Blackmores Sydney Half Marathon

Penultimate half marathon of the year and the pressure had mounted. Desperate to get round in sub-90, but the Sydney course is a tricky one. Plenty of hills and more than a few 180 degree turns to zap the momentum. That said, I know the course like the back of my hand. Difficult to quantify the advantage that gives, but I reckon it's substantial. You know when to hold back and when to push.

Pretty much nailed the taper. Really eased off on mileage, kept the intensity of what I did reasonably high, carbohydrate loaded until Friday (including a cracking bowl of pasta at Chester White's) and then kept it little and often on the Saturday, hydrated properly, and avoided the Jaeger Bombs.

I credit this bowl of pasta with reaching my race goal

Morning of the race and we made our way over to Milson's Point on the North Shore to enjoy the pre-race build-up. Weather was perfect. Fairly cool, still, and clear. Got some great pictures back on the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Found the 90-minute pacers and attached myself to their hips.

The start tells you this is going to be a tough course. You don't quite start at sea-level, but about half-way between that and the Harbour Bridge. There's also a 180-degree turn to get back onto the bridge. First and second kilometres ticked by in around the 4:20's. Slower than required, but a tough start.

Running over the Harbour Bridge is a cracking experience. Opera House in the distance to the left, city looming ahead. Pace was increasing, but so was the incline. The race-start adrenaline was seeping away and I was already starting to doubt myself. I felt stronger than at Blacktown however and the course was about to enter it's first downhill section along the Cahill Expressway.

After the Expressway, there's a short uphill along Macquarie road before the race turns down Mrs Macquaries Chair. In the SMH half-marathon, this is one of the most sapping sections as you pass the finish line with 3km still to go, knowing the return leg is mostly up hill. Luckily at Blackmore's you cover it early when still (relatively) fresh.

Now it's down to Circular Quay. The hills of Pyrmont start to creep into the mind, and the pacers encourage us to push down the hill to CQ to build a cushion. We're well ahead on time at this point, by almost a minute, and I'm starting to doubt their strategy. "Feeling an awful lot like a positive split to me this, lads." Nonetheless I'm feeling strong and, for a moment, start pushing on solo ahead of the pacers. The madness soon passes and I fall back in with the group. Sub-90 is the goal, best to get there with energy to spare than to risk a better time and blow up. I was soon very grateful of this moment of sanity.

Pyrmont is tough. Hill into it from Hickson Road, hills within the suburb's boundaries, and a hill back out. It's all about hanging in , staying with the pacers, and thinking about the pancake flat final 4-5 kilometres.

The "pancake flat final 4-5 kilometres" is actually pretty tough. It is flat, but at the end of the race the somewhat repititve nature of Hickson Road can be draining. I saw Victoria at this point, running into Pyrmont, who looked fresh as a daisy with a cheery wave and hello. I grunted something in her direction and muttered something about it being alright for some.

The first pacer was pulling away from me a little and I was worried that if the second pacer did the same my will power would go. I was feeling it more than at any point of the race.

As happened in the Sydney Harbour 10k, I suddenly felt a second wind take hold and I started to reel in and pass the first pacer. Still conscious of how close I was to a walk of shame (at one of the many points I did the same the year before, albeit in the marathon), I tried to keep the pace sensible.

Coming under the Harbour Bridge and back into Circular Quay you're reminded you still have a good distance still to travel when you see how far away the Opera House is. Still, I was calculating the pace I needed to get sub-90 and it was comfortable. For the first time in the race I started to feel confident about making the goal.

Maintaining the 4:15 pace around the passenger terminal I was able to increase the cushion and begin to enjoy the final few hundred metres.

Gun time was itself sub-90, and the chip time read 01:29:31. Very pleased. After Bankstown, only a few weeks before, I genuinely felt that sub-90 would be beyond me this year. Shows what keeping off the booze can achieve.

Only Victoria of the "ICU running frenzy" attended and smashed her PB by finishing in 01:42:21. She'll be on for sub 100 minutes next year if she can stop doing silly marathons, maybe even start pushing sub-90 herself.

Next up? Melbourne half marathon to finish the season.

Sydney Striders 10k at North Head, Manly

Couple of races to report, kicking off with the Sydney Striders 10k race at North Head, Manly.

I fear I know myself too well. As per my last entry, I did indeed go out for birthday drinks (#pancholiturns30). The plan was to go early, leave early, which of course became arrived early, left late. Very late. My drinking strategy reminds me of a quote from 'We Were Soldiers'; " I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off". Only I end up being strafed by a helicopter gunship, or at least feeling like it.

The last Jaegerbomb crossed the lips around 0200 and the race started at 0700. Too early to be hungover, but hydrating on beer, wine, whisky, et al. led to a pretty average race. Got round (a slightly long course) in 41 minutes or so. Not going to impress anybody with that time, but did feel strangely proud of myself...until the headache kicked in early afternoon.

Had a coffee afterwards with some of Sydney's running elite (and Timmy Lindop). Enjoyed the morning thoroughly and pleased I made the effort. Such a shame the Striders events don't often fit in with my diary, will definitely do my best to attend future races. Minus the jelly vodka.

Upcoming Races

Sydney Striders 10km - North Head

Been a member of Sydney Striders for almost a year and have yet to run an event with them. Very poor show. I've either been working or their early starts have been prohibitive given I don't have a car in Australia and weekend public transport to some of the far flung locations is a literal no-go. I do have a hat, though, and I wear it with pride.

