Sunday 19 February 2012

Wokingham Half & Training Update

First let it be said that I'm not a fan of half marathons, I much prefer the shorter, intense 10km racing or XC.  However I have always felt like its unfinished business as my PB is only 1:32-way off my 10km pace (and PB was at Windsor thats not a notoriously fast course).  I raced Fleet several years ago and after hitting 10mi at 1:08 I cramped massively and crawled in around 1:32 with a dented ego.  At the time I wasn't training beyond c.50mins and wasn't in great shape but psychologically that collapse weighed on my mind.

2012 was the year to nail those demons and I certainly felt I could sneak under 1:30 and set is as one of five goals for the year - so applied for Wokingham with the fallback of Fleet in March if I missed the time.  Ideally I wanted to nail it at Wokingham so I can switch my focus to my cycling.

Anyway race day - I'd agreed to run with a 1:25 runner from my club and agreed to meet him by the 1:25 marker at the start.  Having heard it was a slow, narrow start I felt starting above my expected finish time would help with a fast start.  However my mate was no where to be seen and soon enough we started.  There was lots of runners ahead who obviousy weren't in the right start position so I spent the first mile weaving through people to try and catch him - rather frustrating.  Eventually I caught him at c.1 mile but he was was working hard.  He'd done a 20 miler last weekend so told me to push on which I did.  I felt if I pushed on and started struggling, he'd catch me up and help me through to the end.  Wokingham is a flat course except for 2 bridges over the motorways so I pushed hard up these and recovered on the downs. 

My only target for the race to achieve 1:30 was to hit 10  miles at 1:07ish to give me a chance, so I worked out on route I'd need to hit 5mi at c.33:30. I hadn't really been keeping an eye on my watch, so when I reached 5mi and saw 30:39 I was abit shocked.  Had I gone off too hard?  Could I sustain it?  Would I cramp like Fleet?  It kind of had a negative effect on me?  Then at 5.5mi something happened that changed my race, 2 guys caught me up and were saying 'looks like we're on for a 1:21.  At that point my target changed and I realised my expectations were way down.  I changed my target to 1:25.  I clung on to their tails until c.8.5mi when I was dropped and hit 10mi at 1:01:56.  I pushed on to the end - from 13mi to the end maybe 5 people overtook me but I crossed the line in 1:21:58 by my watch.  The support had been great the whole way round from the spectators and marshalls.  Happy days.

Sadly on the day we saw several ambulances at c. 12 mile marker - we assumed that a car had hit a runner.  However later it transpired that someone had collapsed with chest pains at the 3 mile marker and required CPR. I hope that they were ok.  On the flipside alot of my Sandhurst Jogger mates had strong races and PB's as did several mates off Twitter.  Well done all :)

So now my focus switches to the bike with the F3 Duathlon at Dorney on 25th March and the 56mi Sportive at New Forest on April 15th.  I've been quite pleased with my cycling training recently however it has nearly all been on turbo so I need to start getting out more - hopefully as weather improves I will be able to.  I've also restarted swim training with Bracknell Masters so all in all things are coming together.