On Friday night, I had in mind that this was something which I would like to do. I was at the footy (AFL Hawks v Pies at the G) and the games finishes late on a Friday night. I got home around 11:30pm and by the time I got all my cycling things ready, it was close to 1am. Since I had been up since 4:30am (morning swim), I decided that if I was feeling 100% in the morning, I would do the ride at Dandenongs, if not, I will get extra sleep.
Saturday morning came around (felt like I had 2 hours sleep), I was still tired from a long long Friday so I decided to just have an extra sleep in and do lighter sessions. When I finally woke up, I did a 1.5 hour session on the windtrainer followed by a 3km swim at GESAC. Whilst on the windtrainer, I had decided that I was going to do this run and would purchase a late entry after my swim (late entries open 2-5pm).
When I finished my swim and drove to Mordialloc, the winds had picked up and most of the expo tents were either pinned down with ropes and sandbags or blown over/away. I still entered the event and my race bib was 2266.
I started on my carbo loading regime that afternoon with extra gatorade hydration to increase my carbohydrates and also increased my carbs at night (by an extra cup of cooked rice). I still had meat and vegies that evening.
Sunday morning - I decided to ride into Mordialloc that morning (I live 4km away) and a quick 10min casual commute away. A negative about riding in was there was no where to lock up the bikes. Even though they encouraged people to ride into the event, there was no place to park bikes (that I knew). I even asked the event info people and they had no idea. I ended up just locking the bike up against a tree.
Because I treated this run as a training run with no time expectation, I decided to run with my fuel belt (carrying gels, water and coke). I am still unsure what my strategy would be for the half marathon (during the Melbourne Marathon), should I be running with my fuel belt as per my usual events or go without...
Half Marathon(ers) started at 8am and my wave started a few minutes after the first (slowies who take longer than 1:50). The BOM predicted a forecast of strong North Westerly and boy oh boy, we felt every breath of that wind. The head wind was aggressive amongst some sections of the run that you felt like you were running through jelly and was just not getting anywhere. I was worried about my strategy - should I be working into the head wind for the first 10km or will that cause a blow up and I won't be able to have a good finish...it was hard to gauge but I just ran just above my comfortable point.
The first 3-7km - the course had some nice rolling hills which made it interesting. My lungs and quads were burning when I ran up the hill but I took advantage of the downhills and leant forward so that gravity would help increase my speed (Greg's words).
The 10km runners could be seen running towards the finish line at this point too. At the 8-9km mark, I could see some familiar faces (doing the half marathon) as they had turned back towards the finish line ahead of me. This included Coach Sarah, Michelle G, Stephen D and Kerri W.
I concentrated on my technique as much as I could, so much to the point that I must have not heard my first 300Cal alarm as I was wondering at the 50min mark about when I should be consuming my 1st gel. I looked at the watch and noticed that I had already burnt 550Cal and I was close to the 10km mark. I quickly swallowed my gel (good thing I carried my own water) and I felt instantly better. I decided then and there that my next gel will be consumed after 30min.
After I turned around at the turn around point, I tried to spot Brianna L (the other person I knew who also ran in this event) but I couldn't recognise anyone else. Running with the tail wind made a huge difference. I saw that my pace at increased and I also felt stronger around my core and was able to hold steady. The hills felt like Everest on the way back to the finish line. I could not (for the life of me) lift my knees and maintain that technique running up the hills.
If anyone had a video camera, I would love to see what I looked like - it was a trot with high knees for 3 steps and then reduced down to a 3 step walk and then repeat. I did this the entire way up the hill (I even found myself laughing at how stupid I must have looked).
The last 5km was when I started to struggle, especially with my back. I had to stop to stretch it out and consume my last gel. I brought coke with me on the run and found salvation in that I could drink this on the home stretch. I ran the last 5km like how I ran the marathon during the Ironman, except I consumed coke at every 1km instead of 2km. Before I knew it, a spectator yelled out that there was only 1km left and that was when I turned on my blinkers. I drank my last sip of coke for that morning and just ran! Looked straight ahead, arms angled and pretended that I was doing an interval set. I put in 100% and tried as hard as I could to maintain that pace until I finished.
I saw a few familiar faces at the end of the event which was always a great feeling. I looked down at my Garmin and I finished the run under 2:02 which was a surprise for me as I expected it to be slower than Run Melbourne. After I picked up my bag, I went into the water to soak with Kerri and then rode home. The ride home was probably harder than the run. My legs were still burning and the head wind was still as strong as ever so I rode home in my granny gears.
Lessons Learnt:
- Hydration- I really need to work on this better pre and during the event.
- Nutrition- Must concentrate better on the timing of consuming gels during the run.
- Hills- As much as it hurts during training, I must do more hills to strengthen my little legs.
Nice one Ev, that seems like a pretty awesome training run. I was looking for you too but I didn't see you.
ReplyDeleteThey did have bike parking - a small rack near the medical tent, basically behind some bushes away from everything else, easy to miss!