That will change this Saturday as we plan to attend one of their 10k series at North Head, Manly. Public transport? I think Transport NSW recommends seven buses, two ferries, and a hot air balloon (now taking Opal Card). Fortunately our new friend and running coach, Timmy Lindop, has offered us a ride. Victoria has been attempting to rort him by claiming her 10km time will be 47 minutes, but he's seen right through that.

My goal? I'm going to give myself a little taper, hydrate well and hit the peanut butter hard and see if I can manage another sub-40 10km. I'm not optimistic though (potentially a boozy night for birthday celebrations on the Friday), and I'll take a sub-42 quite happily. It's nice to have achieved the sub-40 10km already as the pressure is off. Provided I run sub-90 at the half marathon, next year will be the time for trying to better PBs. I may switch the "goal" from time to financial and try and rort young Timmy.


Sydney Running Festival - Half Marathon

This will see my return to the site of my most epic running implosion. Last year's full marathon was not kind. Going well at 21.1km with the 4hr pacers led to an arrogance that was to prove my downfall. Decided to show them my heels and break away. Didn't last long. Shouts from the crowd of "Go the fours!" soon became "Go the fives", as my breakage began at 28km and was complete at 32km. I somehow managed to walk/crawl around the final 10km and finish in 4:08:01, but it was a humbling experience.

This year I'll leave the full marathon for others more foolish and concentrate on the half. What are the chances of going sub-90? Well it's a tough course, with plenty of hills, and the mornings are certainly starting to heat up. With that said, I am intimately acquainted with the route and the benefits that that brings cannot be overstated. It's also a cracking course, going over the Harbour Bridge and finishing at the Opera House.

I won't make the mistakes of Blacktown (read: I won't get smashed beforehand) and I'll give it a good go. I expect a new PB at least.


Melbourne Half Marathon

Excited about Melbourne. Finishing at the MCG will be amazing and would be great to break the sub-90 in that great sporting venue. I'm sure it will be full to the rafters with my blog readers.

The course appears a lot flatter than Sydney, but I'm not as familiar with it. St Kilda's road looks long and boring, but running the Formula 1 race track at Albert Park will be fun.

It'd be nice to have the sub-90 monkey off my back beforehand, and just enjoy the race, but I fear it's going to come down to the wire.

Regardless, I'll be straight off to Chin Chin afterwards to gorge on crispy Barramundi and down the Thai ale. Drinking from 10am? There's a marathon I like the sound of.

Training Preparation

We're getting to the business end of the year. By my reckoning there are only two more races definitely in the pipeline to achieve the sub-90 half marathon; Sydney and Melbourne. There's also a West Sydney half marathon, but I'm working so it's just a maybe.

Before thinking about the races still to come (in addition to the above there's at least one 10km and probably a few park runs) I wanted to mention training.

It's pretty obvious that you need to prepare for racing. We're all aware of tapers, carbohydrate loading, and rehydration and it makes complete sense. I've had it hammered home this year by performing significantly worse when under-prepared compared with when preparation has been tip-top. But what about preparation for training?

It's also obvious that to race well you need to train well. In order to train well you need to be in good condition, particularly for your quality sessions. Go out too hard on a "rest" or "recovery" day and you won't get anything like as much benefit from the quality session. This is analagous to the taper. You need to think about being suitably hydrated and well nourished. Big nights on the beer will harm your performance the next day.

Not performing to your best on one or two training sessions is unlikely to cause a huge problem, but get it wrong too often and you'll be in Struggle City, performing your mayoral duties.

All Hail the Hill...City2Surf 2015

City2Surf 2014, was an unmitigated disaster. No qualifying time meant a blue group dodgefest, stupidly long bag-drop queue meant I had to run with my rucksack, and two litres of diet coke and four bananas pre-race meant I visited the majority of portaloos around the course. The end result? 78 minutes.

Hopefully 2015 would be better, but I was targeting a tougher time of sub 60 minutes (4:17min/km).

Cracking atmosphere at the start. Red group line up on Park Street, looking east towards the sunrise and the first hill up William Street to the tunnel. Some very weak jumper throwing by a few competitors resulted in new headwear for a number of guys around us. Much to their displeasure.

Gun sounds and we're away. Still a dodgefest, but at least there was no parting of the ways this year to reveal fat Betty walking down the middle of the course at 400m and an unavoidable collision. Difficult to settle into a rhythm and the watch registered 4:15 for the first kilometre. Had to pick it up to get a time-cushion for Heartbreak Hill and did so. The official results reckon I was at 4:01 per kilometre until Heartbreak, which was a bit faster than I'd intended, but did fill my time bag.

I hadn't been up the hill since last year and it caught me out again with how steep and long it is. 1.5km and 80m gain. It's just a case of gritting the teeth and holding on...in this case to the eight year old child just in front who seemed to be gliding effortlessly up it. Bastard. 4:29 per kilometre was a good effort in my eyes and set me up to beat my target time.

There are a few hills post Heartbreak that I find more heartbreaking. They're small in comparison, but they just feel unfair. 4:17 per kilometre average pace through Vaucluse and down into Bondi. Amazing views on the way down and starting to feel confident about finishing sub-60.

The end of the race is really well supported and it was nice to ease up a little and take it in. Crossed the line in 58:42 (chip time). Tres pleased.

Now the real work of the day started...the afterparty. Much less seedy than last year (changing in the toilets of the Beach Hotel and rocking up to dinner with tinnies in hand) with a great party put on by a boss from work. Her place overlooks Bondi Beach and the fridge was well stocked with champers. We'd popped home to get changed prior and it took almost twice as long to get back to Bondi than by running.

