Odds in Compass

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UPDATE: The journo got it right! Read the article in the Compass.

4x1600m relay

Sometimes it is a real thrill to race and this weekend was no exception. We had assembled two teams for a 4x1600m stand-off at the Truman Bodden Stadium:

• Team A - Dave, Samuel, Jasper, Scott
• Team B - Mark, Russ, JP, Marius

The teams were created using expected finishing times, the idea being to even it up and make it as exciting as possible.

Dave gave Team A a good start, beating Mark by about 5 seconds. Dave passed the batten to Samuel who managed to keep Russ behind him for nearly a lap. However, Russ proved to strong for Samuel and by the time Russ handed the batten to JP he had created a considerable lead. I was running third and started out fast in an attempt to close the gap. By the start of the second lap I reduced the pace to not burn out too quickly and kept it nearly constant for the third lap. Seemingly not making lots of progress in catching JP I increased the pace for the final lap and could start to see it closing (I also think JP slowed) and by the time I handed over to Scott, Team B had about 100m on us. Below is footage of Scott and Marius on the last lap. Scott narrowly managed to win it for our team clocking a 65 fourth and final lap to finish off.


My splits are shown below (note that Scott had me down for a 5:00.3 split):


All in all, I'm pretty happy with my run, especially considering I was faster than expected. I probably went out a bit too fast, but was able to run a strong final lap. With more experience I would probably be able to run a better race, but the distance is never going to be one I train specifically for anyway. It is more about the excitement of the race and having a lot of fun.

Wednesday splits

A month ago (see here) I hoped to be able to do sub 6 minute mile pace comfortably for all five pushes on the half marathon loop by the end of this month. Didn't quite make it today, but came close:

1 - 3.44/km (6.01/mile)
2 - 3.43/km (5.59/mile)
3 - 3.42/km (5.58/mile)
4 - 3.44/km (6.01/mile)
5 - 3.33/km (5.44/mile)

I wasn't comfortable on the last one, but otherwise felt good all the way.

Reaching your limit

On our normal Wednesday half marathon loop yesterday I tried to push very hard on the second 5 minute push from the turn around. The average pace for the push was 3.31/km (5.39/mile) and at times we were running 3.25/km (5.30/mile).

I reached my limit. The last minute was uncomfortable and my legs were burning pretty hard. I got the distinct impression / feeling that I would not be able to sustain that pace for much longer than the 5 minutes and on the third push when Russ started out running 3.35/km I dropped off the pace to settle at a more reasonable 3.45/km (6.02/miles). Nevertheless, I still managed to reach the 5km mark from the turnaround in 19.25. That is pretty fast considering we had 4 minutes at a slow recovery pace mixed in as well.

It is nice to test your limits once in while. The Wednesday run in particular gives a good impression of overall fitness as you start the pushes when your legs have been running for an hour at a moderate to easy pace beforehand.

I am looking forward to my first 5 km race of the year next month to see what kind of speed I can sustain. Based on yesterdays workout breaking the 17.30 barrier is out of the question, but I should stand a chance of going sub 18. We will see.

Milestone

Last week was a bit of milestone. Since beginning training again after New Years, I reached the longest week (14 hours) so far leading up to Florida 70.3 and also managed to cross the 100km mark in running, 105km to be precise.

So far, I have roughly spent 50% of my training running, 25% swimming and 25% biking. This is all in keeping with my overall strategy for this first training period: to improve on my main limiter running. Judging from the triathlons I did last year both swimming and running should be my focus, but running is relatively more important for the final time, so it makes little sense to put the same effort into swimming.

I'm also fairly happy with the progression that is visible in my running. I have yet to put myself to a serious test, but feel much stronger than last year. Indeed in the weekend we did a fairly tough brick workout consisting of an out and back:

• 20 min run
• 1 hr bike
• 20 min run
• 1 hr bike
• 20 min run

The idea was to take note of the turning point on both run and bike, and to try to go further or at least as far each time. On the run portion I managed to run further each time coupled with some very decent pace splits. However, my biking portion was not as successful, not quite managing to reach the turn around point on the second leg. There was a lot of wind that day and my average speed wasn’t that bad at 37 km/h for the first leg, but I still believe my biking has suffered as a consequence of my focus on running. I don’t feel outright slow at the moment, but just not as strong. However, with some purposeful training I am certain it won’t take more than a month to get back on track with the biking.

This weekend I have a killer biking session planned with Johan who is off to Ironman South Africa soon and in need of a bit of race pace / speed work for his final prep. Distance is around 110 km and consists of:

• 20 mins easy (warm-up)
• 3 x 5 min hard pushes with 2 min easy
• 25 km time trial
• 5 km easy
• 25 km time trial
• 5 km easy
• 2 x 5 min hard pushes with 2 min easy
• 30 mins easy (warm-down)

For the time trial I will be giving Johan a 2 minute head start and subsequently adjusting that head start for the second time trial based on our time difference on the first one. Should make it interesting.

10k track workout

We tried something a bit different at the track today: 10k split into 5 hard laps, 4 steady, 4 hard, 3 steady, 3 hard, 2 steady, 2 hard, 1 steady, 1 hard, with the hard laps run faster than 10k race pace and the steady laps not so easy as to fully recover for the next set of hard laps.

The overall time for the session was set to 2-3 minutes slower than current 10k race form, ensuring it wasn't an all out session, but rather a threshold session with a bit of variation.

I aimed for a 40 min total (88 sec lap hard and 108 sec lap steady). Below are my splits.


Turns out I went out a bit too slow on the hard pushes. I first realized this towards the end so ramped up the pace for the final laps. During the run I was using pacing information from my Garmin, the better option would have been to write down the required splits and run by the clock.

Half marathon loop splits

We did our usual Wednesday half marathon loop today with 5x5 minutes pushes for the final 30 minutes or so. Russ was without his Garmin and Scott was being careful with his ankle injury so I lead the pushes.

After a careful start I ran pretty hard on the second and third pushes with the result that the final two pushes were tough. However, all in all the level of perceived effort wasn't as high as previous weeks and the splits were the fastest so far. Averages were:

1 - 3.52/km (6.14/mile)
2 - 3.40/km (5.54/mile)
3 - 3.37/km (5.50/mile)
4 - 3.40/km (5.55/mile)
5 - 3.39/km (5.53/mile)

Encouraging!