Another fantastic weekend in the North East!
The weather was fabulous (again) and the event was as colourful as ever – though I have to say, the atmosphere was not as warm as it has been in the past. Not quite the camaraderie of previous years somehow. But I don’t want to overstate that, it was still a brilliant day.
Although it’s painful to read, I shouldn’t be disappointed with my recorded time of 1:58:33 (1:59:23 official GNR time). I could say that I didn’t train enough, but that would be misleading. I didn’t really train at all. There’s plenty of evidence of how unfit I’ve become in the Forerunner race data. My HRM statistics are screaming at me. Apparently I was running at Heart Rate Max (for my age, height and weight) for two hours. It seems to make little sense, but my resting heart rate (normally quite low at around 47bpm) and exercising heart rate (generally very high) appear completely unconnected.
Anyway, those BPMs and min/mile averages are going to tumble between now and next September. I’m not performing like that again. Period.
So why was my half marathon performance so poor?
I recorded the following training mileage over the three months leading up to the event (though I acknowledge that problems with the Forerunner 305 mean that August is definitely understated):
June: 19 runs / 85 miles
July: 13 runs / 87 miles
August: 2 runs / 8.5 miles
September: 8 runs / 40 miles
To put those monthly distances into context, when I was training for the Himalaya 100 Mile Stage Race, I was putting in 260-300 miles a month. Don’t be impressed by the Himalayas. I had to cancel after a year’s training due to work commitments clashing with the even. The £800 lost deposit was nothing compared to the disappointment of dropping out so close to the event. I do want to get that back in the diary again. Maybe in two to three years time.
I’ve said it so many times on this blog and it disappoints me to re-read it, but I really need to FOCUS. I have a long standing target of 1:30 for the Great North Run and it’s absolutely within my ability to achieve it. This year I placed 10,914 in a field of around 52,000 runners. My best position was 1,058 with a time of 1:32. So I’ve slipped from top 2% to top 20%. Whoops!
I now have the Brass Monkey in my sights (24th January) and I must be the right side of 1:45 (or even 1:40) for that race. So, it’s feet up today and back to it in earnest tomorrow. NO EXCUSES.
13.1m | 1:58:33 | 9:04 | 182bpm