Time to hear the tales of the rest of the runners:

Kit Edwards: Cracking time of 51:22. He'd been aiming for sub-52 and nailed it. No show at the party though, so incurs a twenty minute time penalty. Them's the rules.

Ant Brown: Shame about Brown. He's settled down now, with girlfriend, and is fat. Sad to see a once great athlete drag himself round in only 58:08.

Oliver Barrett: 1:05:55. Was worried Ollie (not Hollie) might be a dark-horse, needn't have been.

Victoria Arthur: Smashed the PB with a super time of 1:07:58. Very pleased about this, my bowels cost her a sub-70 last year by one second and I haven't heard the end of it. Probably still haven't, but I at least can hope.

Amit Pancholi: Run of the day after rolling his ankle within the first few hundred metres (must have hit fat Betty) and getting round in 1:35:47. Also pleased to report he didn't stick his bag sticker to his back and wore much more conservative earphones.

Close between the girls, Katie Grooby just edging Teresa Pancholi (1:45:37 and 1:46:12 respectively). This battle is getting fierce, with Teresa coming out on top in the Sydney Harbour 10km. I hope they manage to keep their duel civil, but I detect tension simmering and this could explode. Watch this space.

Matt and Howard Brewvier: On the no less important booze run. First to the afterparty and showed us the latest Bondi hipster drink...a lump of cheese in a glass of champagne. Delicious.

Rocked up at Mr Wong in the city for last food orders where it all got a bit much for Pancholi:

What have I learned from the M7 Blacktown Half Marathon

Don't hydrate with beer

Who'd have thought? Beer = fluid + carbohydrates. Pre-race you need fluid + carbohydrates. It seems such an obvious solution.

In all seriousness, hydration is a huge part of being able to perform to your best. For me it's even more important. I sweat. A lot. I think this helps in shorter races (5km and 10km) by virtue of its cooling effect, but in longer races the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. I get dehydrated and my performance suffers. Getting pre-race hydration right is crucial.

This seems like an appropriate time to discuss urine (when isn't?). I gauge my hydration by closely monitoring the clarity of my urine. Almost clear with just a hint of colour. Perfecto. It should also taste subtly of gently aged egg and....only jesting.

With beer comes great wisdom, razor sharp wit, and clear urine, but the clear urine is not because you're hydrated. Beer (alcohol) inhibits vasopressin. Vasopressin makes you not wee. Reduced vasopressin makes you wee, regardless of whether you're dehydrated, hydrated, or drowning. And your urine is going to be clear.

Essentially alcohol dehydrates you and makes it virtually impossible to judge how dehydrated you are.

Don't do alcohol kids!

But do do drugs...


Doodoo drugs

It'd be rude to discuss urine and not discuss the bowels. I've lost count of the times a troublesome stool has negatively impacted on a run, both in training and races.

However, now I use drugs to enhance my performance. Loperamide.

Loperamide is actually an opioid and opioids cause respiratory depression and it's a little known fact that respiration is a key component to top performance. And life in general. That said, inopportune doodoos have been so costly (see City-2-Surf, c2014) that I would rather take the respiratory hit.

You have to consider timing. You don't want to bung yourself up for days and end up carrying the excess weight of last week's vindaloo, but if you get it right and nail your timing you'll have some great runs...or not, as we'd hope the case to be.


To be paced or not to be paced

If it wasn't for the sterling work of the Runlab pacer in the Sydney Harbour 10km I'd be starting to think they're more trouble than they're worth.

In Canberra a fruitless hunt for the pacers after the start led me to fade at 6km. In Blacktown, the pacer got his timings a little wrong necessitating a substantial increase in pace. Twice. Well, at least twice. I lost him after the second surge so there may have been more.

I am happiest doing even splits. I think it's a confidence thing, and I am aware some people swear by the negative split, but at this stage feeling rubbish and knowing I have to increase my pace later is a tough psychological blow to roll.

That said, if the pacer is doing even splits, as was the case in Sydney, I find it a great help. Dumbo has his feather.

The jury is out.


Too many races

July has been a good month. Sub-20 5km and a sub-40 10km. In addition I ran the Gold Coast Half Marathon at a reasonably comfortable pace. I also felt I have been getting better in my quality sessions and have ran the majority of days God sends me.

Gold Coast Half Marathon

But perhaps I have overdone it. Or, rather, overdone it in relation to performing well at this half marathon.

The body needs time to recover and I may have tried to accomplish too much this month.

It's difficult not to give myself as many opportunities as possible to achieve my sub-90 goal, but I may have sacrificed quality for quantity.


Time to concentrate on 21.1km

I.e. the half marathon (for my Imperial friends).

Now I have achieved the targets for 5km and 10km I can concentrate solely on the half marathon. More endurance work. It is relatively rare that I run much further than 10km and I feel this needs to change. I'm averaging about 55km per week and I'm going to increase that to 70km and add in at least one 15km+ run per week.

Until the M7 Half Marathon I've also used 4:45/km and under as the benchmark pace for 10km and above, but intend to quicken to 4:30/km.

As I noted post-Canberra, over-training could become an issue and I must give the prospect as much attention as I give the colour of my urine.


Weight loss

The elephant in the room. Literally.

You don't just become 92kg, you need to put the work in

Before travelling to Europe (May) I was weighing in around the 80kg mark (from 92kg at the end of January following a trip to the land of cheese and wine...Tasmania) and aiming for mid-to-low seventies. Now I'm tipping the scales at 84kg. Obviously my sizeable muscle load (ahem) is adding to my mass, but there's no hiding from the fact that simply dropping 10kg should be all I need to run sub-90.

