Game Change - A Race Report

There are a couple of topics which I have in mind for my blog entries. I also have drafted a few which ranged from Pilates through to Goal Setting (realistic goals vs big picture). However, I thought I would get this one out of the way whilst it is fresh in my mind.

So yesterday I ran the 10km run as part of Run Melbourne. I decided to follow the progression as per my Long Course program rather than setting goals outside of the schedule which may compromise my training. Being sometimes the stubbon mule I am, I compromised my training last year when I trained for a half marathon (goal of < 2 hour) in July whilst on the Olympic Distance program for my first Olympic Distance Triathlon for Noosa 2011. I had increased my running repidly (and blindly I might add) to enable me to be able to run a sub 2 hour 21.1km. The increase in load lead to shin splints 1 week before Run Melbourne 2011 and I could not run for a further 4 weeks after that. It was a dreadful time for me and I promised myself that I would pull back and train smart in 2012 rather than trying to do too many things too early.

In my previous entries I had also spoken about how I would stay in the 5km run time trials until after my 10km Run Melbourne as this race was to be my base. Well a base is now set at 53:56 (official time) for my 10km benchmark and from this day onwards, it is a matter of getting more efficient and trying to beat my own pb.

My first ever 10km run would have been in 2008 when I ran 1:09 in the first Run Melbourne event. The same event in 2009, I improved by 4min to 1:05. In 2010, 6 months after I joined Tri Alliance, I ran 56min as part of the Sandy Point event. I had not done a 10km (run only) event since then so yesterday's time of 53:56** (lets call it 54min) was definitely an improvement.

**53.56 is the "Gun" time. My actual running time (with my Garmin) was 52:30.

The major difference between the previous runs and what I did yesterday was definitely in the Mental Game. The game has changed from just participating or just finishing an event to being competitive amongst the other runners and to push beyond my own capabilities. It was the first run where I decided to seed myself faster than my previous times - I seeded myself at the 50-55min group rather than 55min-60min group. During the run, I also made an effort to hold my posture throughout and tried to run past people if I could by targetting runners to run pass. I refrained from looking at my Garmin (for the pace) and just ran in accordance to my perceived effort. The effort was not to be complacent but rather lift legs high and increase cadence to run faster.

In relation to the distance ran and strategy:

0 - 1km - Just tried to weave through as many people as I could

1 - 4km - Got into a good rhythm. Activated calves whilst running uphills and let gravity push me forward when I ran down hill. Did some run plays to break up efforts.

5 - 7km - Maintain posture, didn't let the legs slow down. Did some run plays to break up efforts.

7 - 8km - Legs started to hurt so visualised the finish line to take mind away from pain on quads.

8 - 9.5km - So close to the finish line I could hear people cheering.

9.5 - 10km - T5. Large strides (like the ones I do during drills) and ran off the forefoot (close to tippy toes), arms swing back more to increase momentum forward.

10 - 10.05km - Could of thrown up but had a big burp instead!

I will need to work on increasing the load and intensity during the next few weeks. I have Long Course Apollo Bay training camp over 3rd - 5th August weekend and will be flying into Sydney to run 14km in the City2Surf on the 12th August. I purposely wanted to do a 14km run in between now and October to gauge how the body holds up for a good run > 10km. City2Surf also has a good hill too - will be exciting.

Major events are getting closer with

90 days until Half Marathon

111 days until Noosa

125 days until Shepparton 70.3

Eat. Train. Laugh.