Wellington Half Marathon 2014 recap

Posted on June 30, 2014 by 74Runner

If you are looking for an entertaining recap of this race STOP right now and head over here to see what my yellow fancy pants wearing friend has to say. If you want something boring then read on – I have warned you.

Right – it’s been 7ish weeks since running the Rotorua Marathon. That was after a pretty good block of training and life circumstances. I was riding a wave of highs then. Also after Rotorua I dropped my mileage right back. Bought a mountain bike (did a total 3 grand rides) – probably not the best investment but nevertheless. Wellington Half was always on the plan but I was pretty much taking a break form high intensity and high mileage. Leading up to the event my base mileage had dropped to about 65kms per week average from a usual 85-100km average. So in fact I was well rested if anything. I had no expectations and mentally I was also at a low point probably because of the reduced mileage and some other life stuff that happened.

Anyways I went into this race with no expectations and decided I might as well get among the crowd and see what happens. I got to the race start at WestPac stadium in Central Wellington about 45mins before the start. I don’t usually bother with too much warm up other than walking jogging to the loo or talking with others whom I bump into. Then maybe a couple of strides at a minimum. This time I did no warm up apart from the usual last minute business. A stiff southerly breeze was blowing that pretty much chilled you to the bone. Before the race I had a couple of Icebreaker tops on to keep me warm. Underneath I had my Wellington Scottish singlet on and arm warmers and running gloves. Just before race start at 9am I ditched the Icebreaker tops with a mate and made my way to the start line. There was a bit of a jam going into the start area through the stadium doors. Eventually I made my way to where the 1hrs 30min pacer Huw another club/running mate was doing pacing duties. Since this was also doubling up as the NZ Half Marathon Champs the leading men’s and women’s runners were right at the front. Then I spotted my yellow fancy pants wearing friend Amanda. Since I had no particular interest in racing my guts out today I just though hmm I’ll just take it easy and hang with her. After the usual pre-race announcements, the gun/hooter can’t remember which exactly went, everyone surged off. The elites bolted.

Wellington Half Marathon Start – Photo credit – Ben Terry

Me and Amanda got into an easy rhythm to stick to about 4.15mins/km. In actual fact we were a tad faster but pretty well in control and just taking it easy. It was easy running with not much effort. Pretty soon we were just ticking away the Kms as we passed familiar surroundings around the Wellington Bays.

Fast and Yellow.. – Photo by Ange

We also strategically shielded ourselves from the wind by using others as wind blockers and also did our own part by putting on a few surges just to keep a group going. Eventually we settled with another guy who seemed to be happy to stick with us. Just before we went through the half way point we saw all the 70min (fast) runners already heading back. We hit the half way point and started to up the tempo a little bit. We were hitting 4min K’s quite easily and kept on a good steady rhythm. The last 5km for me was a pretty good effort in hitting sub 4min kms to the finish (Felt great and didn’t blow up). Amanda did an amazing time – go read her race report. My net time was 1:27:37 which is a PB by about 3 mins with the least amount of build up I’ve had. Unexpected and pretty happy in the end.

Tina Harris (1:21:57) 4th Female, me (1:27:37) and Amanda (1:27:48) – Photo Ben Terry

Till later.. keep running.

Rotorua marathon and a long overdue update

Posted on April 28, 2014 by 74Runner

It’s been quite a while since I last updated what I’ve been up to since running the Wellington Round the Bays half marathon in February. So here is a quick summary of what I’ve been up to in terms of my training preparation for the 50th Rotorua Marathon since that event. Rotorua Marathon is actually only 6 sleeps away on 3rd May 2014.

March and April 2014

After Wellington Round the Bays I was straight back into full training mode with some solid back to back weeks of 100kms plus of running. This meant a total of 10 weeks to do some strength endurance based work as well as targeted speed work to be marathon ready. The highlight of March was a solid team effort at the Tarawera Ultramarathon in Rotorua where my team placed 12th in the relay of 70km. My buddies Nick, Aaron and Daniel who are part of my club did really great in tough conditions on the day. The course was altered at the last minute due to a tropical cyclone that was coming towards the forest where the original trail went through. In the end everyone who participated had a great time. This is certainly a great event to be part of in the New Zealand trail running calendar. I got to meet Vera (aka Supergeneric girl!) BONUS!

Team Lost in the Woods charging through the trails of Tarawera.

The weekend was spent running in some of the best trails in and around Rotorua. I also got to meet Sage Canaday (DOUBLE BONUS) who is now the two time winner of the Tarawera Ultra marathon.

Meeting Sage Canaday in the Redwoods

Great times with great running buddies

My friends who did the Ultra Distance kicked ass with some of them being in the top 10 of both the long and short courses.

After Tarawera it was pretty much back to a lot of training involving some solid mileage and tempo and interval work. I also included a 6 week block of strength conditioning twice a week.

10 km Personal Best (Road Race)

On 5th of April (incidentally also my 40th birthday) I ran a 10km club race for our running club Wellington Scottish Athletics. My aim was to run a steady conservative effort and I was not aiming to go all out. Somehow this day I felt really good and strong and my conservative effort actually felt pretty steady and easy which resulted in me shaving off a full 2 mins off my previous 10km race time and running a 40:22 – 10km race. This was a great indication that my marathon training was paying off. Not only could I maintain avg 4min per/km pace I felt really good afterwards and didn’t need a long time for recovery.

