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:
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| 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!
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