This race was included in the club's Summer League, and for a while I thought I was a dead cert for maximum points. John Bell turned up for his first official Garscube outing and we went on a 1.5-mile warm-up, during which he claimed only to be hopeful of finishing inside 18 minutes. I opted for the adiZero Mana which had come through Friday's test OK, and I also wore the Garmin to keep an eye on my pace as its potential negative effect on morale would be minimal over 5K. I was anticipating a time of around 17 minutes. We set off briskly enough and John overtook me as we headed off the cycle track. After the first few hundred metres I saw my pace was already 5:20/mile, which seemed slightly too fast, so I eased off and lost a few places which I expected to regain later on. By 3K I was maybe 30 or 40 metres adrift of John and also behind a group of Bellahouston Road Runners. I didn't seem to be making up much ground but was still hopeful of a strong finish on account of my high weekly mileage.
Heading along Mosspark Boulevard, I found myself boxed in by the Bellahouston pack and had to shorten my stride slightly. They moved out to overtake Robert MacFarlane of Kelvin Runners and I took the opportunity to nip through the gap, which left me immediately behind John. I gradually caught up, finally moving into first place for Garscube with about 500m to go, and also moving fast enough that I didn't think I would be caught, although as I reached the cycle track I had tired arms and felt like I had nothing in reserve. In the end I held on to finish in 8th place in what the provisional results have as 16:46, although I timed myself a second faster. This was 49 seconds up on last year's time and only 4 seconds down on 2008. Average pace was 5:24/mile. The GPS trail came out at 3.06 miles due to problems with tree cover but I managed to get it up to 3.11 with a few minor adjustments. If my last complete mile split is in any way accurate, I should probably have set out faster - a couple of the Bellahouston guys asked if I had stopped during the race for a toilet break.
Pace splits: 5:29, 5:31, 5:15, 4:42
In the afternoon I met up with John on the canal towpath for a long, steady run down to Lock 27, then down Great Western Road and back up onto the canal at Cowcaddens. We stayed inside 7:30/mile at a comfortable pace. John didn't want to overdo it and only ran a single loop, but I ran on and began to feel increasingly dehydrated without anything to drink as the patchy cloud cover vanished completely. My average pace had improved to 7:19/mile, but the path back up to the canal was so difficult the second time around that it took a long time to recover. I was originally intending only to run as far as Shakespeare Street on the third lap, and head back down Maryhill Road, but it looked like this was going to leave me slightly short of 18 miles, so I convinced myself to run all the way to the bottom of Kirklee Road on the premise that I could buy something to drink. I drank 500ml of cola in about a minute and found myself unable to get moving again on account of terrible indigestion, but this soon passed and I felt a lot better. Got back home in 2:21:07 for the 18.93 miles, average pace 7:27/mile, HR 150. This was also my 100th consecutive day of at least 3 miles.
Pace splits (ave. HR): 8:00 (140), 7:28 (145), 7:22 (142), 7:26 (142), 7:28 (144), 7:17 (148), 7:20 (147), 7:29 (151), 7:11 (151), 7:07 (156), 7:06 (155), 7:07 (155), 7:09 (158), 7:01 (155), 8:03 (157), 7:47 (151), 7:23 (153), 8:08 (146), 7:48 (148)
HR zones: 0.2%, 3.9%, 93.4%, 2.5%, 0%
Weekly total: 61 miles
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Great racing/training day! Assuming you recover well (very important) and keep the train rolling, this is the kind of effort that will have you flying.
Post a Comment