Wednesday, October 9, 2013

ALMOST RACE TIME

With another week of training behind me and this week running out I had better be ready to race...

Yes this weekend I will once again put this old body on the line, I will line up with the masses and see what I can do... I'm a number kind of guy and I normally line up knowing what I can run, The Log Book doesn't lie!!! So the other week when I lined up for the marathon I knew a sub 3 was going to be easy, I had run lots and the legs had recovered from the trail race the week before.

This weekend is Gun Run, and while I don't normally run these "Fun Runs" (races aimed at getting the non runner to run) I am looking to run a fast half before the end of the year and the months are running out.

I can't say I have had the perfect build-up for this race, I would have liked 4 weeks to focus on half marathon training and a week to taper... My build-up has looked like this:

  • Since I ran a marathon on the 22nd of September I needed a bit of time to recover, I took 2 days! (I hadn't raced, but just used it as a long run, if I had raced I would have needed a couple of weeks)
  • I've now had 2 weeks training and by training I mean training while focused on the half. In fact one of my training runs was a half on a similar route, this was run at Marathon pace and felt easy, but I couldn't have run the time I'm aiming at now.
  • So what has change, I have put in a couple more sessions and I will be rested.
  • Have I done enough? Only time will tell!
Now one last story about this last weekends long run:

You may have picked up that I hadn't been on the mountain or trails for a couple of weeks, so decided I needed to get out and my aim was the Mast at the top of Tokai forest. I was planning a simple up and down... But than I saw my New Balance 1010v2 and I just had to take them for a spin!

The trip to the mast is +_ 5km forest gravel roads and the +_ 5km tar road to the top... The 1010v2 is an amazing trail shoe, so I turned off the tar and head off through the Manganese mines and up Blackburn, before turning left and up again 283m climb in 1.3km... The shoes loved it I loved it, but I can't show you any pictures as was the plan, because I was up in the clouds and rain...

Let the weekend come so I can race!!!

4 comments:

  1. Good luck this weekend. I hope your legs are fast for you. Personally, I think all your runs are pretty fast but I hope you're happy with how fast you go.

    And rest assured that the cupcakes container is stocked ready for me to be away for the weekend. No one will starve while I'm gone.

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  2. Good luck coach. I can't wait to see how you do. Great I'm sure!

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  3. Good luck on the race! As for tennis, I think Nadal just took over the top spot - since over the last calendar year he won the French and US Open, and won every hard court tourney he played this summer. Novak was very good too, with the Australia title, plus semifinal at French, final at Wimbledon, and final at US Open. The gulf between those 2 and Murray seems to be growing, since Murray had back surgery. Sounds like Murray will miss the year end championships. I'm expecting nothing less than Nadal vs Novak in the final of the year end championships in London - and a terrific match.

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  4. And yea, when I'm at a tourney I can never get enough tennis lol - I get excited to look at the schedule every day and figure out who I want to see, and it is fun to see how the tourney goes each day.

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