Athlone Half Marathon - the wheels come off!

Thursday, 12th September, 2013 – 7.4km Recovery Run (MP ave: 5:33//km)

As promised nice and easy recovery run in advance of Saturday. Legs were a little stiff/tired after last night's faster stuff but nothing serious.

Friday, 13th September, 2013 – Rest Day

Had intended to do about 10km today but after chatting to Philip about the race I decided to take today as a rest day instead in order to give myself every chance in Athlone.

Saturday, 14th September, 2013 – 21.3km Recovery Run (MP ave: 4:25//km)

The plan for today was to stay with the 1:30 pacers and try and nip just below the 90 min mark. This would mean running at 4:16/km pace according to the caluclators but when you factor in the inevitable couple of hundred extra metres then the pace would need to be approx 4:13/km. I was thinking about this briefly before I set off from Dublin and a quick moment of realisation pointed out that this was faster than my training LT pace. Suddenly things became a bit too real so I decided to push that thought out of my head and just hang with the pacers as long as I could and hope for the best really. At the very least I expected to get a new PB (1:32:49), so anything better than that but not sub 90mins wasn't hugely appealing. It was an all or bust mentality and i guess that's what I got!

I arrived in plenty of time to register, meet lots of familiar faces and go for a 3.5km warm-up. This was the longest warm up I've ever done but at the same time it was nice and handy and I felt great after it. After a little more socialising i made my way to the start line and fell in with a few more familiar faces (Joe, Kate and a couple of others) in the 1:30 pace group. Before long we were off. A few twists in the first 400m and then we were out on the straight. Even by this stage Joe had moved just in front of the pacers which was a clever idea as there was a large group on a narrow road and so it was no surprise really when I heard somebody appear to take a tumble about 2km into the race. By this stage I was in the thick of the bunch and it felt a bit claustrophobic. Around here I ran into Sean who commented '1:30 will be no bother'. I muttered back something about the first km always feeling easy and they were the last words I spoke all race. I managed to keep with the pace group for the first 8km but I had been keeping track of my HR and was a bit spooked that it was in the 160's the whole time when it should be in the mid 150's. I didn't think about it too much though as I was now struggling to keep with the group and I knew if I fell off the back of it that my race was done.

The run-in to the finish

I usually like it when I'm proved correct but in this instance it was not very enjoyable! A gap of 100m opened up over the next few kms and I found myself running solo just when I needed shielding from the breeze. As the gap drifted wider I began to unintentionally ease back to an effort that I should have started off with and the pace and HR slowed a little. By the time we appeared out onto the Ballinasloe Road I was over cooked and it was now just a matter of making my way home. The HR was still in the mid 150's but the pace had slowed back to marathon pace. There was nothing to be done really as I was now paying for redlining over the opening section. I'm sure the body was struggling big time with lactic acid and I just wasn't able to get the desired output from the high effort input. I tried consoling myself with the fact that I was getting a MP session out of it anyways so it wasn't a total waste of time. As I was slowing people were passing me and that compounded my misery. On the main road though I managed to get going again at a faster pace through a combination of sharing the pacing with another guy and the better road surface. Unfortunately, as soon as we turned off the main road again my pacing partner fell away and I slowed back down again due in some part to the poorer surface. Eventually I set my focus on the last mile and as I turned the corner for the 200m run-in to the line I gave it my all but still only just managed to get a pace of 4:06/km. I had nothing left but was glad to be finished.

HR & pace data

In fairness to the organisers the event really is excellent value and a great run. I think I may have fallen into a trap though (like quite a few others I spoke to) in thinking that because the course had no hills that it was ok to go off that bit faster. A handful of people that I spoke to afterwards seemed to have a similar tale of falling away after 8km or thereabouts. It has certainly re-instilled in me the value of starting steady and settling into a race as opposed to going out gung-ho. Hopefully I just remember that lesson in Chicago! 

Speaking of Chicago, I had been debating whether to aim for either 3:10 or 3:15 over there and was going to let Athlone's result decide the matter. Unfortunately that target is now going to be sub 3:20 instead! I will keep training at approx 3:12 pace but in reality I just need to bite off less than I'd been targeting.  It's annoying really that I've been running an average of 50 miles per week this year (a decent increase on last year) and yet the marathon form has failed to improve much at all since.

Athlone Half Marathon - 1:34:16

Sunday, 15th September, 2013 – Rest Day

I continued on to Mayo after the race and it was late enough getting back to Dublin so treated myself to a Rest Day.

Week 37 Summary:

RTW: 5 from 7 days

DTW: 57.1 km

DTY: 2,961.8 km

Chicago - 28 days (4 weeks, 0 days)