Learning something

I've got the lyrics of this song spinning around in my head. Bow River is the song — you can see it on Youtube. "I've been working hard, twelve hours a day; the money I've saved won't buy my youth again." Okay, I don't want to buy my youth again — I just want to work eight hour days, not the eleven hour ones that have been more common for me lately than sub-2:06 marathons have been for Kenyan runners.

I raced twice again this past week. On Tuesday a 5k and on Thursday a 1500. Both races were an education. Loved Tuesday's race! Decided beforehand my tactics and executed them perfectly. My goal was to finish ahead of my long-time rivals Charlie and Jim by starting 'slowly' and gradually picking up the pace. It was an exact 3-lap course of 1.7k per lap, about 1/4 on a bike path and the rest on reasonable grass. I started the race at a comfortable effort, running with Geoff and Tori early. The first lap felt pretty easy. There was a large finish clock so I couldn't employ my 'no watch' method of running. 8:04 for the first lap and caught Charlie soon after. The funny thing about the next two laps is that I thought I was picking up the pace quite a bit but they passed in 8:01 and 8:00. I now have a better understanding about how 'even paced' running feels. I caught Jim with about 400 metres to go. 24:05 sounds slow but I was more in the 'tempo' HR range for this 5k (AHR of 146) and it wasn't a quick course.

On Thursday I raced my first 1500 metre event since early 2010. It wasn't pretty! Had 27th (and last) place sown up after 50 metres. Throughout I was desperately trying to stick with Janene (and Roger ahead of her), while feeling very ordinary and realising early on the finish time was going to be outside six minutes. Janene broke the elastic with about 600 to go. I ran 6:13.60, possibly my slowest ever 1500 in which I'd been trying. Splits were 95, 101, 103 and 73 (300m). Thankfully I was wearing the heart-rate monitor. My average (143) and max (157) readings told me my body/legs were just too tired to run fast. I'd expect 153 and 160-163 in a normal 1500 metre race.

The Barrenjoey Drive 5k

I enjoyed another good race last Tuesday evening at the YCRC 'Summer Series' event down by Lake Burley Griffin. It was a 3-lap course with about half of each lap on a smooth gravel road and the remainder on a narrow winding trail. No hills to speak of. In the comments on my last post Canute talked about racing 'in the moment' and Lize of leaving the watch behind for races. Well, I didn't leave the Garmin behind, but with the discipline of a Trappist Monk, managed not to look at it once, so ended up with an 'in the moment' race experience.

The afternoon was warm and balmy — about 26 Celsius (the BOM said the 'apparent' temperature was 22), so I was happy to jog a one-lap warm-up with Maria and Tori. I lined up one row back on the left side of the road and ran off at what I guessed was the correct level of effort for a 5k race. After a couple of hundred metres I settled in near Charlie and Ken. Susie and Lucy were just ahead with a fair gap to Hannah, Maria, Kym, Jim and Craig. We turned left onto the narrow trail and it was Lucy's blue shirt that I followed. The second lap saw us overtake Hannah while gaining ground on Maria and Jim. Onto the narrow trail for the last time I managed to slip by Jim before putting in a major effort to pass Lucy, doing so just before the trail turned right onto the (thankfully) shortest finish straight in history. My time was 22:22, so 26 seconds quicker than for the Boathouse 5k. Lucy and Susie were one second behind and Maria (who had been out of sight on the winding section) 3 seconds ahead.

Two days later I ran in the ACT Veterans' 1 hour track race. I guess I'm a sucker for punishment! Wasn't quite on my game for this one and ran 12,568 metres, 243 short of what I ran in last year's event. Pace works out at 4:46 per km (7:41 per mile), which for me is quite quick considering I wasn't feeling fully recovered from Tuesday's race.

I really think 'recovery' is the one aspect of training that I'm not managing well while on this weekly racing gig. Not sure exactly how to schedule my weeks in order to elevate recovery to its rightful place in the training pyramid. Perhaps follow each 5k race with three days of aerobic running, a workout day, then two days of aerobic running prior to the next race?