And it's possible. At 84kg I'm overweight based on BMI, as is the case at 80kg. If I watch my diet the kilos should drop off and so should the minutes on my PBs.


The bottom line

Is a sub-90 possible? Yes, I believe it is. McMillan race predictor reckons I should already be sub-90 based on my 10km PB.

So what happened at Blacktown? Just an off day? A perfect storm of alcohol and vindaloo?

Or was it something more intrinsic? Am I more suited to the shorter distances? Do I sweat too much to run well at longer distances?

With weight loss, training tailored toward the half marathon distance, and a good quality taper, I can improve my chances. I am confident I can do it, but it's going to need some hard work. And hard stool.

"Hareth's Wall of Motivation"

"Running Strategies for Douchebags" - Hareth Bader

M7 Blacktown Half Marathon

"Fast course eh? Flat you say? Sounds great. Looks a little boring, but I'll give it a go."

And so I enrolled in the M7 Blacktown Half Marathon. Turns out it's fast because its competitors are fast. Only the seriously dedicated (read: fools) turn up to this dull bit of tarmac. And it's not flat. Just as Canberra wasn't flat. But it is boring, two out-and-backs along a cycle-path next to a motorway.

And it was a tough day.

I'd decided to target my 90 minute goal. A big ask seeing as I had yet to run sub-100 minutes, but the McMillan race predictor reckoned I could run a 1hr29 and another online calculator put me closer to 1hr28 (based on my 10km PB of 39:57).

I'm still tinkering with my race preparation, but now I've learnt that eight hours of boozing and bed after midnight the evening before an event is probably less than ideal. I'd also had a fairly tough month of running, with a 5km and 10km PB and a half-marathon in Gold Coast (although I did take that one purposefully easy). I hadn't really tapered my training and I'd neglected carbohydrate loading over a sensible time period (unless you count the carbohydrates in beer).

The race starts on the track at Blacktown Sports Centre. One and three quarters of the lap, then out onto the cycle-path. South for a short distance and then north for a longer distance. Motorway and cars on one side, nondescript overgrowth on the other. Ahead? Hill after bloody hill.

I had decided to run with the pacer. After Canberra's pacer fail (started well behind them, ran too fast to try and catch them, didn't catch them, blew up) I found the 90 minute pacer a good half hour before the start and attached myself to his hip. This was, hopefully, how it would remain until crossing the finish line. That or I'd overtake him at the end (see Hareth Bader; "Running Strategies for Douchebags*").

The plan did not come to fruition. There was a little discrepancy between course markings and GPS watches and the pacer, unintentionally, started running slower than equal splits. I was finding it hard work already and the thought of having to run quicker later was a psychological blow. There's a big confidence component to running and mine was shot. The pacer surged forward to make up time and I managed to hang on. Until he did it again. Once he'd gone, he'd gone. And so had I.

My pace slowed dramatically for the second half (4:12/km first 12km, 5:04/km the second half) and I limped home in 1:36:37.

The finish straight

Mixed emotions. My time represents a PB at the distance (by almost 4 minutes) and I've had a successful July (targets for the year met in both 5km and 10km), but sub-90 feels an awful long way away. We're almost into the last five months of the year and there are only so many half marathons left. There are some mitigating circumstances, that I will whine about in the next entry, but I'm going to have to work very hard if I'm to achieve the sub-90.

The blood...there were sweat and tears too

1. Bader, Hareth. "Running Strategies for Douchebags" http://cramic.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/sydney-harbour-10k-eggs-in-one-basket.html

Sydney Harbour 10k - eggs in one basket

Victoria, Me, Bader (Lad)

Earlier this month I had a choice to make; prioritise the Gold Coast half-marathon or the Sydney Harbour 10km. Despite my race predictor suggesting I was probably closer to a 90 minute half-marathon, I decided to focus on the sub-40 10km. In all honesty I didn't feel comfortable about either target, but I figured it was better to sweat blood and tears (and a lot of sweat) and fail for around 40 minutes than for 90 minutes.

My first problem was a gangly Northerner called Hareth Bader. He'd already informed me of his race plan; sit on my shoulder and try to overtake me at the end. Great. He'd been putting in some good times at distances up to 7km and this was a possibility, despite him being untested at 10km. I could do without the aggro, even if I could drop him before he could execute his master-plan.

He'd spent the run up to the race in Perth, so needed us to pick up his race bib and deliver it to him at the start. Time for my own master-plan. Whilst Victoria went to find him, I did a quick warm up and made for the front of the A start group. By the time he'd finished his (daft) stretches, chose how many layers he was going to run in, dropped off his bag, and whinged about his Reynauds, he found himself at the back of the A start group. Problem solved. Good look dodging the optimists.

The second problem was that there was no official 40 minute pacer. Disaster. My own race plan was to sit on the shoulder of the pacer and try to overtake at the end. When I say "sit on the shoulder" I mean "hang on with every inch of my being". The Sydney Striders, the official pacers, were doing 45 minutes and above. I desperately searched Facebook for alternatives and on race night learnt that Runlab were providing "motivators", and one for 40 minutes. How these differ from pacers I didn't know, but my plan was now to find one of these motivators, sit on their shoulder and...you know the rest.

Conditions were the third problem. Cold and windy. Cold doesn't bother me, but the wind is always a pain. A tailwind never compensates for a headwind.

However, I had prepared as well as I ever have. Fully hydrated, tapered my running, and didn't get smashed the night before.

The gun fired and we were off. I had yet to spot my motivator, and the first kilometre was just spent dodging others, trying to maintain an even 4 minute split, and chuckling about the dodge-fest Bader would be in. Lad.

