Being Sensible

Got back from Run Auckland 6 / North Shore City HM this morning. Conditions were pretty cold and blustery but the rain mostly stayed away. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I felt good to turn up and do the thing even though my family and some friends of mine told me I was mental. :)

In terms of the race itself it started well but both my calves started to tighten up around the 6km mark. Trouble on this course the first 6km are pretty easy and the rest is a mixture of beach, hills, North Head, hills and beach. It is a pretty tough course.

Coming back towards the finish along Takapuna beach was interesting with the tide coming in. Needless to say my shoes got a bit wet.

No point risking injury so was sensible and took it relatively easy for the back half of the race. Got passed by quite a few people which was a bit demoralising. Times haven't come out yet but I think it was around 1:41 or there abouts. Not what I was hoping for but at least I didn't pull anything.

One positive I'll take out of this it was under my projected marathon pace and I felt quite comfortable from an aerobic persective. Just wish my legs would behave themselves! I think the answer could partly be new shoes and I plan to go shopping for some very soon.

No more racing for a while now...

Run Auckland 3

After threatening to hail down the race morning was suprisingly nice and sunny. The rest of the weekend was quite awful so this was a good start.


The view from my car :)

Caught up with Andrew and his wife Sally before the race. Good to chat about the race and his first marathon coming up soon in Christchurch. Exciting stuff.

After the race I also caught up with an old friend Angie from hapkido days. She is now in training for Ironman which is pretty cool.

Quite a lot of people and the course itself was congested.

The run itself was OK for the first 7km or so and then my calf started to complain a bit. Not enough to stop but I had to slow up a lot for the last loop.

The first two laps I had intentionally run quite slow and easy - certainly aerobic running. Was quite suprised to clear the 5km mark in 22:02, mind you its a very flat course.

Finished up with 46:08 gun time. On the slow side but given I had gone into this managing an injury not too bad. Injury free I think could have threatened 42 or better - maybe next year?

To the guy in the green shirt that turned to wave to the crowd and collected an orange road cone in the crotch at the 4km mark: I didn't mean to comment "nice catch" on the way past. Good that it wasn't a serious accident but it *was* really funny.

Run Auckland 2 - Injury Strikes

In my last post I mentioned the plan for Run Auckland 2 was to line up near the 45:00 pacers and "give it a nudge". Pretty simple and for the first 3km or so it was looking good. Glancing at my watch at I think it was just on 12 minutes so close to 4 min/km pace. Going through my mind was this hey this is pretty fast might be a challenge to hold this pace till the end.

Shortly after that though felt my left achilles twinge a little enough for me to ease up and then a pretty bad pain in my calf. I think its a pulled muscle. I can't recall excatly but it may have happened on one of the uphill bits or on gravel.After turning the air blue with a naughty word (bad form in public!) hobbled along at a walk. Lots of people blasted past including Andrew and an old friend I hadn't seen for a while. Maybe getting injured is a perhaps a good way to meet new people?

It also gave me a sudden shift in perspective for the race goal rather that trying to get a PB (under 42:47) or even clock in a solid sub 50:00 time I was now just going to try and finish.

Got to the 5km mark in just over 30 minutes and seriously thought about pulling out there and then. However the pain was subsiding a bit and thought at the very least could walk the second loop to finish. Found adjusting my running gait to slow shuffle running on the flats and downhills was possible with only slight discomfort. Had to walk the uphills. Got a comment from someone near the back of the pack when walking up an incline that I was "as bad as they were" walking up a hill. No shame in that I said and we a brief chat about how everyone starts out walk/running.

Finished in 1:01:49 which is a lot slower than I set out to do but I'm glad managed to get to the end.

Met Andrew again at the finish - turns out he had got a personal best on this distance which was awesome for him. Congratulations!

My little sister T came in at 1:16 and change shaving 5 minutes off Race 1. Great stuff! T runs with an ipod and she puts her improved performance down to a better play list. The first race all she had on the ipod was a podcast about Israel and the middle east. Sure it's interesting but would you run to it? :)

Here are positives and negatives.

Positives:
- finishing the race
- finally meeting blogger Andrew after attending a number of races
- seeing an old friend in the same race
- not letting my sister beat me - ha

Negatives:
- injury. :( At 34 not getting any younger so need to pay special attention to better stretching. Actually I'm trying to be circumspect about it all and trying to learn from the experience. Got to have a positive attitude about it all

I'm not running again for at least a week. If I'm pain free then will try and ease back into things. If not will rest more. My next run is scheduled on the 10 May on a dead flat course. At the very least I'll be OK to walk it.

This week I plan to: rest; do some walking; and some core excerices. I also have a couple of books from the local library on marathons and marathon training. Might even post a review or two here for something a bit different.

Run Auckland 1 (with manflu)

Yesterday I did Run Auckland 1 (10.15 km) with what I would describe as "manflu". Bit of a temperature, cough, general achy, and headache. In general not flash and if it was a training run would have canned out before I started.

Still I wasn't going to register a "Did Not Finish" on race day. :)

Run Auckland 1 is two 5.08km loops around Grand Drive and Waiatarua Reserve in Remuera. Some gravel, some footpath, a couple of bridges. Its a nice course on rolling terrain. The hills aren't too bad but certainly would be interesting for someone who has done no training (like my sister found out!)

The morning started out eventfully. I had organised to pick my little sister up on the way with plenty of time to get there. The race was due to start at 9am, but on getting in the car at 8am discovered a completly flat tyre :(. After some dramas trying to get alternative transport arrived at the start, or rather at the back of start, at 8:58. On the plus side this meant no time to get nervous.

In a complete random moment bumped into someone I know through work. Weird!

The event is turning out to be very popular with 621 people in the 10km event. So the first km was quite congested. Probably spent maybe the first km moving up through the field. According to the run pix race stats on the second half I passed 13 and was passed once - presume the calculation is done using split times and finish times.

In the run I took it conservatively and walked through the drink stops at 2.5km and 7.5km. The second loop was pretty awful - just wanted to go home and lie down - so was pretty pleased to get through it.

For events going forward I'm going to do a list of positives and negatives to try and learn from each experience.

Positives:
- starting and finishing!
- hill training is paying off, rather than shuffling up a hill have some legs now
- the weather was nice

Negatives:
- feeling like crap and not pushing the pace
- pretty slow time for a 10km race (given I do 4:30 pace in regular training) but I'll take it.
- get there early and seed nearer the front. Maybe in first 20% based on results.

Finally Run Auckland this year are providing some nice run-stats courtesy of RunPix.

Results:
49:40 (net), 51:41 (gun)
4:53 min/km average.

Run Auckland

In my inbox just now. I have to say the Run Auckland guys are very well organised with their website, facebook page, and email reminders.

Looking forward to it - my training has been lacking a bit though. I think what I'm looking forward to most is the atmosphere of a running event.

My time on this course last year was pretty slow - 53:52 - so room to improve on that.

--------------------
Subject: RUN Auckland Race 1 THIS SUNDAY!

Hi Everyone,

Hope the training has been going well and you are enjoying this great weather!

Just a quick message to remind you that the Race 1 of the 2009 RUN Auckland Series is on this sunday the 29th March at Waiatarua Reserve, Grand Drive, Remuera.

You can enter online at www.runauckland.co.nz up until 5pm on Friday or on Race Day at the venue.

We have record entries already so it is set to be the biggest and best RUN Auckland ever!

Registration times, locations and dates are on the homepage of our website. Thanks to Shoe Clinic we are offering you even more options to register.

See you at the races!

The RUN Auckland Team.