We ran 3 laps of this course for the Barrenjoey 5k. After the fact, my Garmin said my km splits were: 4:18, 4:28, 4:32, 4:40 and 4:24.

A Tale of Two Races

One negative consequence of weekly racing is that one runs a fair chance of not being fully recovered for the race. If the race goes badly one can tip off the knife-edge of 'satisfactory performance' in a big way. Such was the case for me in my most recent 3000 metre track event on Thursday night. I had one of those races most runners would have experienced — starting at what seemed like a reasonable effort (a 4:21 first kilometre), then feeling my speed agonizingly drain away prior to a feeble attempt at a sprint finish to break... no, not 12:40 or 13:00, but 13-bloody-20! 13:19.98 to be exact. A second km of 4:30 was followed by a 4:29. The experience of having runner after runner go by and not being able to do anything about it is fairly sobering.

The funny thing is, just a week earlier I enjoyed a positive race experience. This was in the YCRC 'Spring Series' 5k road event (Boathouse East), out and back by the Molonglo River. Strangely, I had a quite awful warm-up jog with Speedygeoff. Legs were so tired and lifeless that when Geoff suggested he was going to run a tempo effort "5 minutes per kilometre sounds good", I decided to tag along.

The start was on a wide sandy beach for about 100 metres before the course narrowed to a 2-person bike path. So there was a bit of a rush initially to position ourselves into a roughly sensible order. I felt we were running quicker than 'fives', but went with the flow, staying with a loose pack that included Geoff, Robert, Graeme, Bob, Lucy and Emily. My Garmin beeped at 1k and I took a quick glance — 4:26! "I thought you said 'fives' Geoff!" With that I decided to ignore the watch and to actually race the race. I'm so glad I did that. I really enjoyed myself.

I relaxed and thought about tactics. Do I stay with this group for a while longer? Try to bridge a gap now? That sort of thing. We were running with a tailwind (in our faces for the second half), which also made tactics important. Up ahead I could see my old rival Jim, ultra expert Pam, and a young girl named Hannah. I managed to keep what felt like a fast/smooth rhythm going to the turn-around while steeling myself for the effort against the headwind. Geoff meanwhile, had disappeared out of sight. Obviously four-thirties was too slow for his tempo effort! I gradually gained ground on Jim, catching him at the last little rise with 1k to go. Pam was next, then Hannah. The youngster rallied and we were virtually side by side for the last 500 metres. Rounding the Boathouse we met the full force of the headwind and the prospect of a sprint-finish on the beach. I could also see the clock relentlessly clicking over (as clocks do), and realised we'd be under 23 minutes. Wow, that's not bad in these conditions! I fired up the fast-twitch muscles and gave it all I had. Hannah was up for it though and with a final surge, beat me to the line. The nerve! We'd both run 22:48.

A long run of 13k with Andy and Ruth yesterday included plenty of stops for phone photos.

Summer's first 5000

My second race in what I hope will be an endless summer of racing was run on Thursday 20 October. It was a 5000 metre track race organised by the ACT Veterans, once again held in conjunction with a 3000 metre event. These 'combined' races are a strange experience if one is racing the longer distance. The 3000 is the popular race (27 runners verses 5 in the 5000 on this day). What's strange about them is that I'm running 'with' a group of people (Ken, Emma, Heath and Janene for example), when they abruptly start kicking down the pace on their last lap while I still have 'six to go'. Then when I have 'five to go', the track looks like the aftermath of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral — sparsely populated by people, just when I need them to compete with to the finish.

Needless to say, my concentration waned somewhat in those last five laps. Especially as I knew by my 3k split that I was racing towards an 'average' finish time. I ran 22:40.02. I was hoping to run at least '21-something', even though McMillan predicted 22:38 from my result in the previous week's 3000. Anyway, I'm confident about running in the 21s before long. Under 21 and my dream goal of breaking 20 for 5k could take a while. But I'm not going to stop trying!