As Hickson Road turned south, at around 2km, a fierce headwind hit. Unpleasant. But there was my motivator, about 10 metres ahead, telling people he was running for 40 minutes. Ok, he may have just been a bragger, but I liked his arrogance and I fell in behind him.

The rest of the race is something of a blur. I tried to keep my motivator at a constant distance and run the course as efficiently as I could. In Manchester I essentially ran an extra 100m, by running corners the long way, and I wanted to get my total distance as close to 10km as possible.

It was tough. At no point did I feel comfortable. The hill onto Pyrmont Bridge took it out of me and I struggled to recover. My motivator started making gains on me. It is very demoralising to see the personification of your goal start moving away. There goes 40 minutes in a silly yellow singlet.

Coming back onto Hickson Road, this time running north, and another bloody headwind. I felt terrible. I could feel my splits lengthening and there was little I could do.

Suddenly though and what I thought was the 8km sign was approaching. Something about having just 2km to go pushed me on and, as I passed the 8km sign, I increased my pace. About 500m later I passed the actual 8km sign, but I was unperturbed. I was gaining on the motivator and the dream of sub-40 was back on. Racing the under the Harbour Bridge and into the harbour itself and the motivator was close, closer, passed! He was providing words of encouragement to all. I increased my pace again and started towards the finish line, with about 500m to go. I could hear the motivator shouting to push and then what's this? The bloody motivator was powering through, sprinting to the finish. Overtaking me. Sub-40 was overtaking me. He was telling us all to dig deep, sprint for the line, and I dug deep and spinted(ish) for the line.

I crossed just ahead of the motivator. The gun time was 40:05, the time on my watch was 40:01, but I was ahead of the 40 minute pacer who had started ahead of me. What was my time?

39:57. Absolutely chuffed. Ten minutes earlier and I thought I'd blown it. More than a minute off my personal best and achieved my target for this year in the 10km with six months to go.

The Runlab motivator made the difference. He slowed down to let those of us right on the cusp of 40 minutes pass him (a big psychological boost) and then powered us to the line. Fantastic effort from the motivator and I thanked him later on Strava.

What's next? Probably the M7 half-marathon at the end of the month. I think it is probably over optimistic to go sub-90, but I think I will give it a shot. At least I'll have some idea of where I'm at. Just need to find a "motivator".

41:33 for Bades (rubbish)

Some other results of my pals:

Hareth Bader - 41:33 (rubbish).

Victoria Arthur - 50:13 (our roles reversed from last week, Vic's turn to take it easy).

The Pancholis - Amit 57:57 (breaks the hour mark on first ever 10km, but uses inhaler four times incurring a four minute time penalty. Also incurs time penalty for racing faux pas (sticking bag label to his back) and wearing ridiculous headphones) and Teresa 01:01:45 (just missing the hour, but no use of inhaler and carried herself with a lot more class than Amit so beats her husband).

Katie Grooby - 01:12:46 (paced by the "broom wagon")

Tom Kennedy - overslept

A tale of three races - a 7km, a 5km, and a half marathon

There are two types of people in the world: those who admit to loving chronology and those who are liars. As such, let's discuss these races chronologically. I played with the idea of discussing in terms of race length, but there are two types of people in the world: those who admit to hating racelengthology and those who are liars.

The 7km race was a big one. Not so much in terms of the race itself, but in terms of its implications for the future. After running the Manchester 10km I was ruined for the Delamere Parkrun. With the Gold Coast half-marathon approaching, and just a week before the Sydney Harbour 10km, I had to strategise. Which am I more likely to hit my goal in? The 7km would tell me. If I could get close to 28 minutes (4min/km), I would take it easy in the half marathon. Off the 28 minutes, I'd focus on the half.

The 7km was part of the Festival of the Feet, organised by Western District Runners, and around the Georges River out near Bankstown. "7km?" I hear you cry. Yes, 7km. I heard it's because it's "sort of 5 miles", but at 4.9 miles, 8km is much more "sort of 5 miles". Anyway, fans of lengthology, it is what it is and I ran it.

We were post nights and the last night was a corker. Tres busy. The lad Bader dropped us off. The course was pretty good. A bit of grass, mostly Tarmac, and some sand?! What sort of masochist puts random sand segments into their race? The gun fired (read: some guy said "go!") and we were off! Three guys steamed off ahead, then me, then the loudest breather I've ever heard over my shoulder. He got told off for not displaying his bib and the energy it took for him to explain himself presumably finished him because I didn't hear from him again.

Of the three front runners, one broke at 1km. Talk about setting off too fast. We've all been there. Any sympathy I had was not converted into weakness and I powered past into third! Bloody third! For the first time in my life position trumped time. There was no way (there was a way) that I was going to let some jolly-come-lately steal past and take my podium, so I started running at a pace to ensure I had some energy left to up the ante should I need to. But I didn't. A small out and back showed I was comfortably ahead of fourth and I just maintained my "coiled spring" pace of 4:10 till the finish. My time? Somewhere plus 29 minutes. Hmmmm. Doesn't make my mind up regarding 10km vs 21.1km. It is well off the required 10km pace, but I had many mitigating circumstances (I always strive to take a few into a race, some call them excuses)...no taper, poor hydration, post four busy night shifts, and finding myself running for position instead of time. But a decision was needed and a decision I made: Prioritise the 10km.

