Back to 5: A Rare Parkrun and Johnson Crane Fun Run

As my 2013 program is starting to shift through the gears, I've been very eager to test myself and see just what improvements if any I have gained in the last 3 weeks or so of full on training. My goal for the next three months is simply to run faster at 10km than I ever have. My overall goal for the year as I said before is a sub 35:00 10km. To continue to train at high intensity for the duration of the year until the goal is achieved would be sheer folly, so my program now involves racing once a month until the first weekend of April and training consistently for the preceding weeks, sharpening the necessary tools I require. So that means speedwork in the form of fast repetitions, hill training in the form of long hills and short sprints to improve my stamina, form and strength and maintenance of endurance by continue to run above distance once a week. The mission here is specificity, a 30km long run will get me nothing here so my session have been selected with the goal race in mind. In particular the repetitions not only improve my form and leg speed etc, my consistently running faster than race pace, when I line up on the start line, that pace should feel considerably easier and the hills and longish run will take of helping me last the distance.

Great in theory, but before my first 10km  race I have been eager to just feel my way around a race to see how I was getting along. Two weekends ago I manged to attend the closest parkrun to me at Ebotse. I did the course once before sometime in the middle of Soweto training as a breather from the long stuff and put in a respectable 19:57. This time, with the shackles of high volume training thrown off I was able to put in a good performance running my second fastest 5km, finishing in 18:22. This was interesting to me because while my PB is 17:49 for the distance I have frankly never looked like coming close to it and I was starting to believe that it was a once off performance. But of course to nail my goal for the year I would have to not only match that time but probably start heading into the low 17s and high 16s. The Ebotse course is approximately 3km on grass and as I have learnt from doing my speed sessions on a cricket oval, grass is kind on the joint but is was more taxing than an all weather track or the road. So I had good reason to believe that on a similarly flat course on the road I could run a good time for 5km.

The opportunity came around this past weekend at the Johnson Crane race, a big affair with an estimated 6000 runners doing the various events from a 1km kiddies to the marathon. With my wife doing the half marathon I would be at the venue, Old Benonians, so I entered the 5km. The marathon and half marathon went off first and 30 minutes later, the 10.5km, quarter marathon and 5km would be off. I was to see a legend of South African running Frith van de Merwe also toeing the start, she was ultimately the first veteran female in the 10.5km.

As the gun went off I was honestly unsure how to run the race. A 10km I typically try and restrain myself, but with only 5000 metres, I didn't apply the brakes much. The start was frenetic and I was sucked into a pace that I knew I would be difficult to sustain, so I did sit back a little and try and pick off people in front of me. In a blur the 1km board came past and I checked my watch, 3:25, yikes. By this stage I had calmed down and was in a nice rhythm, long but quick strides (at least that's how I imagined a spectator would describe it). The 2km board came round and it was 6:50 odd, the Garmin would show 6:57, and it was spot on with the boards distance wise. The 10.5km runners would split with us at the 3km point which came just after a water point. As I do in short races I skipped it  and checked my time, 10:34 or something like.

Suddenly the crowd thinned out to the point where I could see no one in front of me. I looked back and just the water point disappearing in front. Eventually after about a minute or so, I saw the lead car up ahead and a runner clad in Nedbank runners just behind. I just focused in keeping him in my sights and I was surprised that I felt strong. There were no more distance marking so I just kept on going, and as Old Bens came into view just pushed harder. 

I stopped the clock and was a bit alarmed to see it at 16:09 and then the realization that route was a fair bit short. The Garmin had measured 4.62km. It was spot on up to 2km at least and certainly not far off at the 3km mark so that was close to the correct distance. Working back 16:09 is 3:30/km pace and I was feeling really strong so anywhere from 17:25-17:30 was possible on the day.

At the end of the day, I think I got exactly what I wanted out of the exericise, other than a new 5km PB! I raced hard and got a meaningful guage of how my training is going. My PB for 10km at the moment stands at 37:34 which predicts a 5km time of around 18:05. So to have finished close to 5km in race conditions at 3:30/km it means my speed has improved. 