Looking back over the years, my best 5000s have gone like this: 2005 - 21:03, 2006 - 22:30 (road), 2007 - 21:45, 2008 - 21:29, 2009 - 21:59, 2010 - 21:50, 2011 - 22:40. In the summer of 2006/07 I started the season with a 14:08 3000 and improved to a 21:45 5000 — this reminds me that it's possible to make significant improvements over the course of a season. I'll finish this post by wishing all those readers who have big races coming up 'fast times' — and for those who are returning from injury or illness a fast recovery!

Breaking Thirteen

I like the electronic timing that one usually gets with track racing here in Canberra. I raced a 3k on Thursday night, finishing 5th in 12:59.91. On the road that would have been 13:00 — 12-something, even though no faster, looks and sounds better. Just as 29:59 for a road 10k would have looked better for the 46-year-old Steve Moneghetti, had he run that in Launceston instead of the equally incredible 30:00 he recorded back in 2009. As is the rule with all road-race times, his 'sub-30' was rounded up to the next whole second.

Mine was a strange race. A 'combined' 3/5k with only 9 starters. Initially I had planned to race the 5000, but binned that idea after running the first two laps too fast. I was sitting about 10 metres behind Ken and Heath who were following about 20 metres behind Katie (she would run 12:17.50). Heath would drop out not long after the 1000 metre mark. I passed that point in 4:14 — the pace I'd like to hold for a 5k, but too quick this night. I briefly moved ahead of Ken just after 2000 (a 4:20 k for me), when he temporarily slowed. He was doing a training run of 5 minutes 'on', 1 minute 'off'. With 700 metres to go Roger eased passed. I chased with all I had left (not much!) — saw the photo-finish clock with 75 to go in the home straight and realised a 'sprint' would be needed to break thirteen. Roger had run 12:54.72 and Ken 12:45.25. The race was won by Steve in 12:09.39.

I think I'm at a good place to start the summer season. Average heart-rate for the race was 148 and I can usually average 153 - 155 for a 3000. I'm one of those runners who tends to improve with regular racing and I'd only completed two sessions of intervals in the lead-up to the 3000. I raced the Melbourne 10k last Sunday in 47:16 and didn't feel fully recovered from that effort by Thursday. Although Melbourne was more of a holiday than a serious 10k race I ran hard! One consequence of a moderate mileage programme is that the 10k seems like a very long race (at least mentally). While in 'beautiful one day, perfect the next' Melbourne I enjoyed cheering on friends in the marathon and half, as well as a relaxed post-race lunch and coffee at the Observatory Cafe.

Jim White took this photo of me warming up for a Vets' Handicap race. The trail is less than a kilometre from the AIS 400m track - perfect for an easy warm-up jog.

The Long Runs Kissed Goodnight

I've had one low-key race since The Canberra Times 10k — a 4k handicap organised by the ACT Vets. I ran 18:56 on the not-so-easy course, made harder by an overly fast start. Regular weekly track racing commences on Thursday week and I intend to race events from the 800 to the 5000 metres. Can't wait!

My training will be geared towards racing a good 5000 (and road 5k). With that in mind I'm dropping the long runs from my training programme. I have a tendency to plod and shuffle on runs much longer than 60 minutes. Running with that technique doesn't help my goal of developing springy muscles and a springy stride. Very long runs (2 hours or more) just make me tired! I think replacing the traditional weekly long run with another speedy session will help my 5k goal.

I don't think I'll lose much in the way of aerobic endurance by running 'low' mileage. The 46:25 10k was preceded by 12 weeks averaging 58k (36 miles) per week. For the 2008 version of the same race (46:44) my average weekly mileage was 81k (50 miles) for the 12 weeks. So I'm relaxed about a low volume summer. I haven't decided what a typical training week would look like. Perhaps something like: Thursday race, Friday 10k, Saturday 10k, Sunday long intervals, Monday 10k, Tuesday short intevals/hills, Wednesday 10k. A rest day out of that when I feel I need one. The 10k runs would be at MAF heart-rate.