Knowing I wouldn't be going flat out in the half I thought I'd do a Gold Coast Parkrun. A few were closed, owing to race weekend, but I found the Kirra Parkrun and it looked a cracker. So flat it could teach a pancake a thing or two. It's an out-and-back (boo) and you end up running back 500m past the finish line before coming back on yourself (super boo), but it looked quick. I was upset that a stinking athletics club turned up to run it, but I set out at sub 4:00/km pace and maintained it. Good effort I thought, especially as I was still hungover from copious Malbec the night before are weighed down by Wagyu steak. It was my 5km personal best and my first official sub-20 minutes 5km. Chuffed. Time was 19:28.

The view from just south of Kirra Parkrun

The Gold Coast half wasn't as well organised as I thought it would be (first event to get gold status in Australia) and parking was a nightmare. Plain old out-and-back and lacking support. The km signs were difficult to spot and there was zero entertainment away from the start/finish. It also started at 6am! On a Sunday!

GCAM start line

Flat course though. Ran with Victoria who was going for a personal best and sub-1:45. She's a nightmare to encourage. One wrong word and I'm in for it. We did even splits of 4:50-4:55. Great to see some Sydney Striders running elite (Lewis Ingram amongst others) coming the other way.

Finished in (still awaiting official time) around 1 hour, 44:30 minutes. Pleased. A good work out without absolutely destroying myself (the beer will do that tonight).

Important to stretch

Now it's time to bring on the 10km and the retriever, Hareth Bader.....

Reduced Piriformance

Relax, spelling aficionados, I know how to spell performance (you highlight the word, click spell check, and hit enter). The title is merely a clever (ahem) play on words. You see I have tweaked my piriformis muscle and it has reduced my performance. Hence reduced piriformance. lolz.

Depending on how lardy you are your piriformis makes up either a small part of your arse or a very small part of your arse. Trouble occurs because your sciatic nerve gets cosy with your priformis, so swelling and inflammation of the latter irritates the former. Sciatic nerve pain is a little like toothache of the bottom and no amount of brushing is going to sort it out.

It's not hugely painful and it's not hugely debilitating, but it's concerning in that it may represent my first overuse injury. It seems to be easing of its own accord though and hasn't impacted my running too much.

In truth, the whole situation probably doesn't even warrant a blog post. I just wanted to use my piriformance joke and talk about arses.

Great Manchester Run

Don't worry blog fans, I'm back! I know you've all been waiting patiently.....(tumbleweed).

Post grad exams have limited the inordinate amount of time I usually have to faff about (not a euphemism) on the Internet.

Anyway, it's done now so let me tell you about the Great Manchester Run.....

New PB and new PW for 10km

I must say that I was impressed with the Great Manchester Run. Probably the best organised race I have attended.

My favourite thing was that it didn't start at stupid o'clock in the early hours of the morning. A lie in on race day? Novel and welcome.

It also had huge numbers of toilets with no queues, vast quantities of parking within a couple of minutes walk of the start-line, painless bib pickup on the day, efficient baggage drop, staggered and enforced start groups that led to virtually no crowding at the start or thereafter, well supported, complimentary energy drinks and food in the pre-run village, water stations with actual water bottles so your drink didn't end up all over your face, and loads of live music. Essentially race organisation provided me no excuses for a poor run. Pity.

But not to worry, I prepared for this eventuality and came with readymade excuses I'd come up with earlier. No taper, pre-race nutrition consisting of beers and curry, tough runs in the desert, and no peanut butter bananas. 

I'm aiming to run sub-40 minutes for a 10km this year, but as this was my first ever 10km race I'd decided this wouldn't be that day. I haven't formally run 5km at 4:00min pace yet so trying to do it for 10km may have resulted in a jaw thrust at 6km.

Instead I'd selected an arbitrary target of 42 minutes. A respectable pace (4:12 per km) that I hadn't yet achieved on any training run. 

I spent a bit of time setting my watch up to let me know if I was running too slowly, which it didn't bother doing (perfect, another excuse) and set off.

The route is fairly dull. Along a dual carriageway to Old Trafford, a loop, and back on ourselves. The crowd were great though, and live music was blasting at each kilometre marker. It's also a bit hilly, certainly outbound.

I set off and felt comfortable, actually running ahead of target pace (around the 4:05 mark). At 4km doubt began to creep in and it felt tough, but I continued putting in the even splits. Past Old Trafford, hydrated enough to spit on it, and around a small loop before heading back the way we'd come.

Noticed on my watch that a sub-41 minute was on, so tried to continue putting in the 4:05's, but beginning to tire.

The crowd really spurred me on the last kilometre or so and over the line in....41:05. Booooo. Where had that bloody five seconds come from? Turns out I'd ran the course long (about 100 metres) and my watch 10km time was 40:48. So a good lesson learnt. If (when!!) I run sub 40 minutes I reckon it'll be tight so it's going to be important to run the course as short as possible. It can clearly make a big difference when margins are small.

So pleased overall. Very pleased. A personal best for 10km, although as it was my first 10km race we could also call it my personal worst, and almost a minute under target. Felt fairly comfortable (subjectively) and this was borne out (objectively) by my Strava suffer score.

It's given me confidence that I can reach my 10km target. My next attempt will be the Sydney Harbour Run, which is pancake flat, in July. Should be a fast one.

Hell

I have experienced hell.

Hell is running in a desert city, in 35c heat at night, failing to find one of the largest man made objects on Earth, and having forgotten your anti-chaffage nipple tape.

The trouble with Dubai is there is so much construction work going on. Had I envisaged the scene, pre-arrival, of being up to my ankles in sand and on the coast I'd have added a Margherita to proceedings. Instead I was up to my ankles in sand and dodging traffic cones.

