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.....