I was happy to see 37-year-old Paula Radcliffe (a runner who has a particularly springy stride) run a good marathon at Berlin recently (2:23:46), coincidentally on the same day that Patrick Makau ran an astonishing 2:03:38 to break the great Haile Gebrselassie's world record. There's a video of Paula racing to win the 2008 New York Marathon which brilliantly shows her springy stride breaking away from the flat-striding Ludmila Petrova at 22 miles. I'd love to run like Paula. Just a little.

From the fire roads to the interstate

I raced in the Canberra Times 10k this morning — my first road 10k since last year's race at the Gold Coast on 3 July. Then: 49:26. Today: 46:23. So, a nice improvement, but aside from that, I was most happy about how my legs felt. They were springy! Especially so during the first 3k, prior to the gradual 2k climb up by Julia's house (I didn't see her cheering).

My race tactics were to run an even effort from the start, try to pick off a few rivals along the way, and to finish strongly. I was moderately successful. Ran through 1k in 4:25 before spotting Jim up ahead then gradually pegging him back by 3k. He was slowing though, so I set my sights on Charlie, about 80 metres ahead. For the rest of the race the elastic in that gap only varied slightly — until, that is, the final kilometre. Suddenly I could see that I was catching him! I put in a major effort and closed to within 10 metres before the last little rise, 100 metres or so before the finish. Then it was a matter of kicking very hard inside the last 30 metres to take the 'victory' by less than a second. It had been a fun race!

I like racing! As I've said in earlier blogs, I much prefer tactical racing than 'time-trialing' during a race (with the goal of running a personal best time for the distance). The recent World Championships in Daegu has me thinking about the tactics I might employ during races to finish ahead of my rivals. For instance, I could just run hard out in front and hope to burn them off — like Binnaz Uslu did in her heat of the women's 3000m steeplechase. Or I could follow the pace à la Jennifer Barringer Simpson in the women's 1500 final before kicking hard off the final turn (Joe wrote a nice piece about Jenny B). Or I could run steadily with my rivals for over half the race before putting in a withering surge, leaving them demoralised (as Abel Kirui did by running a 14:18 5k split from 25 to 30k in the men's marathon). I have lots of opportunities for racing coming up, with the commencement of our Spring/Summer racing season. The ACT Veterans organise track racing on Thursday evenings and the YMCA of Canberra Runner's Club have a 5k series starting on 1 November.

I'm wondering how you, the readers of this blog, go about racing? How many of you run races as time-trials and how many enjoy employing tactics against your rivals as I do? If it's the latter, what tactics do you use? Promise I won't tell!

I used tortoise tactics to beat Charlie today - as I perfected at Copley Square in Boston on our recent holiday

Goodnight, Irene

I've been back in the land downunder for ten days — that's a week of 9 to 10 hour shifts on the chain-gang, and I'm not enjoying it. Where can I get a job that's a six-week holiday that lasts forever? I read in the news that Hurricane Irene is "set to slam New York and Long Island." How lucky were we to only have to survive a 100 Fahrenheit heat-wave? I wouldn't have enjoyed running up Cat Hill in Central Park with Irene's 80 mph winds blowing into my face.

I ran my first interval session last Thursday on the now very soft grass track at Calwell. Nothing spectacular — just four 1000s at what I imagined to be 10k race effort. They averaged 4:32.5 and the recovery was a 1:55 walk. It was windy. I've entered two 10k races, which I'll regard as over-distance tests in my plan to race well at the 5000 metre distance. The first is on September 11 in Canberra and the second is on October 9 in Melbourne. I'd like to run something close to an M50 PB in Melbourne, so under 45 minutes.

