Category: running

City 2 Surf 2007

So I had the goal of finishing up the City 2 Surf this year in under 60 minutes. In the lead up to the race (and in fact even before the Bay Run) I’d been experiencing some heal and foot pain, which I saw the physio for. My physio told me to take it easy and also to include some strength exercises (he thinks that my injuries were due to increased mileage and my leg muscles just not being strong enough to keep up with the continual). So the end result was that I just wasn’t able to put in the training that I wanted/required for the City 2 Surf. My legs are feeling much, much better now though with the leg strength training (with the added bonus of the new found leg strength really giving my rock climbing a noticeable boost).

Pre-race jitters didn’t help me much and I couldn’t get to sleep until about 1am or so (after going to bed around 11pm, that totally sucks) and I’m just not really a morning person. Morning runs suck. So I ended up finishing the race in 62:35, which is still 2 minutes 30 seconds faster than last year, but I really had my heart set on a sub-60 minute run. Oh well, something to work towards for next year when my legs are working better and I can put the time and effort into a proper training plan (I never really got into a training plan at all, even though I had one setout for myself). I guess it was kind of cool having my result on the first page of results. I placed around 1268 I think out about 64000.

Rozie’s uploaded a whole bunch of photos over at flickr, so you can laugh at me in my silly running tights.

Also, since I haven’t really got my mileage up, I decided that I’m not going to bother doing the Sydney Running Festival half marathon, since I won’t have the time to put the training in to put in a decent time. But, instead, Rozie and I are going to be in Toronto in October and that does give me enough time to train, so I’m probably going to enter the Toronto Half Marathon instead. I’ll see a bit closer to the date how my form is going before I put my entry form. If I’m feeling a bit sucky in my training, I’ll enter the 10km Oasis Zoo Run instead, which goes around the Toronto Zoo. Sounds like fun!

Bay Run 2007

So running goal number 2 (after the SMH half) has been completed for the year. I did the Bay Run around Iron Cove back in July. Happily, I finished up in a respectable 29:15, very, very happy with that time. It was a rather chilly morning. So chilly in fact that 5kms into the 7kms race my hands were still cold. Afterwards I celebrated with some breakfast at Bills in Surry Hills. Hmmm. If you want to have a sticky-beak, I’ve got some photos from the race day that Rozie took up over at Flickr

SMH Half Marathon 2007

So on Sunday I did my first ever half marathon. After putting in satisfying efforts with the Bay Run, City 2 Surf and the Sydney Bridge Run last year, I felt like more of a challenge. So I went for the popular SMH Half Marathon. For those of you who don’t know, a half marathon is 21.1kms (and full one being 42.2kms obviously). The course goes through the CBD, up across past the Art Gallery to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair and back again to Hickson Rd, then you do it all over again!

Back two and a half months ago, I started a half marathon training routine from Runners’ World Magazine. It consisted for 3 training runs a week. Intervals, tempo and distance runs. Admittedly I was getting pretty sick of all the training leading up to last week and I just wanted to get the race over and done with. By Saturday night I was pretty excited. Got to bed by about 12 and had really patchy sleep until I woke up at about 5am.

Rozie, being the wonderful wife that she is came down to Hickson Rd for the 7.30am start with me. We ended up catching a taxi down since the buses didn’t start until about 6.45am (that’s when I wanted to get there). On the way down, the taxi driver told her that I was a fantastic husband because I opened the door of the taxi and let her in first. Rozie just laughed and said she was fantastic for getting up so early for me. I guess we’re both fantastic (or something…)

Away, we managed to get down there at about 6.45am or so which gave me plenty of time to warm up, pee, and find a place for the start. Compared to the City 2 Surf and perhaps even the Sydney Running Festival, the crowd seemed a lot more serious. I got the impression that regardless of peoples’ abilities as runners, that they were mostly people who ran pretty regularly, as opposed to the fun runners who might only do it a before a race like this.

And they're racing!

Anyway, I digress. The first 5 and 10kms of the race was fantastic for me. I managed to knock over the first 10kms in about 42mins(!). Looking back I probably went a bit hard since the second half (well 11.1kms to be exact) took me about 53 minutes to complete. The main reason for this though is that for about the last 5 to 6kms I had a really painful blister coming through, which really slowed me down. I think if I didn’t have that blister that I could’ve saved myself about 3 minutes in the second half of the race.

Running in the SMH Half Marathon 2007

My final time ended up 95 mins 58 seconds and placed 771st out of a field of 4639 finishing runners. So I am really happy with the final result, since all my training was aiming for 95 minutes anyhow. Since I got pretty close to the time I was aiming for, even with a blister slowing me down, I reckon I can easily run a half in under 95 minutes and perhaps with some more endurance training get my time closer to 90 minutes.

The finish line
I passed the line a couple of minutes earlier

I’ll probably aim for the Sydney Running Festival half marathon in September.

My running goals for the year are:

Gatorade trash

Two More Weeks

So its two more weeks until the SMH Half Marathon and I can say with all honest, thank god! I really enjoy running these days, but I’m really getting sick of all the mileage I’m doing in the lead up the race. I reckon at most, I can enjoy running up to about 15-16kms. Yesterday I ran 19km, which I ran in a cruisy 1hr 35mins (it was an endurance run, not speed), but by the end of the it, not only was I knackered, but I’m was completely over it.

Gladly, for the next two weeks, the training for the race is a tapering down of intensity, so the longest I’ll run is 10km next weekend and for my tempo, it’ll only be a 5km and a 3km run. Phew! My legs should be pretty fresh for the 21kms of the marathon. I’ll be glad once its all over.