Racing in Wellington Scottish colors. Waterfront 10km club race in April.

Overall I feel I have done a pretty good chunk of training and my average mileage has significantly increased from last year. If any of you are on Strava check out my profile and connect.

Easter/Anzac Weekend

Last week was a long weekend (Easter and Anzac) which provided a great opportunity to travel and explore some great trails. Although I should have actually cut back on mileage and gone into a taper I ended up running in some great trails in Tongariro National Park and Kinloch in Taupo. This included the following trails.

Old Coach Road from Horopito to Ohakune and back (25kms)
Whakapapaiti Trails in National Park (14kms)
Tongariro Northern Circuit (46kms) – one of the Great Walks of New Zealand
Huka Falls to Aratiatia trail (10kms)
Kinloch W2K Trail out and back (22kms)

With this amount of running I am taking this week before Rotorua very easy and resting for the Rotorua Marathon. As usual watch out for the post race update next week and I am hoping that it will be a positive one – but it’s a Marathon and no matter what you have done what you feel on the day and during a marathon is what makes the difference. I am staying positive that I will be able to run a great marathon. The place is going to be buzzing with over 9000 people participating in the full and half marathon distances.

2013 running review

Posted on December 31, 2013 by 74Runner

Since it’s end of the year I thought I will do a recap of my running adventures for 2013. I started my running blog in January 2013. If you didn’t read my first post have a read of “Just keep running“.

2013 was a good year for me in terms of my running. I managed to overcome some obstacles and achieve some of my running goals. So here is how my running numbers looked like for year 2013.

This year I have run a total of 3723km for the year averaging 310km per month. I have climbed 36105 meters during these runs. This is a steady increase compared to last two years of 2011 and 2012. It was 2011 when I started running so overall I have doubled my mileage over the years. The increase in mileage helped with some good personal best times over distances of 10km and half marathon (21.1k).

Running numbers from 2011, 2012 and 2013. Distances in Kilometers.

With this steady increase I have been cautious about getting injured, to avoid this I have used the hard easy principal of training and incorporated a lot of strength and flexibility work in my schedules. I have also tried to run off road and vary the terrain that I do my running in. Here is a breakdown of each month – apart from a dip in June (First marathon) most months were 300kms plus.

2013 Monthly Totals – distances in Kilometers.

At start of 2013 I had one goal for the year and that was to complete a marathon. I achieved this goal in June by running the Wellington Marathon. This was a significant milestone for me. Other highlights was running a personal best half marathon time in September. This was a positive sign that my training was paying off.

In October I finally managed to break the 20minute mark in my 5km time and achieve a PB time of 19:39. Since then I have run 5km races in: 19:41, 19:53, 19:59 so I am confident that in 2014 I can get this down to 19:20 or so, which will put me in good contention of chasing a faster half marathon time and possibly a fast marathon time.

I will update what my goals are for 2014 in my next post. Thanks for reading my blog. Happy new year and best of luck for achieving your own goals whatever they may be in the new year.

Enjoying a post race recap with fellow trail runners

Xterra Wellington Running Meetup

Taupo Half 2013 – A T-Shirt and Chocolate

Along the coast…

Lessons from Running and PB week

Posted on August 19, 2013 by 74Runner

No matter how good you are at something, there’s always a million people better than you
– Homer Simpson

Saturday 17th August was a good day, I ran a PB in a local club 10km event. I was a whole 2 minutes faster than my previous 10k time. Then again I was pretty slow compared to all the others in my age group. Just to put this into perspective, the current world record for a 10km road race is currently 26:44 (Yes that’s 26mins). British Athlete Mo Farah (aka MObot) runs the same distance on track (10,000m) in 26:46, the track world record is held by Ethiopian runner named Kenenisa Bekele. Previous record holder for 10,000m and still number two is the great Haile Gebrselassie in 26:22. The New Zealand Record holder for 10,000m is Dick Quax in 27:41 with Jonathan Wyatt holding the 10km road title in 28:04. (Source Athletics NZ – http://www.anzrankings.org.nz/site/records_con ).

In the senior men category in which I ran there were 40 Wellington club affiliated runners (There were also other age group runners, Senior men, Masters etc which made the whole field to be about 120 runners). Evan Cooper from Wellington Harriers won the race in a time of 31:39. Glen Hughes from Wellington Scottish came second in 31:46. I was 36th in the senior field and 77th overall with my PB time of 42:00 (yes I was bang on 42:00) – my previous 10km time was around 44 or close to 45mins (which I ran in London this year) so being able getting it down to 42mins was a bonus. The race itself was run on a 2km lap course which made it somewhat easier to pace myself. I wanted to run as close to 4:00min per Km as possible. I had two club mates who was around my pace so we had a great race between the three of us and I was able to hold off both of them and take my “PB win”.

