"It's a treat being a runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do." - Allan Sillitoe


Tuesday, November 8, 2011

146km including John Gilmour 10,000m

Mileage was down a little last week as I only ran once on Monday (Halloween trick or treating prevented me from getting out) and Thursday (didn't want to run twice the day before the race).  Still got up to 146km though, largely due to a 24km medium long run with Simon Elliott on Wednesday and a solo 36km long run on Sunday.  Rest of the week was pretty standard.

John Gilmour 10,000m - race report:  I was pretty pleased with this run even though it was slightly slower than I thought I might run.  I hoped to go under 36mins but just missed this due in part to a bit of a headwind in the front straight, running on my own for much of the race and that I have a lot of kms in my legs without any real speedwork.

36:28 by my watch – family says they think I came 13th.
  
Apart from the first 400m and the last 800m, my fastest lap was 1:25 and my slowest was 1:30.  I felt OK running at that pace so although Epi, Jockster and couple of other guys got a bit ahead of me in the first few laps I was able to slowly reel them in over the last few kms (apart from Jockster who pulled out around 3km just after I passed him). Got to Epi at 8km and opened up about 10m over the next few laps and then a little bit more over the last lap as I finished pretty strongly.

Had a slight cramp in my left calf when I finished but it went away and was ok when I ran my cool down.

Felt pretty strong tonight but didn’t feel like I could run much quicker.  Perhaps I ran a bit too comfortably in the middle of the race but on reflection, I do have a fair amount of kms in my legs and will be running 35km long run on Sunday so this is an ok place to be at this stage of my marathon training.

Approx 18:06 for first 5km and 18:22 for second 5km.  I think I was first M40-44.

I didn’t get a split every lap so this is a mixture of 400m and 800m splits:
1.22
2.53
1.25
2.54
1.27
1.27
1.28
1.26
2.56
2.58
1.30
1.29
1.28
1.28
1.30
2.54
1.28
1.30
2.47



A great night put on by the WAMC with commentary by Evan Kolbe.  Roberto Busi won in low 32mins after stopping early in the race to re tie his shoelace.  Cody Angell was second and was giving a encouragement to lapped runners which was very nice of him.  Good to see him get a PB in what was a high quality race at the pointy end of the field.


Sunday long run:  After a recovery run around the bridges on Saturday, I did 36km on Sunday.  Legs felt a bit stiff when I started off.  Probably a combination of Friday evening’s race and being on my feet all day yesterday at the fete.

Got caught up behind the John Hughes’ Big Walk on the way back which was a bit of hassle especially when there were cyclists coming the other way (despite signs saying path was closed to cyclists).  I didn't say a word ...

Two gels on this run which was pretty evenly paced.  First 16km and second 16km both took 1:13 and the second was back into the wind, especially in South Perth.  Ran up to Mends Street on the way back before running home.

Managed to get a nap in today before watching the NYC Marathon on Sunday night.




New York City Marathon:  Fantastic run by Geoffrey Mutai, not such a great race by Mary Keitany who I think would have won easily with a better paced race.  The English Eurosport commentators were a massive improvement on the American Universal Sports and ESPN ones we normally get.  Coverage was good this year with much more use of split screens so we didn't miss what was going on in the men's race while the women were finishing.


My mileage will be back up again this week.  I've felt a bit flat so far this week but this may be because of the weather so far.  Don't mind rain but I can't stand this wind, especially down at the river.


Found out today that only the 5km at the Peninsula Run is a club championship race so I will give that a miss and go for a long run instead.  Next race for me will be Deepwater Point 15km on 27 November.

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