Weigh In - 12 October 2008

I weighed in before the world wide half yesterday:


We visited my parents for Sunday lunch later in the day. It was great. A lovely beef dish and berry crumble for desert which went down a treat.

Still going in the right direction with the weight loss. On the topic of lunch I've been good taking food with me to work rather than going and buying something. That's working out quite well (and saving money while I'm at it).

On a side note am finding tracking weight, and posting weekly, using physicsdiet a good way to keep focused.

World Wide Half - Race Report

After entering this virtual event yesterday I was quite nervous and found it hard to sleep. It really did feel like a proper race. Weird eh? I think it was partly because I had annouced the entry on this blog and hence some pressure to put in a good effort.

Before the race I checked out the course from space (thanks Google Earth):



Headed out to the start line at quarter past 6 just before dawn here in Auckland on a cool but fine morning. No queues for the toilets and got a great pole position at the start (my driveway!). No start gun though this race so just pushed the start button on my G-Shock stopwatch and headed out.

On a serious note the early start was also so I could get the run finished while it was still cool. Running a half marathon with no planned drink breaks I needed to minimise dehydration. I had hydrated well the night before and had a glass of water after I had woken up.

The first 3km or so where along pretty flat suburban streets in Mt. Eden and Sandringham - Halesowen, Calgary, and Shackleton. This was the extra I had tacked on to my long training run to bring it up to half distance. Used that to ease into the run. Actually the start was great - there was no congestion with other runners! Usually a race there is a bit of congestion in the first part. I guess countering that there are no people to pace against later on and no crowd support. Have to say the atmosphere with a whole lot of other runners is something else (and what makes races fun).


The course wasn't too bad...

The 3km through 8km is rolling terrain up through Mt. Eden Village and into Grafton. Saw a few other runners out training and got a wave or two. They were probably wondering what the hell I was doing running pretty hard out early on a Sunday morning.

The domain was nice and pleasant - at around 9km the sun was coming up through the trees and it felt pretty good to be honest. I had started to feel fatigue round about here and the sunshine from down was a bit of a lift.

The section from 10km through 13km was pretty flat aside from a nasty little hill just into Gillies Ave. The sun was starting to come up now which was good.

13km through 17km was through Cornwall Park. Along this part of the run I tried to run on the trail and grass a bit - the uphill sections were a matter of just maintaining stride rate (albeit with a shorter step). In contrast really attacked the downhill sections felt like I absolutely screamed down the hill.

The last 4km of the run was tough. My feet, quads, lungs were starting to feel it. On the plus side not a peep from the knees and calves. Not much left for a sprint finish but certainly finished in better shape than my first half back in July. Still running reasonably strong. Absolutely stuffed though.


The face of victory! Well I am wearing a nike top and she is the greek goddess of victory. I'm shattered right about now.

I then took a photo of the time for the permanent record. Out of focus shot due to post race exhaustion.



1:35:47 which is a new PB! According to mapmyrun.com the route was 21.4km so average pace is 4:28min/km.

Doing the world wide half was great. As I said earlier it really did feel like a race! Even got a virtual certificate...



Absolutely brilliant and now I'm buzzed for the rest of the day. Hope everyone else had fun racing it.

Phedipidations World Wide Half Marathon - I'm in!

Today I read an interesting race report on Mike's Sub6 blog he had just run in the virtual half marathon with over 1000 people in over 40 countries. That sounded pretty interesting so I checked out in further details - from the website http://www.worldwidehalf.com:

On the weekend of 11-12 October 2008 runners from around the world will 'virtually' come together to celebrate their passion for the sport they love by running The Worldwide Festival of Races Half Marathon, 10K and 5K distances. This race is a free, non-commercial event for runners of all abilities, where everyone is invited to register, train and run with us in the spirit of friendship. The only requirement is that you sign-up to run an official road race or a route of your choosing on the weekend of 11-12 October 2008, and report the results on this website. Participation in the race will also include a 'virtual' race bib, goody bag and completion certificate as well as a community forum and final results listing.

