A couple of weeks ago, I made my return to Bristol for the half marathon, a race that has now become the 2nd biggest half in the UK with some 16,000 entrants. The last time that I ran this race, I was fit but got injured on the course and ended up coming home a bit later than I had hoped, so I suppose you could say, I had some unfinished business on this course. The course is designed for a good time, especially with the new finish layout that involved going round the centre of Bristol with good crowd support - exactly the time that you need to have some support.
I had decided to make use of the Garmin GPS watch on this occasion and to set up the training partner feature and then try and run with the watch for the whole race. The watch had me set on a 1:20:30 pace, which, if I am totally honest, was extremely optimistic giving my current run fitness. Anyway, the watch and I started out well and we were ahead of schedule for a long time, at 10k we were about 40s up on the scheduled time, but there was no denying that I was starting to fade. Over the next 11k that 40s second advantage slowly eroded, to be honest, it very quickly eroded when my legs were giving up. Before I knew it, I was behind my pacemaker and he was 'virtually' running off into the distance.
At the end of the day, I came across the line (in agony) in 1:22:40 which sounds like a disaster compared to my target time. However, in all honesty, I was actually pretty pleased. I had not exactly done a whole lot of half training and my recent training for the Vitruvian was all just based on being able to run at a steady speed, rather than actually at speed. It is however almost 3 minutes slower than my PB which I set earlier this year....albeit, that race and that course could not have been more perfect on that day.
So, the winter campaign of learning to run again will start soon. The new job is proving to be a complete hindrance at the moment though and I am just not getting into any kind of decent training programme. Things should settle down soon though and I think I should be okay in the end.
Swam well, cycled 35k well, punctured....twice. Gave up.
As with all Bank Holidays, I was yet again involved in another of the Thames Turbo sprint races. This was the last of the 2008 season and I felt confident that all I needed to do was to get round to secure myself a good placing in the overall series.
Things did not start off too well however, I was losing pace on the chap in front of me in the pool and was even eventually caught by the guy behind me. I am pretty sure that I was not swimming that slow on this occasion, it appears that I just happened to get sandwiched between a couple of faster people.
Out on the bike I was fully aware that there was going to be little to no chance of finally going under 30 minutes for the 21k ride. This time we had some roadworks on the course which meant that, on this occasion, we would need to get off our bikes and run around the works - running on a bike leg is not the most conducive to producing fast times. Anyway, today was not to be my day anyway, after about 5k of the ride I was sure that the back tire had totally deflated as I suddenly felt like I was a lot closer to the ground. I thought that the race was over so I slowed down, got off the bike and checked the tire. It was only then that I realised that it was in fact my saddle which had slipped a few inches. I quickly realised that I would still be able to ride, so jumped on and headed back off....I initially assumed I would need to stand for the rest of the ride, but gently returned to the seat and managed to ride the rest of the race in the BMX position with my knees almost touching my elbows on every revolution...not really the best position for riding anyway.
Out on the run I was most keen on just laying the demons of the London Triathlon to rest by actually having a decent run. I knew that I was not going to be super fast as I had done hardly any speed work, what with my first half Ironman this weekend, but I hoped to at least run consistently and faster than I had at London. I ended up feeling good all the way round and I even think that I started to speed up towards the end. In the end, the run time was the second fastest that I have done on that course but my overall time was only enough to secure me 4th place in the race. That was my lowest finishing position this year, but I would like to think that it was not that bad considering the time that I lost on the bike leg. It was enough to secure 2nd place in the Series so that was good.
