Yesterday was my traditional season opening race, the Brian Harms memorial 10 miler and it was a fantastic race for all those involved. This year was a little different because Amber and I started training in January for the San Juan 70.3 in March and I had a good base already built into my overall fitness. However I took all of March off after the race and didn't have as much of a focus on my running as I typically do in April. So I was going into it not really knowing what I was capable of, last year I ran a 58:45 and I remember it HURT from start to finish. A college runner went out sprinting for the first 3k and of course, like an idiot, I tried to stay with him and after he faded I was left out there suffering through the remaining 13kms.
This year I went in with a plan, run 4 minute/kms for the first half then pick it up and run 3:30 minute/kms for the last half if I had anything left. That was the plan... well wouldn't you know it as soon as the race started I fell into my natural 'race pace' and I was going a lot faster than I wanted to. 3:31- 3:33 minutes/km for the first 8kms and I didn't feel like I was suffering too badly. By the end of the first lap (8kms) I knew I was going to really hurt on the second half, and sure enough it was tough to keep the legs turning over at that pace for another 8kms. I could tell that I'd done a 110km ride the day before and I could feel myself getting slower as I turned out of the park and up a gentle grade towards the 12km mark. There is a section of gravel road for a little while and I was cursing the fact that it felt like I was pushing extra hard and getting nowhere. I definitely slowed in the second half but I was still very pleased to only be 2 seconds off last year's time and finishing in 58:47! Wow that was a surprise, nice to see the fitness is still there even after a pretty tough week of training.
This is going to be the start of a fantastic year, I can feel it already. I'm not suffering from the flu every second week, I've focused on training hard and recovering hard, taken days off when my body calls for it, stuck to a strict vitamin and mineral regimen, and not trained in 'suspect' weather. I'm also trying to have more of a training- work- family life balance and not to put so much emphasis on results but having fun. Running and triathlon add so much to my life (and Amber's) that I want races and training to be fun and enjoyable not a pressure situation where we both have to have good results to be happy. We are both happy people (and happy together) regardless of the results.
No comments:
Post a Comment