When is a PB not a PB?
When it's my 10 mile PB. I've only done two 10 mile races, and I've struggled each time. I always seem to do it on the back of a longer target race, when I've not prepared properly for it. I also seem to choose 10 mile races with horrible horrible hills, which doesn't help.
Anyway, last night I decided to do my longest post Edinburgh run yet in the Otley 10. I should be able to run 10 miles, surely? Hmm.
It was pouring with rain at the start, and even though I'd been wondering for the past week or so whether it was such a good idea to race again so soon, I decided to turn up on the basis that it would make me do something a bit longer. I really did wonder why when I saw how horrible the weather was. But all of the group I normally run with at running club were going, so if I'd opted for the shorter training run I wouldn't have had anyone to run with, and it would still have been wet. It was an evening race, which meant that I didn't really know how to prepare, and I ended up sticking to my normal weekday routine, which maybe left me a bit tireder than I would normally be for a race.
The first four miles weren't too bad. They were flat, and I was motoring along at a decent pace, but once I hit the hills (one of which had a 16% gradient sign!) I just fell apart. I started getting stomach cramps of a magnitude not experienced since Berlin, and I mentally just gave in. Because I'd never really been focussed on the race I guess it just didn't matter to me, and I thought I may as well just treat it as a training trot out. Except I don't normally walk on training runs, which is precisely what I ended up doing here.
Some of the time it wasn't even that I couldn't cope with the hills, or that my legs didn't have the energy, it was the pain in my stomach that stopped me running with any fluency. I even had to take walk breaks going downhill, which is not at all like me.
I'm not sure whether I ate too close to the race (but I did leave nearly 3 hours), or whether it was something more serious - I ate some pineapple earlier in the day which could have been past its best, but it wasn't just during the race. At 1am I woke up with horrible stomach pain and really doubted whether I'd be in a fit state to come into work today, it was so bad. I eventually got to sleep with the aid of painkillers, and even though I feel a bit better now (and was able to cycle into work), there's something not quite right there still.
Anyway, on paper I still got a 10 mile PB, but it's a bit hollow. I know that I have run 10 miles faster than that in all of my half marathons this year, as well as in the first 10 miles of Edinburgh. I know that I could do so much better than I did, but it just wasn't the night for me to do it. I've got another 10 miler in mind in August which might give me a chance to show what I can do.
But even before then my next race is more targetable. I'm doing a 10k and although it's a big race which may well be pretty crowded and not necessarily PB material, I get the impression that due to the way it's been marketed, a lot of the people running it will be novices, and it might not be so bad amongst the sub-50 runners. A bit more speedwork, and keeping up the reduced mileage might let me put in a decent performance in that one.
Anyway, last night I decided to do my longest post Edinburgh run yet in the Otley 10. I should be able to run 10 miles, surely? Hmm.
It was pouring with rain at the start, and even though I'd been wondering for the past week or so whether it was such a good idea to race again so soon, I decided to turn up on the basis that it would make me do something a bit longer. I really did wonder why when I saw how horrible the weather was. But all of the group I normally run with at running club were going, so if I'd opted for the shorter training run I wouldn't have had anyone to run with, and it would still have been wet. It was an evening race, which meant that I didn't really know how to prepare, and I ended up sticking to my normal weekday routine, which maybe left me a bit tireder than I would normally be for a race.
The first four miles weren't too bad. They were flat, and I was motoring along at a decent pace, but once I hit the hills (one of which had a 16% gradient sign!) I just fell apart. I started getting stomach cramps of a magnitude not experienced since Berlin, and I mentally just gave in. Because I'd never really been focussed on the race I guess it just didn't matter to me, and I thought I may as well just treat it as a training trot out. Except I don't normally walk on training runs, which is precisely what I ended up doing here.
Some of the time it wasn't even that I couldn't cope with the hills, or that my legs didn't have the energy, it was the pain in my stomach that stopped me running with any fluency. I even had to take walk breaks going downhill, which is not at all like me.
I'm not sure whether I ate too close to the race (but I did leave nearly 3 hours), or whether it was something more serious - I ate some pineapple earlier in the day which could have been past its best, but it wasn't just during the race. At 1am I woke up with horrible stomach pain and really doubted whether I'd be in a fit state to come into work today, it was so bad. I eventually got to sleep with the aid of painkillers, and even though I feel a bit better now (and was able to cycle into work), there's something not quite right there still.
Anyway, on paper I still got a 10 mile PB, but it's a bit hollow. I know that I have run 10 miles faster than that in all of my half marathons this year, as well as in the first 10 miles of Edinburgh. I know that I could do so much better than I did, but it just wasn't the night for me to do it. I've got another 10 miler in mind in August which might give me a chance to show what I can do.
But even before then my next race is more targetable. I'm doing a 10k and although it's a big race which may well be pretty crowded and not necessarily PB material, I get the impression that due to the way it's been marketed, a lot of the people running it will be novices, and it might not be so bad amongst the sub-50 runners. A bit more speedwork, and keeping up the reduced mileage might let me put in a decent performance in that one.
posted by YP at 8:11 PM
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