Race Report – Greenbelt HM 2009, 21.1km

The Greenbelt and I have history. It was the first half marathon I ever ran, in 2006, and I have completed it every year since. That first year I struggled through the hail and walked quite a large portion of that last 2k to finish in 2hr11mins. The last two years I have run the Greenbelt with other races on my agenda, but I couldn’t miss it – it is a great, truly Adelaidian Course.

This year the numbers were up 30% on previous years and there were people everywhere at the start. As usual the bus ride from the finish line to the start line seemed to take for ever and had everyone thinking that they were mad running all the way back. Alas, the buses departed to ferry the 10km entrants and so there was nothing left to do but a few seconds of warming up and then gather at the start line with the other couple of hundred other runners.

It was rather an unceremonious start as the babble of the large crowd drowned out the starter and slowly the front runners moved off and we just followed like a conga line.

The start of a run for me is just about relaxing, getting comfortable and finding a groove. Today it took two kilometre to thaw out my toes, but I soon found my groove and started darting through the crowd until I found others in a similar groove.

What followed was another 15 kilometres of leap frogging, surging past people only for them to surge straight back past, 100m or even 10km later. I had a few of those flat moments where I am just hanging on for dear life to those around me to get me through without losing too much pace, but not as many as usual.

When I caught up to my new nemisis (he burnt me off over the last couple of 100 metres of the Carisbrooke Classic…you know who you are) he kept me from slacking off. So my pace didn’t dip but that didn’t stop one of the other runners I had been playing leap frog for 20 and half kilometres surge past with almost the finish line in sight.

By jingoes! I was not having that and one last surge and a short sprint-off later I got back the place by a nose (sorry red-shirted stranger, but thanks for the challenge).

(oh crap, stop the watch you idiot!)

1:52:57. NICE! Almost a 7 minute PB from the SMH Half of 2007. Superb day, superb run!

Victor Harbour Trail Run

Saturday morning didn’t start very well as I woke up with a cramp in my left calf. Never a good start. I have a feeling it was rather self induced following a hard run up The Goat Track on Friday morning and two too many amber ales on Friday night. This combination almost inevitably leads to a night time wake up call from a calf.

Despite the initial pain, the calf didn’t feel too bad once I was up and moving and Mrs Simlin and I set off for Victor Harbour. In all honesty, when Mrs Simlin asked me on the way how many people I was expecting to be at the run I estimated a dozen hardy individuals would make the trip.

Woah! 39 people signed up, not to mention the supportive families of a few runners. Following a few words of wisdom from TerryC and the trail coordinator Paul, we set off at a gallop for the first head land.

The first 6 kilometres was like one big photo shoot. Everywhere you looked there was stunning scenery. Around the first headland the track wound off into the distance atop Waitpinga Cliffs and the galloping gave way to rock hopping as we all turned into Mountain Goats.

The going was initially slow, 45mins for 4.5kms, but with all the rock avoiding and phototaking it was an understandably slow pace. The spectacular vistas of the Waitpinga Cliffs soon gave way to a few boardwalks and firetracks as we started to make our way around the boundary fence of Newland Head Conservation Park.

The firetrails weren’t that much different to parts of other trails we have covered this year in our monthly trail runs except for the sand. Being close to the sea, the trail got very sandy in places (which put a strain on the post-cramp calf) but the pace did lift a little.

I will be the first to admit that I found the run around the boundary fence quite boring compared to the clifftop running of the first 5km and I was glad to finally come upon the camping ground and a patiently waiting Mrs Simlin, which marked the far end of the trail run.

The group I was with pushed on quickly from the campground but I stayed around waiting for the rest of the runners as Mrs Simlin was going to give a few of them a ride back to the start. After a brief sit down and bottle of water I couldn’t bring myself to punish my legs (which were complaining horribly) any further by continuing on, especially with the convenience of a ride back to the start.

I later congratulated myself for making a wise decision as I hobbled around for the next two days with a very sore left calf.

On the way back to the start we made a brief site seeing detour to Waitpinga beach and then returned to greet the walkers who had finished their walk along the cliffs.

The battle reports of the return leg talked of a long steady 2k of uphill out of the camping ground fighting against the deep sand and surprise tree root attacks, followed by the rocky clifftop path on tired legs. Some even ventured into the ocean at the little beach just before the finish for a cooldown. Needless to say everyone returned to the carpark tired, weary and dirty (or wet) from a 27km trail run, wishing they had been no-where else on a fine Saturday morning.

More Photos.

Race Report – Carisbrooke Classic 2009, 10km trail.