With my running training, I remain extremely curious about the whole 'springy muscles' effect. Do springy muscles (and tendons) give one a 'free ride' when running? I know they produce a longer stride. Can one's training produce springier muscles? If one runs 'a lot' of weekly distance, do muscles become less springy? We all know about the classic 'marathoner's shuffle', which is quite efficient for running marathons, but not so much for racing the 5k distance. For myself, I feel that I'm well advanced in overcoming my marathoner's shuffle (even non-marathoners can run with a shuffle!). My training times/heart-rates are good, and for longer runs (12k!) 5:30 minutes per kilometre (8:51 per mile) is now a comfortable pace.

Those canny New Yorkers have decided to protect the New York Stock Exchange against Irene's fury by wrapping it in a giant U.S. flag.

A Long Flight to Vegas

I'm on Continental Airlines Flight UA*0052 to Houston, so have some time to write. We're taking the scenic route to Vegas: From Logan Airport in Boston (where we left the Buick, a great car by the way) to Houston, Texas, then 50 minutes later to Las Vegas in Nevada. Five weeks of the trip down and one to go.

I must apologise for being a slack-arsed bastard in not reading and commenting on blogs the past five weeks. I've missed that, but when one is with friends, it's a case of compromise in the time-on-line department. So I've been keeping up with emails, Facebook updates, and my running diary — that's about it. Hope you're all running well and enjoying life.

I've managed to run every day, so that's quite a bit of exploration on foot of the U.S. and Canada. The list: Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York, Boston, Brunswick, Bar Harbor, Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Lake Placid, Killington and Haverhill. Coming up is Las Vegas — don't know where the hell I'll run there!

I'm running well (I think), going by average heart-rates on all my runs (which have ranged in distance from 5 to 10 kilometres). 5:30 per kilometre pace (8:51 miles) is feeling very easy and produces an AHR of around 127. This is a good bit lower than what I was recording before the trip — 130 to 132. Most of the time my legs are feeling springy, so I think it's this that's producing good running economy. I wouldn't have thought that 60 kilometre weeks would give me huge aerobic gains.

I missed my one opportunity to race back in New York City, when the Big Apple suffered a heat-wave and I got lost (took the wrong train) on the subway out to Van Cortlandt Park. I think I could be short of race-specific muscular endurance. I suspect I might run somewhere between 21 and 22 minutes for a 5k race, but proving this will have to wait for my return to Australia. Until then, I hope y'all have a good day, and enjoy your running!

While at Lake Placid I ran two laps of Mirror Lake. It's there in the fog behind me, not very mirror-like.

Running in America

I'm free to write this arvo as we're at home in our Guest House (just off the upper east side of Central Park), enjoying the air-conditioning on this, the hottest July 22 day in NYC history.

I've been keeping the running going — generally, daily runs of 5 to 10k in the MAF heart-rate zone (tempo runs if you wish). For the first few days in Washington DC it was stinking hot, so I ran on the hotel treadmill. I've changed my opinion about treadmills — they're excellent tools for neuromuscular conditioning; learning to run with good form at a particular pace. Movement must stay the same at a steady speed if one wishes to stay on the treadmill! They're also boring for anything longer than a 5k run!

We're now on our last day in NYC (after a busy week here). I've been enjoying the city (and the running in Central Park most mornings). I was also taken on a tour of Roosevelt Island and the 59th Street Bridge by TK one morning. The 59th is her bridge! Really enjoyed that — her company and the views of Manhattan over the East River. On our first full day in New York we got to meet upover bloggers Flo, Julie and Joe (plus non-bloggers Jonathan and Heather). Julie wrote a great story about it, as did Flo. Thanks! You've saved me some work there.

We're off to Boston tomorrow (escaping the record heat of New York). Will blog again when I get a chance. I also have some video footage of running with TK and in Central Park... which needs careful editing.

Meeting my good up-over mates at Ditch Plains