Tri club has been organising a winter series of races where they’ve organised a few time trials and runs at parkrun. I haven’t really engaged in it as I haven’t had the fitness but today was the finale with a closed road duathlon.
I’ve been fairly consistent since the start of the year but still seriously lacking in running.
With my lack of run fitness I thought the short runs in today’s race would suit me being 2.5km then 1km with a ten mile tt sandwiched in the middle.
One chap just ran off from the start, never to be seen again - I came out of t1 in 5th with some carrots just up the road. Reeled them in after 3 laps or so then had a very lonely race. Came in second with about a 40 second cushion over third but 3 minutes behind the lad who won!
Nice club event and was really fun. Good to get out on the tt bike and see where my fitness is, I’d like another 10 watts or so over the next 6 weeks. Legs are feeling sore now though!
I’ve made my point. He politely replied that I wouldn’t have stood a chance in a foot race with him - this is true of course but at least I did the distance
ETA - I was a bit miffed to see him in T1 when I came past with one lap to go - he would have obviously needed to lap me. Didn’t really think about it until now
If it was me, irrespective if I would have won, I would have fallen on my sword and asked to be taken out of the results. Better to preserve your character than die on the hill of a local club race!
Ran a 20 miler this morning. Feel I need a couple of benchmarks to establish what my marathon pace should be. Actually, pretty sure I know what my MP should be, but it is annoying close to, but the wrong side of 3hr, so what I really need is a reality check or 2 to stop me going off too fast.
With that in mind, set a target of 2h20, 7min/ml. I know, but the course was marked in miles so it made more sense than 4:21/km. 2 lap course around country lanes, basically flat but stiff headwind on the way out. Had company for the first lap, so kept ticking off each 1.61km on target. Once we picked up the tale wind the pace increased and I made the decision to drop off. It meant I had the headwind to myself on the 2nd tour, and a few splits ticked by in over 7, but it was the right decision. Tail wind for the last 5 and I could get the splits back to 6 something. Started catching a few stragglers off the earlier group and pushed on for the last parkrun to dip under the 2h19.
Not going to say it was comfortable. But I have a while before I need to add another 10k onto that. And first data point that sub-3 is a stretch this year.
When would the mara be? 5s/km and an extra 10km is potentially doable with the right build and course. Lack of headwind tailwind today probably buys at least a few sec average overall.
Last 2 marathons I have done, I did a lot of MP runs, and I just locked in to the pace really comfortably. I was running faster over all distances then. At the moment I’m best part of a minute slower at parkrun, and so MP just feels harder.
I have experience of running the last 10k of a marathon with the wheels off, and it’s not something I really want to repeat!