On a beautiful Sunday morning, I made the short trip to the Harry Bowey Reserve for what would be my 3rd Carisbrooke Classic 10k. The weather was perfect (I think the Englishman used to training in -8 degrees I passed at the end of the first lap who seemed to be melting in the sunshine would disagree), the grass was green and the event well organised.
I use this event to gauge how my fitness for the year is progressing and then attempt to set realistic goal times for the Greenbelt and Barossa Half Marathons in May. Because of the trail like nature of the Carisbrooke course and the great training I have been doing at the monthly Trail Running Group runs I felt confident I could beat my previous best time over the Carisbrooke course of 55mins.
Standing around acquiring my race number and trying in vain to pin it on my top straight I thought the numbers looked down on last time, but as soon as John called us over to the start line I found myself surrounded by a throng of runners keen to get underway.
My race strategy has always been – start out slowly and conservatively and build up to a decent pace, so I placed myself at the back of the field and waited for the GO signal. Soon a cloud of dust was the only thing remaining at the start line as I quickly discovered that my slow, conservative pace, was no long a “back of the pack” slow and conservative pace. Alas, I was stuck there now until well after the first turn around where I could veer out onto the grass around some other runners to find some clear track.
I soon found some other runners to pace off and continued my way around the first lap trying to give encouragement to all runners I knew coming the other way. I ran past the start/finish area for 5km in 26mins and fell apart. The 6th kilometre has always been the hardest for me at Carisbrooke and this time was no exception. The runners I had been pacing off pulled away and I was left struggling, unable to maintain a 5min/km pace. The mood soon passed and I found my second 10k wind, but there was nothing left for the faster paced assault on the final 2km, which I normally enjoy thanks to the lax start. I had lost the mental battle and finished the second lap for 10k in 51min55sec by my watch. Not bad, and a 10k PB for me, so it looks like I will have to set my sights on a half marathon PB in May.
Post race turned into the usual banter, finding out who had run well, commenting on the accuracy of the course (no doubt as an excuse for a poor time, hehe), watching the pre-teens busting a gut over the 1km dash and complaining when all the random draw prizes seem to go to the place getters. No shoes for me again.
I hope there was a sizable amount of money raised for the Melissa White Foundation because the sausage sizzle was great, the marshals and drink station attendants were appreciated and this is one of my favourite events on the SARRC Calendar.

And So It Begins

Tomorrow is my first race for the year. The Carisbrooke Classic and so begins the lead up to the Adelaide Marathon 2009. The last time I completed the Classic was in the marathon year of 2007 and I finished in a touch over 55mins. I hope to smash that time tomorrow to prove to myself that I am way ahead of where I was 2 years ago. My 10km PB is 53:45 and my goal for the year is sub 50mins. I won’t be too devastated if I don’t do sub 50mins as it is still early in the year and I have really only just gone sub 25mins over 5k. Having said that, I will come home disillusioned if I don’t get a PB.

My race strategy (though it may change in the stomach knot twisting lead up to the start) is just to run as fast as I can, by listening to my body and pacing off those around me. I could set the Garmin Training Assistant to 5min/k pace, but I don’t want to put myself under that pressure and just want to see where I am at.

I better be at that magical PB place…you’ve been warned legs, lungs, heart, brain. Failure is not an option.

Kersbrook Forest

I woke up Saturday morning early and restless. I couldn’t get back to sleep. Only one thing for it I thought – head out to the run early. Seeing as the start time had been pushed out from the usual 7am to 7:30am, getting there early wouldn’t be too bad in case someone missed the time change.

The drive to Kersbrook was dark (we are coming to the end of Daylight Saving and it is still dark at 7am) and when I got to the car park there was no-one else there but the rabbits and roos. I spent the next 30minutes having a look around, getting my pack ready and taking some photos of the spectacular sunrise and the beautiful curves of our car.

Eventually I heard the familiar drone of a car coming along the dirt track that leads to the car park and then the first car appeared, followed by another, followed by another, followed by another and so on…6 cars arrived in the next 30 seconds…what? did they all follow each other? The last of the 6 to arrive was TerryC and as I wandered over to help him set up the table and sign on I commented that out of the other 5 cars I didn’t recognise anyone from any of the other trail runs…excellent.

Eventually a group of 30 to 40 odd people set off in a rather sporadic fashion. The early running was on fire trails and over low rolling hills along the edge of the forest with wide open grazing land on the right.

Soon we cut in through the wooded forest until we reached the reservoir…well at this end there wasn’t much reservoir-ing to observe as it was bone dry…around the reservoir and through the pine forest, where fallen logs criss-crossed the forest floor, leading to leaping, climbing and even crawling for some runners.

My favourite parts of the trail were definitely these intimate, shady and enclosed sections, were the wilderness envelopes the trail and provides a stark contrast to the rolling, open fire trails of the first few kilometres. Unfortunately I was too busy enjoying those parts to take any good photos, as the photos I did take came out blurry and indistinguishable.

Apart from a few short, sharp, steep sections in the back half of the run, there were no real long slogs. The longest hill was sufficient to provide a magnificent view back over to the Warren and Hale Conservation parks, but didn’t leave the calves screaming for a mercy.