Next weekend is the first of three goal 10km races, the McCarthy Toyota race at Rietondale Park. The Old Years race that I did last year in scorching heat started from the same venue. I feel a lot better now having put myself to the test at shorter race distances that I can have a good race which will hopefully end in a new 10km PB. Certainly whatever happens I feel like the building blocks are being put into place and there's a lot of improvements to come as the season progresses.

The PB run continues...

This morning I'm still beaming from another uplifting race weekend. After my 15km two weeks ago, I posted about the S-curve and were I felt I was in the scheme, and also the impending plateau when I'll have to start working a lot harder for just a few seconds gain. Right now though I need to just keep on training and just riding the crest of this crazy wave I'm on until it's loses steam.

To be honest, I haven't necessarily felt any faster since that 15km. I put in two quality speed sessions since then. On the  12th, I use what is possibly the only useful bit of flat on WITS main campus to do short intervals. It's approximately 300m. I did six repeats aiming for 60 seconds and I did them all in  59-61 seconds, jogging back to the start as recovery. This past week I was on leave so I took the opportunity after dropping my son off at school to do some quality. On Monday, I submitted my entry for the Runner's World 1km Challenge, doing that in 3:22. It surprised me actually how difficult one all out kilometre is but considering in February doing an 800m in 3:05 was too much for me it's a lot of progress. On Tuesday morning I hit the track, and did 5 X 400m aiming for 80s, and once again I was consistent doing one at 79, one at 82 and the remainder on the money. I finished off the session with an 800m and managed 2:44. On Thursday I headed back to Centurion for the Nike+ Run Club aiming to really let fly now that I know the course. I covered the ~3.5km loop in 13:14, 3:46, which I was chuffed with considering that at times when navigating the mall bits it's almost an almost course and there is some human traffic to contend with.

All that fast stuff did mean that I was a little jaded come Saturday morning when it was time for the Take 5 Team Relay at the Waterkloof Airbase. And when it started to drizzle on the way there I was feeling a bit gloomy. The rain cleared away and even though there was a chill in the air it was pleasant. And with the route being the flattest that I have ever witnessed at a race fast times were there for the taking. My only concern was the changeover area which as I guessed would get cluttered but thankfully I was doing the first leg so it wasn't going to be too bad.

The race was scheduled for an 8am start, another boon as the extreme chill of the morning was almost certainly gone. This was only my third 5km and I'm still none the wiser as to how to approach the distance. It's almost certainly too short to have a strategy but equally go out too fast or too slow and there are consequences. A 10km makes sense, steady for 4km, hit optimum pace to 7km then give it horns to the finish!

Once the gun went, there was the obligatory battling with walkers and joggers who had pushed to the front. By the time we got off the grass and onto the tar thankfully we had cleared them. There were some serious looking athletes and those pesky juniors that have endless pace, and I got sucked into that early pace. Then came the first panic. My watch hit 4:00 and there was no sign of the 1 km mark. But already I was breathing quite heavily. At 8 minutes so 2 km mark. My  Nike+ foot sensor is optimized for my easy training pace of around 4:55-5:00 min/km so it under measures at race pace so that was no use. The water point was coming up and that was supposed to be halfway but I check the time, 9:57 as I pass through. Now I'm getting tired and double my time is 19:54, surely not.

I soldiered on but the one glimmer of hope was that I still hadn't lost sight of the lead bike. It was starting to get further and further away but after 12 minutes I could see it at a bend in the corner of my eye. At 15 minutes I see the Sportsman's Warehouse balloons for the changeover point and I can here the announcer calling the team numbers. So close. As I'm about to hit the grass with the finish in sight, my clock hits 17:00. Another 'surely not' moment. I stride to the finish, I can hear my dad cheer me on, see my wife pull out of the change over area, hand her the baton and stop my clock.

17:49!

