Exploring the Darlington Half Marathon

Sunday 13th April 2008 A.D.;AM; Ran Darlington Half Marathon in 1 hour 56minutes 05 seconds. Heart rate 159 at end. Splits 58.59/57.06 (uphill/downhill)...(5min 30 per km)

Nice to negative split even if it was on a steepish constant downhill.
I did my usual thing of getting off to a decent start in the first few km and then settled into a grind up the hill cos (a) I didnt want t spend all my pennys energywise on the uphill, and (b) after waking up with a resting heart rate of 59! today, I knew I was not going to run well. I decided yesterday anyway that due to my lack of training lately I would treat it as a fastish training run anyhow, (have a Win for the day personally in my "grand master training plan" in spite of what the field of runners did), and not worry too much about my time except to try and go under the 2 hours. Obviously if I had turned in 50-55minutes then I would reassess my target time, but I wasn't expecting much, given the way I am feeling...hope I am not getting the flu.

Mentally I am a bit broken anyway, just sick of work mucking around with my pay, and the constant struggle to try and make ends meet, and my lack of success in finding a good new job, its all getting to me a bit, and I am starting to get into a "going through the motions" attitude, because I can't do half the things I want to due to lack of money, plus its starting to affect my wife and baby negatively, so just trying to keep the ship on an even keel and heading in the right direction hoping for more favourable winds in life soon...At the end of the day where I am with God is what matters the rest is not very important by comparison.

Yeah back to the race/hard training run. had a few chats with people like Nathan and others. Found out that the Swiss bloke who shouts Ole Ole is actually called Silvio, and he said he is going to visit Zurich and some other places there in 2 weeks time.
He works at MichelAngelo Hair Salon...

Started on road, then went on the trail I often run Saturday mornings with the Hills
Group for about 2km, where I was passed by many of the people I know, and started my struggle up the hilly roads, which continued all the way to Mundaring. Some guy on a trailbike kinda scared us a little at one point, he expected all the runners to dive off into the bushes or something when he was coming through...lucky there wasn't a tragedy with people like that on the road. Overall while a very scenic course, and the Marshals from WAMC did an excellent and very important job, it was a bit hairy at times trying to share the road with cars on a narrow road. Also on the way back about 30 cyclists came roaring down the hill too.

Near the Mundaring turn I encountered the "abusive marshal from hell" ...who gave me a "bit of a spray" *LOL* :-) I tried to "run a bit faster" on the downhill leg and it seemed to work a little...

I ran with one Gatorade,which I rationed about 400ml at 50minutes and the remaining 200ml at 90minutes. Struggled all the way and most of the way I was getting passed rather than passing others, but I am used to that scenario.

Was stoked to get across the line under 2 hours and get another half marathon finishers medallion (I'd forgotten that WAMC gives out those, so it was a nice surprise when I crossed the line...) to to take "straight to the pool room" with my rather large collection of trophies and medallions over the years, one day Kathryn and I can have our own house with stuff like that, a pool table, her Eagles memorabilia,photos, and so on all set up nicely when I am well and truly in "the older I get the better I was" state, hopefully I can get out of that state one more time in the next 5-10 years or so.

Overall pretty happy with the run, which is important in keeping the fire burning in my Perth Marathon plans for July this year.

Aftre the race I found out my old Racewalking coach Stan has cancer and being in his 80's he may not live long. Heard that Tina Major (top WA marathoner) ran a good time to finish 2nd in Canberra Marathon, ad sampled some of the juice and croissants that the wonderful WAMC had on offer. So about what I expected, happy with the run, glad I went. Hopefully soon we can step up the training a bit despite the ongoing juggling act.

Saturday 12th April-AM;
150 Ab crunches while sharing looking after Jacob with my wife Kathryn.
PM; Cycled for 40 minutes on Exercise Bike Heart rate 120 at end, while feeding 8-month old Jacob pasta, and picking up his toys when they fell on the ground. Put old Rachel Rachel cassette on while I was doing it. Same setup as for 2 hour ride last weekend. Solid.
Wednesday 9th April --50 Ab crunches while looking after Jacob.

WEEK 4 (07/04/08-13/04/08);

Volume; 156min + 24hrs MR work. Sessions;2 +MR

Best RHR; 49bpm Sleep; 41.5hrs (5.93hrs per night) 50*


OD/LSD;NIL

Races/Time trials/LFD; Darlington Half (21.1km) 1hr 56

Reps sessions; NIL

5-point strategy measures;
1-long run/ride etc done?-yes 21km 1 hour 56min
2-2x reps/race/timetrial sessions done?-halfway there Darlington Half M.
3-Abs done?-yes 50 W 150 Sa.
4-cycling done-yes 40minutes on ex bike
5-swim done?-no failed

Comments;...Again marginally better on the sleep stakes, and overall an easyish week at work (not really my choice) still managed to get a sub 50 resting heart rate although the last few days of the week, I think my general cardio-respiratory fitness has lost the plot a little... I have a long way to go to be training the way I want to but the mediocre darlington Half marathon run keeps me operational. Thankfully there is still 12 weeks to go before Perth Marathon, so plenty of time to turn things around, and I have had some occasional good runs so far this year...So overall a satisfactory week thanks to my slow Half Marathon run, but need to really step things up in the next 12 weeks if I am to smash my marathon PB and make significant progress deep into 3 hour marathon territory on July 6th later this year. If I can get to a much more "happy place" work and billswise, then God willing I think we can step things up and still be a good Dad,Husband etc...Otherwise its going to be a case of heavy weather living on the edge struggling to get into position for about a 3.45-4 hour effort if all goes well again. be very easy to just give up, but thats not want I want to do. The whole relationship with God,marraige,family,work,bills,life,training races mix goes together I think, so to use a phrase from my old racewalking coach, if I "drop my bundle" or "work myself out of it instead of into it" on any of these things the rest will suffer, so I think I need to be patient and persisentent and the opportunities will come again when God allows them...Many thanks to my parents for helping us to keep going financially time and time again...