Free is always good so I figured why not stretch out my planned 18km long run to a half marathon distance. Hard to "race" on my own but it should be a good fun run. It'll be a route of my choosing of course.



Here is my "virtual" race bib - what do you know lucky number 1142 :)


Here is the "course" I'm planning on doing...something like 21.4km but its hard to get it exact when you are just clicking points on a map.

Going to try for an early start...

Ever Increasing Circles

Yesterday morning on the way to work I was thinking about a comment AndrewE made on my last post.

I dream of that kind of speed! One day!

That's a nice comment however I'll add the disclaimer that for me any pace under 4:30min/km is high intensity so at the end of even a short run like that I'm blowing hard and a bit of a sweaty mess.

This is going to be a pretty obvious statement but progress is relative to where you currently are. One day I'd like to go under 40 minutes for a 10km - and under 20minutes for a 5km. Perhaps even dreaming about it on occasion ;). An ambitious goal but progress should be thought of as a series of ever increasing circles.

In Jon Ackland's book Complete or Compete there was a illustration about this. It struck a chord with me - it was something like the following:



Essentially it shows that wherever you are, that is current limits, can be expanded with adequate training to new limits. Additional training will expand the limits further and so on. Obviously there is a physical limit to this that elite athletes will approach but for mere mortals like myself I don't think thats the limiting aspect.

I think its good to keep in mind though that metrics on performance - whether how fast you can run, how long you can run, aerobic capacity, or getting to a certain weight are essentially "carrots". The journey of getting there, that is getting fitter, is really the main goal. I think that running long distances can also be mentally fulfilling as overcoming a challenge as well.

When I started running 2 years ago my initial circle was very small. Weight had stretched to 98kg which triggered a "pre-mid life crisis". Initially anything more than a couple of hundred metres was hard. Running was slow.
In hindsight it was a shame I hadn't found the 'Couch-to-5K' program it would have made things easier.

Initial goals were fairly modest - Remember one milestone after a couple of months was being able to do the 3km loop around One Tree Hill. Slowly, very slowly, but non-stop. 3km become 5km and then 8km and eventually a work colleague had convinced me to enter the Auckland Quarter Marathon with him last year. Training for a race was just the thing to keep me focused.

A few more months of training - largely on rolling terrain or hills - I managed a good time on what was a dead flat course.

Shame I didn't blog those early days but I have been recording progress ever since. Onwards and upwards. The big carrot for me now is a full marathon next year.

Weather looks good today so might be good to lace those shoes up and head outside :) All this talk about circles has got me motivated...

Midweek Tempo

Rain and wind hit Auckland yesterday (Tuesday) so my tempo run got postponed until today.

7.53km in 32:15 (4:17 min/km pace) - according to mapmyrun.com that's 14.01km/hr which is quick (for me).

Good honest hard effort throughout.

This article at runner's world is quite a good read on the virtues of tempo-running. Good to do once a week. I've been reading a bit about intervals as well.

I don't have a picture for today's run but here is another good kiwi band, Goldenhorse, for your viewing pleasure. Lead singer Kirsten Morelle is singing about running so it must be good:

Weigh In - 5 October 2008

Been going the right direction this week - largely watching what I eat.

A Great Hill Run

This morning I did my Maungawhau/Mt. Eden hill run and it was great! Probably one of the best training runs all year. No niggles and felt strong on the uphills and kept the pace consistent as opposed to shuffling near the top. I guess just one of those days when training feels great - wish they all feel this good.

Diet has been quite good this week (baby spinach sandwiches for lunch anyone?) and that may be helping.


Photo by Pat Leahy. A cow's eye view of the road to the top. The island out in the harbour is actually an extinct volcano as is the hill (Mt. Eden) of today's climb.

Half way up the climb I caught up with a group of runners also talking the road to the top. Even passed three of them :). Tough hill climbs are really helping with running strength and should pay dividends when racing a flat course.

Today was 11.18km in 51:00 (pace 4:34 min/km).

Progression on this route:

21 Sep - 55:12 - 4:55 min/km
28 Sep - 54:02 - 4:49 min/km
4 Oct - 51:00 - 4:34 min/km

Time for a banana :)