Thursday 26 August 2010

HARROCK HILL RACE


I was hoping for a good race, but as soon as I set off up the quarry climb i found I didn't have the legs. I could see runners I would expect to beat pull away from me, once over the top of the first climb I pulled some places back on the downhills but once again as I started the second climb I started to drop back as the legs protested!
I think the long 3 hour runs have taken the edge off my top end!
I finished in 16th place in my 32nd Harrock Hill race feeling a bit disappointed not to be able to perform at my best, but I guess I need to keep focused on my long term aim of next months Langdale Mountain Marathon. I still have a couple more weeks of marathon specific training before my taper leading up to the race on the 25th of Sept.
Conclusions; Diet, One thing I did on my London Marathon build up was take a protein drink straight after hard sessions, which really helped with recovery, must start doing that again!
Think next year after running the London Marathon will concentrate on 5k-10k training and aim at the summer hill races. Want to improve my power and speed next summer and enjoy the shorter distances.
Marius says to run well over the 5-10k distances start with 1/2 marathon training then do the 10k training cycle and then move into 5k training.
Marius says; This cycle will work really well for the 5k and 10 as the half marathon training first will improve your anaerobic threshold and you then bring this into your 10k/5k training later in the training cycle.
UPDATE
Ran 20 x 1 min tonight starting at 5.40 pace and getting faster throughout, finish with 5.18 pace, felt really strong.
think I felt sluggish in race because I didn't follow the Marius plan and run this 20 x 1 min session before the race, Marius talks a lot about muscle stiffness and tuning the muscles through fast sessions etc.
i was hoping the 3 days easy before race would get me sharp for the race but it seemed to have the opposite effect leaving me flat.
But the good news is I've still get good speed :]

CLICK ON TO ENLARGE RESULTS

sorry do not have page two yet
I WILL DO A FULL REPORT ON THE SOUTHPORT WATERLOO A/C WEBSITE AS SOON AS i HAVE THE SECOND PAGE!

2 comments:

Scott McMurtrey said...

Heck yeah you've still got good speed. :)

Ewen said...

Sorry it didn't go as well as you hoped for Rick. Good point from Marius about the sharpening session - I'll have to remember that for Melbourne.