It occurred to me earlier this year that I had no races booked at all for 2016. All my focus has been on "the main event" but that is in 2017 so it would have made my historical race calendar have an unsightly gap for this year...
So...
I booked a race. A marathon, for December.
This was in the spring of this year, so plenty of training time. Then training for January took over and because it is such a long race, all my training has been focused on long slow runs (or recce walks). That's not "most" but "ALL" my training.
For the uninitiated, marathon training usually varies between long slow runs (LSRs), speed work, tempo runs, and all sorts of other training sessions, designed to get you round in one piece and in a reasonable time.
Anyway... The day came, nice and dry and mild. Perfect racing weather. I had a plan of sorts. Based on my training of the year (all LSRs) I had ruled out sub 4 hours, and had pretty much decided that I would probably get somewhere around 4:30 but definitely sub 5 hours. So off i set.. (oh by the way, my race number was 49, the same as my age 😀 )
Running at a comfortable pace, and watching the racing snakes disappear into the distance, I was mildly surprised to see the first mile clock in at 9:07. Now considering all my training runs have been between 9:30 and 10:30 pace (that's minutes per mile in case you are wondering) I was somewhat worried that I had set out too fast (very common in races, especially for me).
I carried on at a comfortable pace, staying on the tail of various runners, just basically running and enjoying myself. Mile 2 clocked in at 8:38 - oops. And this continued mile after mile, in short, the first 15 miles were all under 9:00 pace. Now considering my training pace had all been way slower than this I can conclude that for distance races, running LSRs is the benchmark of training. Many beginners to the longer races cannot see how running long and slow can end up meaning a faster pace during the race. Well the above shows it does.
After 15 miles things did slow down somewhat, but only really to the slower end of my training pace, but to end up with a time of 4:15:34 after mentally setting a sub 5 to sub 4:30 finish, 15 minutes quicker that that was most welcome, especially considering I had done no speed work for well over a year.
So that's my only race of 2016, a "seasons best" but only because it was the only race this season.
5 weeks to go until "the main event".......
Gulp.....
