2014 Year in Review

An inconsistent year, but with a really good patch in the middle

Jan - Burswood Twilight 5k 17:57 - actually a pretty good run on a very hot day, just before flying out on holiday
Feb - holidy/flu on return, gradual return to training
March - Darlington HM 1:22:35 - OK run on the day but still a way off top form
April - Bridges 10k 36:56  - improving
May -Perth 32k 2:06:34
June - Perth Marathon 2:49:00. New PB and well executed race - definitely my run of the year

July -holiday with not a great deal of running
August - back into some training about 70k per week
September - knee injury and time off
October - more time off
November - Deepwater Pt 7.5k 29:24, Penninsula 10k 39:24 - struggling to break 4min/k,
December - Founders 10 miler 1:05:20, City Beach 8k 30:48

As I wrote about at the time, the late year races were partly in a vain effort to win the club age group champs. I still have a small chance of winning - my VDOT average was lower than the other 2 competitiors, but only by a small amout - a couple of seconds per km equivalent in a 10k race. I have the head to heads in my favour, and the balance of having run a wider range of distances - including 42 and 32, whilst most of Evan's were 10k or less.  More important than the outcome is that it gave me a goal and some motivation.



I've started finding some form and rhythm just in the last week or two of the year, so hopefully good things await... The knee is much better, and my persisting achilles issue seems manageable

My goals for 2015 are the same as 2014 -
No injuries
Sub 36min 10k, sub 17 min 5k, Sub 2:49 Marathon.

WAMC City Beach 8k 2014

4th week, 4th race. I'm improving a little but it feels very slow progress.
To me this confirms my belief that I (and most people), benefit much more from high volume training, rather than the 60-70km weeks I've been doing. If the knee allows, I'll push up to 100km per week over the next month and see how much faster I can get.

Once again it was a pretty poorly paced run by me. Apart from just being bad by me, I think I'm accustomed to having a big endurance base and being able to finish strong, whereas recently I have nothing in the tank.

3:34/3:43/3:46/3:49/3:51 - so about 18:45 through 5k
I knew I'd blown it pacing wise, managed one more km in 3:49 before walking through the 6k drink station to allow 3 guys to catch me. I then tacked onto them to finish out the last 2k - 4:08/3:48

30:48 to finish - still pretty slow but improving (VDOTs for the 4 races - 52.26,52.87,52.86,53.58)

WAMC Founders 10 miler 2014

Third Sunday race in a row - a while since I've done that. On the back of another 60k run, Sat am bike ride week, this week with one tempo interval session on Tuesday

I lined up at the start and realised my Garmin was out of batteries - it had not been contacting well with the charger this week which sometimes causes this. So no idea of my pacing except at 5.1 and 10.6km when I passed the start/finish timer.

I tries to set out conservatively, and hit 5.1k bang on 20 minutes - about 25 sec ahead of my 4min/km goal. I started to struggle on the second lap, especially into the breeze and up the small inclines, such that they are around Perry Lakes. There was daylight ahead this whole section so not much to focus on.

10.6k in 22:30 - pretty much back to 4min/km but struggling. Luckily I was passed at this point and focussed on staying near him for as long as possible, getting me to the 13k drink station where I walked for 10sec to take a drink (it was warming up quickly). There was nobody close behind me, so I got back and focussed on maintaing some rhythm through to the finish.

I came through just over 1:05 for the 16.1km, losing 35sec or so in the last 5k with an overall average about 4:02min/km.

Happy enough with slow progress - even if this was slower than marathon pace 5 months ago.

Unfortunately my upset stomach has been an issue all week and the rest of the day was no exception - hoping it will improve in the next few weeks.

One more race in this sequence - 8k at City Beach next week before planning to lift the mileage thereafter.

Penninsula 10k Race

Another week back running, although it was all at a fairly easy pace due to a flare of knee pain after last week's race. I toyed with the idea of skipping the race today, but as alluded to last week, still hold a faint glimmer of hope of winning my age group in the club champs.

Nice day for running with a fairly gentle ESE'erly. My legs felt pretty heavy again. Both these races I've done a 2hr ride the day before, which isn;t too taxing aerobically, but does work my legs quite hard given very little cycling training. Maybe next week I'll skip the Saturday ride.