10 km Splits

Above are my 1 Km splits, note that odd laps were slightly uphill gradient hence the time being a tad slow and the even laps of course coming down and being faster. This had a pretty tiring effect on the legs overall. I made my move at the 8km mark and ran up the hill fast and let go on the down. Net result an even average of 4:05min Per Km. This is one the great things about being part of a club, it gives you an opportunity to compete in regional events also if you become a racing member you get your own timing tag! If you want to know more about joining a club check out Wellington Scottish or come around to the Wellington Waterfront on a Tuesday at 5:30 to take part in the Waterfront 5k run and a chat.

10kmPB

Until next time! happy running..

Wellington Marathon 2013 – I am a marathon finisher!

Posted on June 23, 2013 by 74Runner

It’s official! I am now a marathoner with a debut personal best time of 3:25:56.

When I started training for the (local) Wellington Marathon I had no specific time goal in mind. My main focus was to train well & make it to the start with no injuries & being able to finish the distance in relative (dis)comfort. Having done quite a few half marathons this was kind of a big deal to have a Marathon under my belt.

I am not a fast runner or an gifted athlete by any stretch of imagination. However, I like to think that I am focused & disciplined when it comes to training, because I know that one can’t simply turn up & run a marathon with little to no training. Some people might be able to but that’s not me & I’ve done enough research to know that if you put our body through such stress as running a marathon with little to no training the long term risks to your health can be very significant.

Training for this marathon was also a way for me to learn about nutrition, physiology & experimenting with my own training program. I set out a 16 week program loosely taking some training schedule guidance from the book “Advanced Marathoning” and as a first time Marathoner the information in this book was very valuable. For example I learned about Glycogen depletion, Hydration & how to avoid some of the common mistakes in training, learned about allowing the body to recover, about threshold training and a whole lot more. In the end all of these mattered, even in the last 2 weeks when faced with a possible injury the guiding principals of recovery was fundamental in being able to start with a positive attitude & completing the marathon. (Which I must add was far better time than I thought I’d be able to).

Due to the bad weather Wellington had in the 3-4 days prior to the event the organisers had to change the Marathon course. Wellington’s south coast road was a mess after the massive storm, with winds of upto 140km/h & waves that breached over the protective walls damaging most of the roads. We had non stop rain for 2 days & Saturday prior to the event it just rained non stop. Nevertheless in true Wellington style it all cleared up on Sunday (race day) morning with only a southerly breeze of about 20-30kms at start & this diminished towards the middle part of the race & by the end the sun was out! So in terms of race conditions of a mid-winter marathon it was pretty good.

The start was at the WestPac stadium & I got to the start around 7am to meet up with my training buddies whom I have done most of my longer runs with. Some of them were aiming for PBs having done previous marathons. I was just happy to start. It was a bit chilly so we huddled to the start & after a short briefing about the course change we were off right on 7:30am.

Prior to the race I broke my race into 4 phases. First an easy steady warm up of 8kms just under 5min per Km pace, I had no intention of running hard out from the start. Next a steady 16kms to get me to halfway around 4:45-5:00 but with the option of dropping down to 5:15 if things started hurting. I passed the half marathon point in 1:41 which was a tad faster than I thought, however I was feeling pretty comfortable so I kept a steady pace of around 4:45min per Km. Once I got to 32km I wanted to run the last 10kms at about 4:35-4:45 pace. With the course having been altered there was a short out & back section so I could see the leaders & the chasers. There were few of the club runners whom I knew so it was good to cheer them on a couple of times. Once the twice out & back was completed the course continued on back to the WestPac stadium via the same route. This incidentally was also the point where the half marathon runners merged with the marathoners. I hit this point just as the 2:00hr half marathon pacer & following group merged. I cruised past them & kept on a steady pace. At around 36km marker my legs started seizing up, it was a bit frustrating a physically I was not tired & with my legs seizing up my pace started to drop gradually to around 5:15 per Km. In the end I was finished in 3:25:56 which I am very very happy about!

During the run I had a packet of Gu Chomps (Orange Flavour) with me which was my main fuel source for the whole run along with regular water and electrolytes on offer at fuel stations.

So there you have it, my first marathon and it was a great experience. Here is a map of the course from my Garmin stats. Results online at: http://tiktok.biz/wellingtonmarathon/2013/

Wellington Marathon 2013

If you are planning to run a marathon for the first time here is my advice:

Run at least 2-3 half marathons before you attempt a full marathon
Give your self at least a 12 week period to train adequately
Do at least 3-4 long runs of 30km or more during your training
Add some speed work gradually (5k races are great for speed work)
Learn about nutrition and hydration and what works for you
Taper for at least 2 weeks

With that I’d also like to thank everyone who has sent me best wishes via twitter and by posting comments on the blog. As some of you know I posted about the small competition I ran for my readers on guessing my marathon finish time. I would like say congrats to @talkingtothecan who guessed the closet time of 3:24!

I am taking a break from running for a week and will be back into training with the main focus being the Able Tasman Trail Run in late September this year. This is one of New Zealand’s epic trail runs and I am looking forward to it!

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Lessons from Running and PB week

Wellington Marathon 2013 – I am a marathon finisher!