Tuesday, May 15, 2007

week 12 of 12 - time to taper


Planned taper this week for SMH half on Sunday...........

Monday - easy 9k in 40 mins down to Glebe rowing club and back.

Tuesday -3k w/u down to Glebe park. Ran 5.5k loop over Anzac Bridge and around Glebe foreshore in 20.43 (3.46 pace) not going too hard. 3k jog home for 11.5k total.

Wednesday - Ran an easy 10k after Bella's soccer training.

Thursday - 3k w/u to Glebe park. 6 x 75 secs on/off around the paths. 3k c/d jog home.

Friday - easy 6k in 26.50 to Petersham oval and back - picked it up a bit on the way back.

Saturday - easy 6k including about 3k on the grass oval at Camperdown and 6 x 75m strides and a few drills.

Feeling a bit tight in the adductors but otherwise fresh - hopefully they hold together tomorrow morning.
I thought I'd put down my goals for this race just in case anyone read Flakes post and thinks I'm aiming for sub 80 mins !

86 + mins = must be injured / hang your head in shame/ jog home for punishment.
84/85 mins = solid run - o.k
83 mins = p.b very happy !
82 mins = have pleased running gods / stars are all aligned

Anything else is just dreaming at this stage......

Sunday - SMH half marathon - 82.53 (gun time - 82.50 chip time) for a 1.16 P.B !
Sydney turned on another spectacular day - cool, crisp and bright sunshine. Woke up feeling fine after a good nights sleep and made my way to the Striders bunker in Lower Fort st to drop off my gear and take a pit stop and a few glasses of water. Jogged back to the start line for about 1k of warm-up, was planning on doing a bit more but saw the opportunity to get a spot right at the front next to Mohammed, Springer and Flake and a 30 min wait before the gun went off.

Went out way too fast but didn't have much choice as everyone else seemed to be doing the same thing. Managed to run most of the race with Cam and Jenny with the three of us swapping places a few times but the last climb up out of Mrs Macquaries chair I was starting to tire and they pulled ahead, all I wanted to do now was finish, hung on grimly with absolutely no kick at the finish at all, I was lucky to be running at 4min/k pace the last 6k and was very glad to see the finish line. Only saw a few km markers and the splits went, 2k -7.22, 5k 18.49, 15k 58.19.
Very happy with the effort and about what I expected time wise - hopefully on a bit easier course I can get closer to 80 mins.
Thanks everyone out on the course and spectating for the yells of encouragement (especially TigerAngels booming voice) - the atmosphere in this race is fantastic.

Managed a 10 min jog after the race for a total of 24k for the day and 75k for the week. Now for a new goal race!


n.b. It appears that we collected a 3rd place in the teams section for over 40's as well - funny because there was 2 other o/40's striders beat me and that meant we should have won - oh well....

5 comments:

TA and the Gnome said...

Enjoyed our short run the other day. Sorry to miss you at the end. I'll see you Sunday and expect to hear your PB news.

TA

Superflake said...

Good luck on Sunday Steve. Hope you run well mate and grab the sub 80.

silverfox said...

Well done on pleasing the running gods and the planets alligning....you old hippie!

Unknown said...

Good result on Sunday, mate - good to see you continuing improvement after the sub 3 last year.

TA and the Gnome said...

Glad to be a source of encouragement. In fact, I always get a kick out of seeing you gun guys doing so well. Makes my race more fun - so thanks for that.

TA