Recently in race reports Category

Gold Coast Half Marathon, 2007

Breathing whilst performing strenuous exercise, as you may have already heard somewhere, is of considerable importance. Despite my wishes I still had a touch of the flu this weekend, and being uncomfortably congested I found out just how tough a run can be with reduced breathing capability.

There's really very little for me to report about my participation in this race, so I won't be going into many details or stats.. Still aiming to finish in approximately two hours, I set out with Nikki from the starting line thinking I might pace with her for a while. Clinging to the hopes that maybe my airways would clear up after a couple of warmup kms, we set a decent sub-2hour pace, but it was evident after a mere 2km that I was really going to struggle with this race. I felt like I could barely breathe. I couldn't help stopping repeatedly for short walk breaks to catch my breath, and by the time I hit the half-way turnaround point I was already several minutes off target.

Around the 12km mark - possibly due to lack of oxygen intake - my calves were cramping. I found myself having to walk it out every couple of minutes as they kept cramping every 200-300 meters of running. Not even 2/3 of the way in I knew my goal time was shot, but I was determined to at least shuffle in to the finish and claim my shirt and medal.

I did finish - not that giving up was ever a consideration - but I owe the last km or so to a young lady called Susan whom I got to chatting with near the end of the race. She encouraged me to grit my teeth and fight off the pain to make a final run to the finish. Thankyou, Susan, and I hope you're happy with your race time.

I came in slightly faster than my Vegas time, but around 20 minutes to half an hour slower than I know I am capable of. Next year, for sure, barring further untimely illness.

On a lighter note, I did get to share a hotel room with two beautiful girls. What guy could complain about that? ;-)

I ran the Las Vegas Strip Yesterday, and have the T-shirt and medal to prove it.

I should point out now, that despite a few negative moments mentioned below, I'm quite happy with how the day turned out. I thought them worth mentioning, but hope they don't make it seem like I was disappointed with how things went. I ran nearly twice as far as I had ever previously run before, so I knew it wasn't going to be easy!

I was in doubt for this race over the past four months. Ongoing illness and injuries (some chronic ongoing, and others self-inflicted, not sport related, and categorised under the heading of "stupidity"), saw my training over the last few months come to a near stand-still. What six months ago had been a goal to break the two hour mark in my first half marathon, became a "just finish it" as the event drew near and the injuries and setbacks kept coming.

In the past couple of weeks I was able to train a little more. Still not back into my full training schedule, I was able to put in some training runs and cycling, and decided that I should be able to run the 21km (13.1 miles) in around two and a half hours. This would be perfect, as our BTT friend Dawnie was also running it, and looking at a similar time. We could spur eachother on.

Yes, my lower legs were sore, and yes the weather got quite warm, but I gave my mind far too much credit at times when I knew it was not to be trusted. The end result : no negative splits for me this time around.

My Garmin 305, on the other hand, would never lie to me. I'm proud to announce a new personal best over a 1km distance, but it's one that will be extremely difficult to beat. Before bombing out and giving in to the defeatist urgings of my brain, I managed to pull a super-fast km out of my bag of tricks. A staggering 52 seconds for one whole kilometer - that's gotta be a world record, right? Maybe I should send my workout data to Guinness. Again, I'm proud to say, my Garmin never lies. Don't worry that the next km reportedly took around 13 minutes... we'll just gloss over that.

The day passed with no real hassles. I started out from home early, with food and water in my stomach and about 75km to drive to the event. I had always intended to get there really early to avoid traffic and to get a car park close to the race. I wasn't disappointed. I was in time to witness the start of the full marathon (almost three hours before my race) - in which Steve Moneghetti was a competitor.

My goal was to start out at a 6:20 pace and gradually pick up the pace (around 10 seconds per km) through the first 5 km to sit around 5:40 for the rest of the run, with a faster push for the last 700 meters or so. I had my sports watch set to record splits for every km, but there were so many pounding feet around me I couldn't actually hear it beep.