Still, I maintained a pretty respectable pace of just under 4:30/km for 13+ kilometres. Given that it was my ninth straight day on the road, jet lagged into somewhere next week, and full (to bursting) of butter chicken I was pretty pleased with the effort. And I did manage to find the Jameira Palm finally.

The following morning I was out again, this time full (to bursting) of blue cheese and pita bread. Victoria's favourite trick is ordering way too much food for herself, leaving me, out of feelings of politeness (read; greed), to finish the lot. Bad idea, daytime temperature reached 39c.

This was a much better route. Mislead, just the once, by more construction, I ran around Dubai Marina. Lovely pedestrianised walkways with the odd madman, in something resembling a golf buggy, careering around. Beautiful cityscapes. The Dubai I'd seen in pictures.

The blue cheese and pita bread powered me to another respectable 4:30ish/km pace, but at the expense of some fairly noxious exhaust fumes out my top end.

Sweaty? You better believe it. Left half my circulating volume out there somewhere and more besides in my hat.

So pleased overall with my Dubai running. Had only earmarked one day in my trainers, but managed two. Acceptable pace in trying circumstance. Probably done too much given I'm racing on Sunday, but hey ho, Sunday is not the goal. More a training run in itself.

Roll on Manchester....

Hareth's Wall of Motivation

I am fortunate to have a gentleman called Hareth Bader in my life. He is truly a motivation and he has produced the above whiteboard with a selection of his own inspiring quotes. Whenever I am experiencing mental weakness I think about "Hareth's Wall of Motivation" and push on. I will post some of his slogans from time to time when I'm in the deepest pits of despair and self-doubt.

"Your only limit is you" after all.

Plus he has massive nuts...

Not all treadmills are created equal

Disgusting weather for the last few days so I've been on the treadmill. I would normally have just ran outside, but the wind and rain coincided with my leaving my watch and heart rate monitor at work so I figured the quality sessions would be best suited to the treadmill.

I can only do quality sessions on the treadmill as getting on one just to run at a set pace for 40 minutes bores me to tears. There's something about quality sessions that I find makes the time fly on the treadmill. I think it's the recovery/rest components, they go by very quickly. Funny that.

Monday was interval day. 1km at 3:45min/km pace. Five times. With just under two minute jogging recovery. Felt pretty comfortable, but it's not always been that way...

If it's quiet at work on nights I try to spend some time in the gym. Turns out the treadmill I use at work is callibrated incorrectly, and is slower than the displayed speed. This led to a certain degree of misplaced confidence when I first started using the machine. 3:45 pace? Easy. Was running extra intervals and for longer.

Then I jumped on the machine at home. Shit! What's happened? The same session was killing me. I was having to run it slower and still felt terrible. Five intervals instead of four? No chance.

Was it an off day? Had I over-trained in the run up?

Next time at work I was flying again. Next time at home; destroyed.

Slowly it dawned on me and an important lesson was learnt; not all treadmills are created equal.

Fundraising

My Virgin Money Giving page

I've raised funds once in my life. I was eight, my brother seven, and my childhood best friend, Andrea, was nine. When Andrea wasn't digging up dead birds and putting them through a mangle and my brother wasn't mixing slugs with salt, we were ardent animal lovers. So much so that we decided to raise money for our nearest zoo, in Chester. We had many events planned, the first being a sponsored bike relay around our estate. I went, my brother went, Andrea went. A total of about one mile. We repeated this...once more. Nobody came to watch. I think Mum poured us each a glass of cordial afterwards (probably not related). Despite the less than arduous nature of our challenge we raised the princely sum (to those still in single digits of life) of sixteen pounds.

This promptly went behind a picture in Mum's bedroom, safe and sound, until we had completed future events and could present the money to Chester Zoo in some kind of grand ceremony. It was promptly forgotten, we moved on to building a tree house, and the money, Frank Abagnale style, never found its way to Chester Zoo.

Since that day I have never undertaken a challenge that I feel is worthy of raising funds with. I feel that the challenge you set for yourself, when asking for sponsorship, should be something you are not sure you can do. Something that you will need to work for and something that isn't a given.

For me, my running goals for this year reflect just such a challenge. I've bored you with details previously (see: Welcome to my blog), but running 5km in under twenty minutes, 10km in under forty minutes, and a half-marathon in under an hour and a half represent targets I may not achieve.

Any doubts that I had, and I had many, were magnified after the Canberra half marathon earlier this month. I had trained fairly hard prior to the race, lost a lot of weight and pushed hard, but was still more than ten minutes off my goal. A very significant time difference to make up in six-nine months. This is of course the moment my old friend, Gavin Edwards, chose to get in touch with me about a fundraising offer I'd made back in early March.

Gavin's daughter, Georgie, was born with Rett Syndrome, a devastating disease that robs young girls of their futures. It presents, typically, between the ages of six and eighteen months as, initially, subtle deviations from normal development before entering a period of developmental stagnation and regression. It affects approximately 1:10,000 children, predominantly girls, across all races and ethnicities. Children who suffer with Rett Syndrome become progressively more disabled and require 24 hour care and multiple therapies that can be painful and traumatic. It is not curable.

Despite this I have yet to see a picture of Georgie that doesn't show her lighting up every room with the most beautiful smile. This is only possible because of the amazing work her parents, Gavin and Katie, do with the support of local and regional services.

It is for this cause I will be trying to raise some money. The first charity is Reverse Rett, an organisation that is helping to fund work searching for a cure for Rett Syndrome and to improve treatments and enable earlier diagnosis of the condition. Their priorities are to:

• fund research into the basic science, clinical treatments and clinical trials.
• facilitate the development of clinical treatment centres which would be capable of running clinical trials.