I thought I'd gone out conservatively but 3:40/3:50/3:50 tells me it was a bit fast (although km 1 was wind aided). I was pleased to see Evan opt for the 5k, hopefully making me 1st in 40-45 for this race.

The rest of the race was a bit of a struggle, all km's close to 4:00 except one, 4:10 when I tweaked the knee a little going up the ramp to Windan Bridge and walked/hobbled for 50m before getting going again on the flat.

Came in about 39:24. Pleased enough with this given my form and last week's dismal effort.


So on to the tight race for 40-44yo club championship. One needs to compete in a minimum of 8 qualifying events to be eligible. There appears to be 3 of us closely contending this year. (To be honest this is  because the faster runners are either just outside the age category or didn't run many races this year - this is likely my one window of opportunity for some years).

The contenders are Evan Kolbe, who appears to have run 7 eligible events so far, Robert Kay, who has run many more than needed, and myself, with 6.

Adjusting pace by distance of race using VO2max/Vdot tables, I'm averaging  56.28, RK 56.07 and EK 55.94. Unfortunately with the pace I'm running at the end of the season, my average will go down. For RK I've picked his top 8 races  - he ran a number much more slowly which would reduce the average if included.

There are lots of other variables which might be considered -eg type of races, head-to-head results, number of first places in AG.

In the end I need to make it through a 16k next week and 8k the following. I'll be happy just to finish them, and in the end the club championship doesn't really mean much, it's more a fun distraction.

Hopefully another race report next week.

Deepwater Point 7.5k race

As usual in recent times, I've neglected the blog. Who still blogs anyway? 2005 called and asked for it's blog back.

I recently went back and read some posts from the past, whilst I was struggling with injury, and realised it's nice to be able to look back and relive my running, beyond just a result time or an entry on Strava.

So after the Marathon I had some downtime, went on a holiday (yet another cruise on the med) and returned retaining pretty good form. Eyeing off the Bold Park XCountry race I started running some hilly loops in Bold Park. Clearly I did too much too soon and on 13th Sept, running the third 10 miler in 3 days, developed sudden right knee pain, which I couldn't run through.

My knee swelled in the next few hours and it seemed pretty clear I'd injured my cartilage again, in very similar circumstances to the injury to the left knee in 2010, which required surgery. After a week off, I tried running on and off over the next month, each time flaring things up a bit. In the end I realised I had to take some time off entirely, which luckily coincided first with a Broome trip, then with a 2 week viral infection and finally with moving house (again), all of which distracted me from my natural desire to run no matter what.

Three full weeks off, and now I've been running again for a fortnight. I've done about 80km each week - pretty much all flat. I've tried hard to up my cadence and land under my centre of gravity, to reduce the load on the patellofemoral joint. I've also been working hard on my weak glutes and crossover gait. I've also been struggling with some left sided achilles tendonitis but this seems manageable with some eccentric exercises

It was really too early to return to a race today, but I still have a small chance of winning the 40-45yo age group for WAMC this year, but have only done 5 races, needing a minimum of eight. Today I needed to run the 15k to count as a championship race.

Pretty early on I knew I didn't have the legs or fitness to race 15k. not surprising given my training runs back have all been about 10k. In fact, at the pace i was running I didn't have the legs/fitness to run 7.5k. I made it to 5k in 18:53 and was knackered. I walked for 30sec then ran the rest closer to 4min/k, finishing with 28:34 running time and 29:08 race time.

I'm about 15-20sec/km off my peak pace at the moment. interestingly though my training paces are much closer to normal, there's just much less between easy pace and race pace at the moment. The prospect of winning the age group seems less and less likely, especially seeing Evan Kolbe (my rival for this) finish a long way ahead of me today. I need to run each of the three remaining races this year to qualify - 10k, 16k and 8k on the next 3 Sundays, and would probably need to beat Evan if he runs them also. I might go into the specifics of the competition next time.

Perth Marathon 2014

Perth Marathon has been run & done, my 10th in a row.

Lead up had been good - I'd run 110-120km/week, with cycling on Saturdays for cross training.
As noted before I focussed on more pace specific workouts in my long runs and long intervals on tuesday nights.

