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BRRC 35k race rehearsal
Posted by
vat
,
10 June 2012
·
196 views
And so to the "Will It Ever End?" 7 laps of the BRRC 5k course for 35km. Sitting three weeks from the Gold Coast Marathon, it's the last chance for many Brisbane participants to do a race rehearsal, practice pace, food and water strategies, try out shoes and clothes and get a final long run in.
I was doing much the same, but with 8 weeks from Brisbane this was more a marker for progress and to get a handle on where I was.
Even up to the start I was fairly undecided about what I was planning pace-wise for the morning. I'd been talking about treating the opening and closing 5ks as a warm up/cool down combo with a big block of 4:10 to 4:16 in the middle, or just an opening 5k of 4:30 and then race pace to see what happened.
It had rained overnight, fairly lightly at home but as I headed over to West End in the dark it became apparent the rain had been considerably heavier the closer to the city I got. Whilst I'd prefer it to be dry, it wasn't a bad thing - any chafing or rubbing from clothing and shoes would be exacerbated in the conditions so it was more likely they'd appear, and from a 'toughing it out' point of view it made for a good mental exercise.
And so to the start. I managed to lock the keys on my 310XT, but with the help of a friend we managed to get it unlocked. So, panic avoided. We set off, and I had to work my way through a bit of a pack, decided to start a bit back for some stupid reason.
After getting down the gentle hill just after the start I settled into a rhythm with BRRC regulars Warren Young and Andrew (a little older than me, I forget his surname) at 4:16 pace (according to the watch, but it reads 10% long at BRRC so it was actually 4:19 pace). My initial reaction was that the pace was a mistake and too fast, but holding it to the first drink station I realised it actually felt pretty easy, so decided to stick with it.
The three of us had a good old chat going (probably a good sign the pace wasn't too hard) with the HR sitting between 120 to 135 depending on elevation changes. Warren is aiming for the Gold Coast Marathon, so discipline with pacing was a major topic of conversation, and through the course of the 25km we ran together I felt I had Warren on a bit of a leash as he started to wind the pace up a couple of times, as he is notorious for doing. Andrew dropped out at around 8-9k with a foot problem (tough one 3 weeks out from GCM).
Warren and I eased the pace gently faster as we worked our way through the distance. He finished at 25km, leaving me to do the last 10. Thanks to the conversation, the first five laps of the BRRC course seemed to fly by - I think I had a good pace concentration head space going, where you're just focussed on maintaining consistent rhythm and speed, and time perception does change when you're in that zone.
I decided to push a little harder for the last 10, putting up my fastest 5k split between 25 to 30k, and the last 10k being the fastest 10k block for the event. Splits for each 5k block were as follows:
0-5k - 21:33
5-10k - 21:21
10-15k - 21:28
15-20k - 21:03
20-25k - 21:20
25-30k - 20:58
30-35k - 21:10
Total for 35k 2:28:52 at 4:15 pace. If I'd held on to that pace it would have given a 2:59:29 marathon.
I actually felt okay at 35 and if a sub 3 had been on the line I think, barring any unexpected blow ups, I could have held on. I had a fair bit of heart rate in reserve, I'd only just started seeing a few 160s with climbs over the last few km.
So, a perfect race rehearsal, probably a little faster than I thought I'd manage it, to manage sub 3 hour pace in a consistent, gently accelerating manner is exactly what I wanted. It shows the training pattern is close to right, I made a good call taking an easier fortnight ahead of this event, my race clothing and shoes will work on the day and that the basic endurance and pace is there. I just need to get a good couple of blocks of training it and I'll get on the Brisbane Marathon start line knowing that I both deserve a good result, and am capable of delivering it.
I was doing much the same, but with 8 weeks from Brisbane this was more a marker for progress and to get a handle on where I was.
Even up to the start I was fairly undecided about what I was planning pace-wise for the morning. I'd been talking about treating the opening and closing 5ks as a warm up/cool down combo with a big block of 4:10 to 4:16 in the middle, or just an opening 5k of 4:30 and then race pace to see what happened.
It had rained overnight, fairly lightly at home but as I headed over to West End in the dark it became apparent the rain had been considerably heavier the closer to the city I got. Whilst I'd prefer it to be dry, it wasn't a bad thing - any chafing or rubbing from clothing and shoes would be exacerbated in the conditions so it was more likely they'd appear, and from a 'toughing it out' point of view it made for a good mental exercise.
And so to the start. I managed to lock the keys on my 310XT, but with the help of a friend we managed to get it unlocked. So, panic avoided. We set off, and I had to work my way through a bit of a pack, decided to start a bit back for some stupid reason.
After getting down the gentle hill just after the start I settled into a rhythm with BRRC regulars Warren Young and Andrew (a little older than me, I forget his surname) at 4:16 pace (according to the watch, but it reads 10% long at BRRC so it was actually 4:19 pace). My initial reaction was that the pace was a mistake and too fast, but holding it to the first drink station I realised it actually felt pretty easy, so decided to stick with it.
The three of us had a good old chat going (probably a good sign the pace wasn't too hard) with the HR sitting between 120 to 135 depending on elevation changes. Warren is aiming for the Gold Coast Marathon, so discipline with pacing was a major topic of conversation, and through the course of the 25km we ran together I felt I had Warren on a bit of a leash as he started to wind the pace up a couple of times, as he is notorious for doing. Andrew dropped out at around 8-9k with a foot problem (tough one 3 weeks out from GCM).
Warren and I eased the pace gently faster as we worked our way through the distance. He finished at 25km, leaving me to do the last 10. Thanks to the conversation, the first five laps of the BRRC course seemed to fly by - I think I had a good pace concentration head space going, where you're just focussed on maintaining consistent rhythm and speed, and time perception does change when you're in that zone.
I decided to push a little harder for the last 10, putting up my fastest 5k split between 25 to 30k, and the last 10k being the fastest 10k block for the event. Splits for each 5k block were as follows:
0-5k - 21:33
5-10k - 21:21
10-15k - 21:28
15-20k - 21:03
20-25k - 21:20
25-30k - 20:58
30-35k - 21:10
Total for 35k 2:28:52 at 4:15 pace. If I'd held on to that pace it would have given a 2:59:29 marathon.
I actually felt okay at 35 and if a sub 3 had been on the line I think, barring any unexpected blow ups, I could have held on. I had a fair bit of heart rate in reserve, I'd only just started seeing a few 160s with climbs over the last few km.
So, a perfect race rehearsal, probably a little faster than I thought I'd manage it, to manage sub 3 hour pace in a consistent, gently accelerating manner is exactly what I wanted. It shows the training pattern is close to right, I made a good call taking an easier fortnight ahead of this event, my race clothing and shoes will work on the day and that the basic endurance and pace is there. I just need to get a good couple of blocks of training it and I'll get on the Brisbane Marathon start line knowing that I both deserve a good result, and am capable of delivering it.
BTW what is your Max HR?