The second charity is Hope House Children's Hospices. They run two hospices and provide support for life-limited children, young people, and their families in Shropshire, Cheshire, Mid and North Wales. They provide their service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They rely heavily on donations and fundraising.

Both charities do amazing work and provide an essential service for children and young people who have to overcome significant adversity. It will be a privilege to help support both organisations.

And don't worry, the money won't end up behind a picture in my Mum's room.

Georgie Pie's Brighter Future
Reverse Rett
Hope House Children's Hospices

Back in the saddle

Wednesday 15th April

The thought of dropping over ten minutes from a PB in a matter of months was giving me the jitters and I was eager to get back on the road. The "oyster incident" took the wind out of my sails, putting it firmly in my bowels, for the first couple of days after Canberra, but by Wednesday I was raring to go.

Vic and I decided on a Sydney classic; Hyde Park, Mrs Macquarie's Chair, through Domain and around the Opera House. Nice and slow, 5:30 per kilometre. Felt surprisingly good, given I'd lost 200-300 grams per hour in weight the day before and had recently run a half marathon i.e. I felt awful.

The Corporate Cup was afoot at the time. Seems like a bonkers race to me. Runners of all abilities literally everywhere in the Domain. The course? Couldn't work it out. There were runners with bib numbers going in every direction on every stretch of road. No marshals to police the madness. It was like they'd herded up a random sample of folk from Sydney businesses, dressed each in a singlet, took them to Museum Road and said, "run my beautiful salespeople, run!"

We did 8km, returning through the Domain. Cracking weather.


Thursday 16th April

Intervals! Post nights!

Another Sydney classic; Liverpool Hospital to Fairfield Railway Station (ahem). The route is about 6.5km and the plan was for 1km intervals with 90 second standing recoveries. Victoria joined me, but we ran the intervals at different paces.

If not flat, this route is predominantly uphill. Charming. I like it because it uses up commute time and only crosses two or three quiet roads, the rest along designated walkway. It's also good because you can extend it by 1-2kms and run on to the next station (up to Merrylands, 12km) if you miss the train. Or perhaps that's not good.

The session was pretty tough, but I walked (hobbled) away with a new 1 km (3:35 minutes) and 1/2 mile (2:53 minutes) personal bests (estimated).

Victoria wasn't happy because her suffer score (69) was almost double mine (39). Lolz.

What have I learned from Canberra

Be very wary of oysters

It was always going to happen. There is an inherent risk in eating raw animal of any kind, with shellfish being somewhat notorious troublemakers, and sooner or later you're going to get burnt. Ironic, as they're not cooked.

The frustrating thing is I reckon I spotted this was a naughty oyster before sending it down my pie hole. It was smaller than the other five and wasn't attached to its shell. I did give it a good sniff and detected no problems, but my sense of smell is lacking and the sensitivity of this test is likely sub par.

Anyway, a day spent on the toilet, in bed, or hurriedly moving between the two has given me time to reflect on what I learnt about my progress towards a sub-90 half-marathon:

Calm before the storm

Pre-event training (weight loss)

With hindsight I remember that with foresight I had decided weight loss was going to be my target in preparing for Canberra. Christmas had obviously been unkind to my waistline and my birthday and Victoria's birthday land late January/early February respectively. These entail lots of drinking and lots of eating. Tied in with a trip to Melbourne for the Australian Open and to Tasmania for wine and cheese, this perfect storm of gluttony led to the scales tipping in at 92kg. At approximately 178cm, my BMI was somewhat unseemly.

However, with the use of MyFitnessPal and running, I have seen the scales at 78kg. As I tend to have a range of weights depending on whether I've ran that day (I sweat, a lot) and what I've eaten I'd say I've dropped from 88-92kg to 78-82kg. 10kg weight loss in just over two months. Success.

I still have weight to lose, aiming for the low seventy kilograms, but am very pleased with the progress so far.

Pre-event training (running)

I didn't follow a set programme and felt just being out on the road was the most important aspect. I did do some quality sessions (intervals, Fartlek, progression, tempo), but on the whole my runs tended to be moderate pace (4:45-5:00 min/km) over moderate distance (6-10km). My long runs were far less than ideal, doing 16-21km at around 5:30 min/km or slower.

In preparation for July (Gold Coast) I'm going to do at least two quality sessions per week and one long run at closer to goal pace. Actual run work is going to be more the focus than weight loss. I must be wary of overtraining, and will reflect on this frequently.

The taper

I think I got my reduction in running about right, but a somewhat surprising lack of energy at 6km and a truly massive stool hindering proceedings suggest I didn't succeed with my nutrition. I think the culprit was a massive portion of pretty oily pasta I ate on the way to Canberra and my evening meal (more pasta) was heavier than it should have been.

On the day my banana with peanut butter served as a good pre-race bite (around 90 minutes before the gun) and I hydrated successfully.

Race strategy

Fail. I had intended to run even splits with my pace group, but was unable to join them at the start. Trying to catch them, thus running positive splits, was an error I lived to regret. I guess this tells positive splitting isn't the correct strategy for me, or I should have at least planned this strategy pre-race. The half-way approach, mixing strategy, was destined to fail. I had planned to do even splits and I should have stuck to that strategy, regardless of whether I was with the pacers or not.

When all is said and done I can take a lot of positives from Canberra. A new PB by six minutes and lots of lessons learnt, but I'm not hiding from the fact I have a lot of work still to do.

Right, back to the toilet!