The run back down the final hill to the car was a very welcome dash for the finish line as my knees and strangely enough, hips, were beginning to tell me, in the usual fashion, that I had carried 3 kilos of pack around on my back. This time, and for the first time since these monthly shenanigans started, I had finally completed the full length trail and stopped the Garmin at 22km in a tick over 3 hours.

What a pain in the…

Today I have my first ever Physio visit…and who would of thought it? it is not running related…I literally have a pain in the neck. You know the kind. You wake up one morning and it hurts to turn your head one specific way but not the other.

Well normally I would just tough it out for the day or two that it hurts, so I tried…5 days later it still hurt, so I made the appointment. I am now having my first taste of what it would be like to live with cronic pain…and I don’t like it. I skipped running on Wednesday and Thursday because I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The constant pain made me feel depressed, exhausted, incapable of doing anything…well I could do things but I just did feel like doing anything.

When Thursday morning rolled around and it hurt the same as it did on Sunday, I bit the bullet and made an appointment. Behold! next thing you know and by that very same evening, the pain started to subside. I ran this morning, all the way to the top of Mount Osmond, and the pain is still there, though a bit more subdued than earlier in the week, so I will keep my appointment.

Those cronic pain sufferers out there are some tough cookies.

Dragging My Heels

This morning the SARRC group run was a relatively flat one for a Friday morning. The only problem with that was that without the hills to slow people down I was quickly left behind a majority of them as they raced off down the hill.

The steeper than gentle and the gentler then steep downhill is where I always get left behind. I like to coast too much and can’t bring myself to push harder down those medium slopes on an ordinary training run.  Maybe I should take up bike riding so I can free wheel down…nope…I value the skin on my face, palms and elbow too much for that.

Smelling the roses

So where am I at? I made a conscious effort from the start of last week to start targeting 50k a week as my training goal…I had been teetering around 35-40km for a couple of months now. The driving force behind this decision was a comparison between this year and 2007. I want to run better than 2007, so how am I going to do that?

In 2007 I clocked up big numbers (big for me anyway) in the lead up to the August marathon, so I want to match that level of training as a minimum.  If I can match it, then I will rely on a bigger base building period (started October last year as opposed to January in 2007) and faster training runs at the SARRC pack runs (in 2007 I only ran by myself at 30-60sec/km slower).

The other big factor in performance is the ol’ weight. I haven’t been able to budge any since I hit, what seems to be my wall of 115kg. This was the same back in ‘07 when I couldn’t get any more off. I will definitely need a huge change in attitude to be able to achieve sub 110kg…and I don’t think I am close yet.

So how has my running been going this week? A struggle. Motivation has been hiding in long forgotten crevices. I planned a run from home on Tuesday morning and struggled to get out of bed despite adequate sleep. In the end I dragged my sorry arse around for 7.7km only because I told myself that I would get fat if I didn’t. In short, the story of the week has been – short runs to tick over the kilometers until motivation returns to run some decent distances.

CR 5km Challenge – March 2009

Ewen thinks that Rachel will smash me in our next encounter and I’d have to agree with him. She recently ran a sub 24 minute 5km on the back of a swim and cycle leg of a sprint triathlon.

This mornings 5km challenge was not well attend, but those that were there gave it their all. I started out at 7:05am with no pacers or expectations and vowed not to look at my watch until the end. That didn’t last. I changed my vow to only looking at my watch at each 1km split.

The first split was slow, 5min11sec, so I upped the work rate a little and worked hard over the next two kilometers (and didn’t look at my watch once). At the 3km split I was back on 5min/km pace and I just told myself to keep it steady as I was blowing really hard.

As I counted down the 200m markers I didn’t tire as much as I was expecting (surprising because I ticked over my 50th kilometer for the week). I pushed onto the end and was thinking with 400m to go that I could probably run faster to the finish as 24min30sec looked possible, but I didn’t.

In the end the finish line couldn’t come fast enough over the last 20m as I began to feel that welling in the chest that comes with pushing too hard, but I was too close to the line to ease off and I crossed the line, dry reached once and then stopped the Garmin at 24min37sec for a new PB!

That was the hardest I have run in a while, and the first time I have dry wretched from pushing so hard. Perhaps I can knock off that 37seconds to get into the 23’s with a good pace setter, but I don’t think I will be challenging Rachel any time soon.

Buzz Word

Everywhere on the internet at the moment people are talking about “active recovery”. It seems to be the current buzz word (OK I know it is two words).

All I can say about the matter is that after grumbling on Tuesday about tired, weary legs I went out and played squash for an hour in the evening and the legs felt great! At least I moved around the court more easily than last week and since then I have run two 12km runs on Thursday and this morning and the legs are still feeling good.

This mornings club run was up Heatherbank Rd and then behind Stonyfell Winery. Last time I attempted this route I walked a lot of the ups and ended up finishing miles behind everyone else in torrential rain. Today I ran the whole way (well I did take one little shortcut).  Huzzah! for active recovery.