Looking back, I see that I was within a couple of seconds of my target pace for the first two km, but the third was way too fast - almost a minute faster than km two was! - although being boxed in by the densely packed crowd I had actually thought I ran that one too slow. Something went awry with my watch during km four and five, reporting impossible split times, and I started to really hurt somewhere around the five km mark. This seems a little strange to me, because on my training runs this is usually when the lower leg muscles really loosen up and the shin pain eases.

I struggled from there on, and the next 4km were perhaps my slowest to date. I managed to push through for the last 700 meters or so and came home strong, but I was surprised to do only marginallly better than in the Anzac Day race. I had been sick for the week leading up to that run, plus it had several more hills, so I had expected a better time today. Still, I'm pleased to have finished without any mishaps, and I had the opportunity to catch up over lunch afterwards with some friends (who also ran).

I have to congratulate my friend Nikki on her performance today. She's been sick for the bulk of her training, as well as suffering a recent injury, but was still able to get very close to her target time. Way to go Nikki!

I'm not sure which was the biggest contributor, but being sick, running later than I'm used to and in the heat of the day, and not getting enough sleep over the past few days all conspired to make today a very difficult run.

I set the alarm last night allowing myself plenty of time to prepare and get there early. I even keep my alarm in a different part of the house so that I can't reach it from the bed. I HAVE to get up to stop it, so there's no chance of going back to sleep. I'll be fine. Unless...

ZzzZzzzZzzzz...

... a brief patch of music filters through in the background...

[Many more ZzzzZZzzz's later....]

... last chance for one last dance. 'Cos with you, I'd withst...

Some time later I awakened properly, to hear music playing really faintly in the background. I had forgotten to turn the volume up, and as a result I slept in an hour. My morning plans went out the window, and I had to scramble to get to the race on time.

I parked a suburb away (abandoned was the idea of using public transport) and walked for 20 minutes or so to where I had arranged to meet up with Mike and Ed before the race. I'd already warmed up from my walk, so we found somewhere to do some stretches and prepare ourselves. It wasn't long before the call came over to head to the starting line, so we made our way through the crowd, with a few digs thrown my way for being the one to come up with such a silly idea in the first place.

At this point I was fairly relaxed, but with some small concern about whether I was going to meet my goal of around 55 minutes. Clouds had come over during the night and it had become somewhat humid, and I knew from recent runs that I was far from my best in the heat. Still, we set out and the first km was a breeze. I was relaxed, breathing well, and maintaining the pace I had planned. Kilometer #2 came and went, and I was feeling fine, but somewhere before the 3km marker the previous week began to take its toll.

By the 4th, my mind had defeated me, the sun was getting to me, so I decided to grab some of the water that was being offered at the first water station. It went straight down the windpipe and I was forced to stop and walk for a minute. After that, the wheels started to come off. I felt sluggish, overheated, and my mind was being brutal. After cruising through a 7.4km last weekend with plenty of energy at the end, I was despairing to be so thoroughly wrecked after only 4.

The last 6 seemed to drag on, and I stopped far too many times to walk when I shouldn't have needed to. I tried to tell myself that I didn't need to walk, but my legs were like lead and my mind didn't have much difficulty convincing the body to give up. I came in at around 1 hour and 8 minutes based on my calculations from when I crossed the start and finish. Almost 20% slower than my typical training run, and far from my goal.

Of all the things that could have gone wrong, the one thing I thought most likely to cause me a setback was, of course, my shins. But surprisingly, after running 10km and walking several to my car and back, I didn't feel even the faintest twinge of complaint from them. I hadn't expected them to hold me back, but I was amazed when they behaved perfectly for the whole event and didn't play up at all.

Since this is my first "race" since I started tracking my runs, today's race is now set as a personal best. I think I was at my worst though, and come July 2nd at the Gold Coast I intend to smash that time. For now though, I'm going to have a shower and eat something.