I tapered with 110/80/40km 3, 2 and last 6 days

Unfortunately in the last 2 weeks I devleoped some recurrent pes anserinus bursitis, which I injected with steroid/local anaesthetic but continued to bother me on my last few runs.

After last year's vomiting issue, I decided to stay as I do in training and take water/snakes only.

We moved house in the days leading up to the marathon, with Thurs/Fri night in a hotel and Sat night the first in the new house after a full day of unpacking. The positive of this was no anxious ruminations in the leadup and a good/exhausted night sleep the night before.

Conditions were perfect - about 5 degrees C and a light-medium easterly building during the day. Due to path works, the course changed this year with 2 laps and a total of 4 crossings of the Narrows Bridge the only hill.


No warmup, and I realised at the start line I'd forgot my IPod - was probably a good thing to focus more on the run. Took things out at a bit faster than MP - felt comfortable without being overly fast.
10k splits 38:42/39:40/39:45. I found a pretty good rhythm and km splits though the middle 25k were extremely even.

The medial knee/pes anserine pain was there in the first 10k and last 2k, but not the rest of the race and never really affected my gait.

A downside of the increasing popularity was that this year they didn't even try to find/give you your personalised drink, so I stuck with water and my snakes - taking a snake every 3k or so after 15k. Much better stomach wise than other recent marathons

Turning with 10.5k to go we hit a bit of a headwind, and the pace slowed just a touch with a 4:06 and a couple of 4:00s. I think I was lulled into a false sense of security - my gamin was now 400m behind the marked and despite saying 3:56 average pace i was back to 4:00s in reality.

Coming into the last 5k i was feeling OK. I hadn't needed to draw into the well of pain yet, and from past experience I know I can sustain 20 min of pain before starting to wilt. I perhaps left it just a little too long to break away from my group of 3 and speed up for the finish. 4:02/3:58 and 700m at 3:45 pace saw me passing under the finish line in just a hair under 2;49 - although my official time was 2:49:00.

So about 12 seconds from my goal pace, but I can't complain. I felt my usual post race nausea despite immediately taking ondansetron and gastrostop, and I didn't have it in me to last until the presentations.

My 10th Perth Marathon was definitely the best - not just in time but execution, and I'm now happily at a point where i'd be comfortable to finish my marathon running career with this as a PB.

Perth 32k 2014

Update time. I've completed a decent training block over recent weeks. Capped with a 2:06:30 at the Perth 32k yesterday

I've changed a couple of things this time. I'm running about 115k a week, taking saturdays off running and doing a 2hr/60k cycle instead.
The focus of my running has been a trend toward marathon specificity - faster long runs, long intervals, longer runs in general.

Sample week
Monday 14k @4:25
Tues am 14k@4:25
Tues pm 17k with 4x3k at 103% Marathon pace and 500m float recovery (whole session 13.5k at 3:50 av)
Wed off
Thurs 20k medium run 4:20
Fri 14k easy
Sat 60k ride
Sun 32k@4:20

On to the 32k race. Meant as a dress rehearsal for the marathon, but to be honest it's hard to be so. I wasn't anxious/hyped up about it, and didn't take a taper of note other than skipping my Saturday ride. Spaghetti bol sat night, banana sun morning.

I set out conservatively, aiming for 3:55-4:00s throughout the run. Apart from a the first 2k being just over 4's, the rest were under. I have moved to a simpler nutrition strategy with simple lollies (natural confectionery dinosaurs) every 2.5-3k from the 15k mark, and just water to drink.

5k splits: 19:59, 19:38, 19:22, 19:31, 19:50, 19:38, final 2k at 3:48 pace.

I ran alone for the majority of the race, but had Rob in sight the whole way - he was 200m ahead by the 10k mark, got out to a full minute up, then I pulled back to finish about 100m back in the end.

Really kept controlled the whole way, didn't have to dig into the pain bank, and finished strong.
4 minutes faster than last year and i feel things are on track for the marathon. i've decided not to run the Joondalup HM this year - I ran really well there last year but don't want that to be my peak race rather than the marathon. I will be running the 12k HBF run though.