No freaking way!!!!! My first instinct is not to celebrate but to question the route. It must be short surely, must be. I play this silly game in my head until the end of the race. My father ran the last leg. He was recovering from a cold so didn't go all out but planned to hit 4:00 min/km and then finish strong. His experienced legs can dial a pace almost at will and sure enough he finished in 19:30, with no qualms about the distance.

So an new PB. I'm still over the moon. A 1:36 improvement and managing 3:34 pace over 5km is something I would not have imagined in February, never mind June last year. I think it might have just been once of those days, 1) weather was perfect 2) it was as flat as a pancake 3) the pace was hot at the start and I got into the mix and just hung on.

Of course I have been doing a lot of hard training and it's giving back now. My average for the last 7 weeks since the week of Wally Hayward and Jackie Melker has been 46km, with weekly totals ranging from 41 km to 51 km. That has been a mix of speedwork (intervals and tempo sessions) on Tuesday, hills on Thursday and 12-16 km long runs on Sunday. So while for me it has been conditioning and preparing my body for the rigours of the marathon training that is still to come, another way to look at it is that I have been doing an intensive 8 week 10km program like the sort you would find on Runner's World. Indeed I'm doing a 10km race on Saturday and this is now the 8th week since that double header week.

I'm looking forward to Saturday's race and like the last two races I'm going to give it my all and just let the legs go. Then I have another two weeks before I start focussing on the marathon from the 16th July.

Let the good times roll!!!!

The plateau will come. I know it will. I am expecting it too. I am of the opinion that running improvements follow a classic S-curve model:

When we start training at the base of the curve, improvements are slow, everything is tough. I spent a good 6-7 months in this phase after lacing up my shoes in June last year. It's also the easiest time to get despondent and throw in the towel, as I almost did in  December when workouts were actually getting more and more difficult.

Then something happens. It could be a breakthrough race, nailing that brutal interval session, or in my case a long tempo run. I remember the moment clearly. It was the morning of the 3rd April just before catching a flight to Cape Town and I went out and did a 10km tempo run. I did it in 46:40, nothing remarkable, except it was only a minute slower than my 10km PB at the time and that included warm up and cool down. When I was going for it, I was in a groove, just nailing the pace kilometre after kilometre, and it all felt so easy! Less than two weeks later I would do my first half marathon in 1:38:42, well inside my 'best case scenario' of 1:40 that I had set myself. And two weeks later I brought that down to 1:35:01. Four days later I had lowered my 10km time to 42:38. Two weeks later I broke 20 minutes for 5km and ran 19:25. I was now clearly in the exponential phase.

I haven't raced since that 5km and was looking forward to doing my first race in three weeks and also my first 15km race. I was supposed to do the Moreleta Plaza 16km on the 26th May but I felt a bit fatigued from overdoing it in training and wisely rested. The end results is I felt fresh this past weekend and my legs were raring to go! 

Fifteen kilometre is an odd distance. Most prediction tools jump in classic distance, 1 mile, 2 mile, 5 km, 8 km, 10 km, 21,1 km and 42.2 km. I'm a bit of a pedant and like to have some sort of strategy when running races, something I have developed since that first half marathon. I find it relaxes me to have a plan, but also the plan is not fixed and has early escape clauses to take into account weather and surprising route elements. With the route expected to be somewhat flat I used my 5km time, got a prediction for 10km and 21.1km and went for something roughly in the middle and rounding up I got an expected pace of 4:10/km, so roughly tempo pace then. I segmented the race into thirds planning to run 21:15, 20:50 and 20:25 splits for a 62:30. It was I felt a touch on the ambitious side but my motto at the moment is a rather brash go big or go home. I will pay for that someday!

On Friday, a surprise happened with the weather taking a distinct turn for the worse! The temperatures plummeted and at 7:30 start time on Saturday predictions were 2 degrees Celsius. Nasty. Thankfully the race venue, Silver Oaks Crossing, was not very far from home, a 10 minute drive so at least we didn't have to be up at  an ungodly time of the morning. I got a compression vest from my father to wear under my racing vest, got some gloves, but decided to stick with my poly shorts. When I stripped off my tracksuit at the venue I was almost regretting that decision, but after a 10 minute warm up I was feeling just about okay.

