Monday 3 September 2012

Southwater Tri Relay - fun marshalling

Little training over the weekend. A decent Club swim on Saturday - lots of fast 50s (diving starts) followed by recovery 100m sets. At least I got 2 swims in this week, which should the minimum. Ideally need to build back up to 3 sessions.

Our annual club event was on Sunday - the Southwater Tri Relay, which I was very happy to marshal rather than compete. It is a great event and though I have enjoyed competing in the past, watching the full race and helping the competitors exit from the lake swim is even more fulfilling. Some competitors grab you like their life depends on it and others fly out and on to the next discipline. That is the real beauty of the sport in that you have the first time novice competing with the seasoned pros and age-groupers. As I have previously highlighted it really makes me proud to be involved with the sport. However fast or slow there are a growing number of people that want to get off the couch, get fit and just 'Do It'.

My week is not looking too bad so I hope to continue with my short term goal of getting at least 2 sessions of each sport (including 1-2 strength sets) in over the coming days. This morning I completed a short run interval session - simple 15 min warm up, 10x intervals (30 secs sprint + 30 secs rest), 10 min cool down - job done! This evening I hope to get in the 'cave of pain' for a strength session. Then Tuesday it is on the bike - the weather is not looking too bad so I may extend the ride (commute) to include Ditchling Beacon.

I am hoping to get my name down for Barn's Green half marathon at the end of this month (30th Sept) - this race is my nemesis - the first time I ran it I did my knee in and finished above 2 hours. The following year I managed a decent time but since then (2 years ago) I have clocked slower times. I know I am getting older but my training has certainly increased (improved?) over the years so I have no excuse. May be it is just one of those events at the end of the season where I just go through the motion rather than try my very best. I would really like to get a PB this year, despite it being quite a challenging race.

Race times for Barn's Green half-marathon:

2008 - 2:03:03
2009 - 1:40:58
2010 - 1:41:17
2011 - 1:43:29
2012 ?

Looking ahead at PB's - I would also like to beat my marathon PB of 3:45:20. A 3:30 marathon is approximately 8:00 per mile (sub 5:00 per km). I know to get anywhere near a 3:30 marathon I need to do sub 1:40 half-marathon (ideally around 1:37 - my PB was at Brighton 1:38:46) and sub 43:00 10Ks.

There is a decent looking 16-week plan for running a marathon sub 3:30 on Runner's World, which you can also download to a Garmin:

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/racing/rws-garmin-ready-marathon-schedule-sub-330/2764.html

Obviously I need to build in all the cross training in the pool and on the bike - not really appropriate for a triathlete, although I like the idea of setting myself some PB goals at 5K, 10K, and half-marathon distance in preparation for Brighton full marathon in April next year.

Might try incorporating a 5K run at race-pace this week to see what I can do and then build to 10K (ideally close to 43:00).

No comments:

Post a Comment

Sri Lankan experience

Fri 29th March and sitting in the sun around the pool in beautiful sunshine. We are day 3 of our Sri Lankan experience and currently at our ...