Monday 30 March 2009

Reading Half Marathon

Today was my last race before the Half Ironman in Barcelona. We had originally planned this race as one of Erika's goals but I had also entered and went in hoping to beat my pb from late last year, although knowing that would be a tough ask as I had a great day last time for a 1.32.11.

My plan was to see if I could hold pace for a 90 minute half marathon, quite a daunting task and I knew tat it was going to hurt!

This race was huge with around 16,000 taking part, luckily I started up near the front so was only held up in crowds for the first few km. Having looked back at my time from last year I realised that I had gone relatively 'easy' for the first 10k and then came home pretty quick for the last 10k, so this time I thought I would take it out a bit harder and just try and hold on.

They had pace runners out on the course and I started close to the 1.30 runner but he was a bit more aggressive through the crowds in the first few minutes so I didn't especially try to stick with him, just try and get into my own pace, I had set a target of a 175 HR for the first 10k and then just as much as I had left for the second half.

That was going reasonably well, there was a nice big hill at around the 3km mark that pushed me a bit behind 90 min pace but I stole a bit of time back on the downhill sections and got to 10km in 42.30 which is only 50 seconds slower than my 10km pb from a few weeks ago (although this was on a course with more hills), didn't feel too bad but from mile 6 to about mile 9 I did start to struggle, legs were starting to complain and it was a battle to make sure that I kept the heart rate high.

I wasn't exactly sure what sort of time I was on for but was fairly certain that I was just outside of 90 minute pace. There were some nice parts of the course, the best bit had to be a huge band playing a selection of drums at full volume under an underpass, great motivation, wish they could have followed me the rest of the way round!

As I got closer to the end I caught a couple of glimpses of the pace runner not too far ahead but for all the effort I could not haul him back in, didn't have too much left at the end but was please to cross the line in 1.31.00.

Erika also did really well and I was pleased to see her running into the stadium after all the trouble she has recently had with her knee.

I have a feeling my legs are going to be pretty sore tomorrow, just have a swim lined up to try and loosen them up, will probably get the train to work rather than bike in.

I start with a swim squad on Tuesday night which I am looking forward to, will be nice to do some different stuff in the pool and hopefully get some more technique tips. I'm also going to be trying to cram in some bike time over the next 10 days as we go to South Africa for 2 weeks just before Easter so I will have no bike. Then once we get back from there I have 4 weeks to Barcelona and then another 6 weeks to Austria, coming around quickly now...off to put my feet up now.

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