go, I couldn't hear him behind me and could see the finish line ahead, but I wasn't taking any prisoners (still rolling with the cliches), so picked up the pace. I could see the race clock ahead with 34:40 showing, so once bitten twice shy (ding ding! cliche BINGO!) I picked up the pace until I was almost flat out and crossed the finish line in a heap.

The end bit:
Stopped my watch at 34:53 (34.51 chip-time) really happy to have taken 30+ seconds off of my 10k PB and equally happy to have taken a few scalps over the latter part of the race. Taking 'average pace' off of my watch made a significant positive difference to my race (a point I'll have to ponder in greater detail over the coming weeks in the build-up to Dublin marathon). No top-5 finish, but I'll take a PB over a place any day.

This has been a bit of a land-mark result for me. When I was running 52+ minutes, cracking 50 minutes seemed like a mountain to climb. 34 minutes and a chunk of change was never a goal of mine (it was always beyond the realms of possibility). But with hard-training, I find I'm constantly getting new targets. When will it all end? Who knows. I'm just glad that it's not over yet.

Summary: 10k in 34:51, @5:36/mile.

RayCun wrote: »

You'll have to throw some stinkers in every now and again Krusty, keep it interesting

I'm running out of race report ideas, so I'll have to *cough* intentionally *cough* run some stinkers real soon now.