Wed 12 Jul 06, the Tan & an easy evening run

17.5km today so far and 38.5km for the week so far, 10 runs/12 days this month

Lunchtime run with the Melbourne Midday Milers , a race around the Tan in a handicap format, using known Tan times and other short and recent races. I wasn't to worried what handicap I would be given as I knew I would be handicapped slightly harder as I don't race Corporate Cup and this policy is used to stop 'ring in' times. The last time I raced the Tan was Oct 05, 14:42 which is my PB. I was hoping to get close but needed to take in account I have already had 2 days of good training which may slow me up a bit, but I was hoping.

I was about the 5-8th runner off out of 22 runners, starting from the 'Pillars', I was hoping to hit the 1k mark in 3:45 and then sub 4 min for the harder 2nd km and at the 2k mark I was still going well. The final 500m or so I was starting to become very untidy and losing form but I knew a PB was very close so I tried to fight on, hitting the line in 14:29, a 13 second PB. Very happy.

Splits: 3:42 3:59 3:46 3:01

Some added comments re this afternoon's race, I started about 15 sec behind my uncle, Gary, some readers may know him and will be interested to read he ran a SB (season's) of 14:18. This was an advantage to me, as he has a very controlled start and I like to be a bit more aggressive. I caught Gary at the 800m ish mark and move slightly ahead, he came up near me again at the top of Anderson and we stayed very close until past the 2.5k mark, where Gary just pulled slightly ahead of me. Which was great for me as I worked harder in the 3rd km trying to stay near Gary. The final km of the race there was no doubting Gary had me, but I was working hard to try and keep him close! As I said the handicapper helped me out, putting Gary in front of me, he is the King of negative splits in Western A's.

In hindsight, running the Tan regularly will help get this time down further and of course pushing a lot harder after the crest of Anderson St, which will in turn reduce that 2nd km (the key to running the Tan faster). I hope by the AV Tan Relays in mid Sep I can run a low 14 min lap.


A planned evening run along the Yarra, summary later tonight.

I left work after 5pm and ran from work, on the Tan, crossed the road to the river and then finally the 'shitty' Garmin decided to finally find the satellites after more than 1k or so. I reset and started again so I had some idea of the remainder of the trip. For the first few kms I sat between 4:50-5 min pace and was happy doing that, but by the time I got to MacRobertson Bridge I was comfortably sitting on 4:40 pace. A strange thing happened on the run home on the city side, near Chapel St I was running at 4:40-5ish pace and I pulled up alongside some rowers (who are famous on the Yarra, for those interstate) and I started to pick up the pace and the rower stayed with me, after a while I could hear the coach on the other side of the river telling the rower to stay with him, at first I didn't think anything of it, as I thought they were talking about another rower, but after a few k's I realised I was running 4:20ish pace and this was not the plan so I slowed very quickly to 5 min pace and the rower yelled, "hey don't slow down" & the coach yelled out if I had another 5 min in me, I called back and apologised as I was going way faster than I was suppose to be and needed to slow down. Well I thought it was strange! All up I ran back into the city and back onto the Tan, adding on the known 1km that the Garmin didn't register I ran over 11.5km averaging 4:39 pace, which was not the plan at all..... oh well, 4:55 average would have been better.