30th March - 5th AprilMon 9.5k 48:39 (126 5:07) Recovery Run
Tue 13k 65:45 (135 5:03)
Wed 13k 61:53 (142 4:45)
Thu 9.5k 44:41 (136 4:42)
Fri 18k 88:49 (139 4:56)
Sat Rest
Sun 21.1k 1:31:43 (165 4:20) Twilight Half Marathon
Week Total: 84.1k
Year Total: 912k
After the 10k race last Sunday , it really took until Wednesday night’s run to feel recovered enough to put in a decent training run. Thursday night’s run in the rain gave me a good pace for the Heart Rate compared to recent runs but I put a lot of that down to the cooling factor of the rain.
On Friday nights 18k run it was overcast and humid but no rain so ended up soaked anyway from sweat. Managed to see IHateToast along the floating walkway although by the comment she left I have been wondering whether she might be close to stalking me. Must say she was looking very dapper in her Hare Krishna skirt.
The overcast weather persisted over the weekend, so I was expecting a humid run in the Twilight Half Marathon on Sunday night and that is exactly what we got with temp 26C and 88% Humidity.
A good crowd turned out for the initial running of this event with the novel race starting time of 5:30pm. I am evening runner so I had no problems with this. My plan was to try and do 4:20 pace for a time around 1:31:25.
I got up close to the front at the start and so didn’t have much of a problem getting through the relatively small starting chute but I imagine it was a bit slow for most who were behind me. I like to run an even paced race so getting a time at the first few Km markers is handy but even though I was on the look out I didn’t see any. It was not till someone pointed out that they were painted on the road did I spy the 4k marker( 16:32) and as I suspected it was a little too fast. The next and only other marker I saw was at 6k and that showed I was pretty much now on 4:20 pace.
I managed to keep up that pace for the rest of the race and overtook a lot of runners in the second lap. I found the climb up to the Green Bridge on the way back tough but the long down hill section going back over allows a nice recovery and build up of speed to compensate.
In the end I finished with a time on my watch of 1:31.43.8 although I am a little unsure about exactly where I should have stopped my watch as the electronic timing finish was a couple of metres in front of the physical finish line. So I will be interested to see what my official net time is. The reason that I am interested is because my previous Over 50 PB was 1:31:43.7 . A measly .1 of a second over, so those extra meters could make all the difference.
In February this year I put up on the wall in my cubicle at work a list of race goals for three Halfs I would race in preparation for my winter Marathon.
1. BRRC Half Goal 4:30 pace (1:34:56) – Result 1:34:15.
2. Twilight Half Goal 4:20 pace (1:31:25) – Result 1:31:43
3. Doomben Half Goal 4:15 pace (1:29:40)
So the first a little under and the second a little over. With now 8 weeks till Doomben I am thinking I was a little conservative with my third goal. Maybe a sub 1:28 is not too much of a stretch at this stage.
Things are brewing nicely.
Picture of runner's on the second lap going out along the Corso at the Twilight Half.