The race went well even if my pacing strategy was ripped apart pretty early on. The first km was in around 4:12 and I settled into a pace that was quite a bit quicker but comfortable, a red herring perhaps? I went through 3km in 12:00 and 5km in around 20:10. I knew the pace was a bit hot and did try and slow myself down. I got sucked into other peoples races though. There was a group of three guys that would pass me on the flats but I would pass them on any climb. The end result was that I went through 10km in 40:26, 4:03 min/km pace. I knew I would pay for it somehow later! Hey it would have be a huge 10km PB, 2:12 min, if the race stopped there but there was another 5km to go.

Sure enough I did pay for the early pace. I got sucked into another race as a guy came past me after that and he was a bit chatty. I went along with him and then we started to climb. I had read fairly flat about the race, but there was some climbing up to about 14km, long climbs broken up by short teasing straights. So predictably my pace dropped. I went past 14km in around 57:50 so my pace had dropped to 4:20 min/km. I finished strong though, putting in a sub-4 min final km to finish in 1:01:40 on my watch. That was a quite a bit quicker than what I set out to run, and with some smarter running could have flirted with running under 61 minutes. But I'm not going to complain about finishing a 15km at 4:06 pace.

In the grander scheme of things, I am still in that exponential phase of the s-curve. While I wait for the plateau there are still some fast times ahead I hope. For the rest of June I have a 5km on the 23rd and a shot at a the 10km on the 30th. At both races I'm going for good PBs. The route at the 5km race, the Take 5 team relay, is also fairly flat (though I'm getting skeptical with 'fairly flat' as a route description) and the organisers do promise a fast course, so flirting with a sub 19:00 5km or 3:47 pace is a target. The 10km race in Hatfield is a new event, but Hatfield is one the flatter areas of Pretoria so if anything I want to match the 40:26 I manged through 10km this weekend, and I'm going whisper it but a 39:XX is on the cards if I pace myself well.

On the road to Soweto, getting my speed up is the mission and so far so goo. Let the good times roll!!

Going short and fast

I noticed that a lot of programs for speedwork often include intervals done at 5km pace. That's all good and well except I don't have a 5km pace so to speak. I just punch in whatever recent race I have done in a training pace calculator to estimate. I tried to do a 5km sometime last year in December, but despite going through 4km in 16:40 odd and slowing but not all that much, ended up going through the finish in just under 27 minutes. Probably not 5km then. I was running with my brother and he was in fantastic shape then, running 21 for 5km, and finished 30s ahead of me and he was equally baffled.

So with the coaches permission, I switched my easy 10km today to a 5km time trial. My wife was doing the 10km at the Mazda Run in Silverton, and my brother and I entered the 5km fun run. It was bitterly cold. I ran in a long sleeved vest for the first in many months and it never warmed up enough to strip off.

The route was nice and flat. We set out 10 minutes after the 10/21.1s and thankfully didn't follow their bulkier tougher route. I set off briskly. I must say I'm fonder of the longer stuff as I have time to lock into a comfortable pace. Even with the 10km, I find that within that second kilometre I really need to be locked into my pace otherwise I'm fighting to make up time and I tire myself out. I went through the 1km in 3:48, and though I pulled it back a bit by 3km I was comfortably under 4min/km, going though in 11:41 and oddly in second place. I was never going to catch the junior up ahead but I kept him in my sights and hit the end in 19:25. I was hoping for a 20:xx but to finish in in under 20 at 3:53 pace was awesome. I'm also pleased that I was in control of my pace throughout. I nevet felt exhausted at any point and always felt like I had something in the tank. Clearly doing those hills at WITS is helping!

So the PB fairy tale continues, and I'm just enjoying the ride at the moment. I still don't think I'm a fast runner so to speak, I've enjoyed running half marathons more than the shorter stuff, but I'll do two or three more 5kms over the next few weeks just to build confidence and to keep my legs turning!

And long may the PB run continue!