Ohtawara Wrap

Thanks for the well wishes on the last post.

The weather turned out to be very good, if a little cold at about 8 degrees with a light wind. It was touch and go whether to wear a long sleeved shirt but I stuck with a singlet and gloves. That was a good choice because I never wished I was wearing more and never wished I was not wearing the gloves. I wore my footpod but not my heart rate monitor, mainly, in the end, because I just didn't want the constriction on my chest and wanted to be as unencumbered as possible.

Basically, I decided to go out at a pace that would give myself a chance at a good time...around 2:57 pace, which I thought would give a couple of minutes in the bank to allow for any fade. While I thought my pacing was pretty well executed, the first 10 km was probably a little too fast, closer to 2:55 pace, and at the end of the day, I can only conclude that it was a bit over-ambitious given my condition. Nevertheless, I was feeling quite OK at the halfway mark, then had to have a No. 2 toilet break between half and 25k (48 seconds). From 25k to 30k I actually still felt OK, but my legs were starting to fatigue and I was getting ominous twinges in both calves. As that 5k split slipped to 4:15/km I was really not too worried because I didn't think I was tiring so much. Then, during 30-35k, bang, I just watched my pace slide. This section is slightly uphill, then 35-40 is even a little more uphill and it was a real struggle. My legs were heavy and threatening to cramp with every attempt to pick up my leg speed. I felt frustrated and helpless because I didn't feel that bad; my legs simply wouldn't do what I needed them too. I realized that my pace had slipped so far that my buffer was going to get eaten up very quickly. Going through the "5k to go" point I realized I'd have to run almost 4min/km flat to get under 3 hours, and my legs were clearly not up to that. So I knew it was gone and then it was a question of whether to back right off and just shuffle in to try and preserve my legs for a quicker post-race recovery, or whether to do all I could to still give my best time under the conditions. I went more for the latter and just ran it in as best I could without quite killing myself.

In the end, I was quite accepting of the result. I took a little bit of a gamble with the pacing and didn't do too much wrong on that basis. I think if I'd gone out at 4:15 pace neat, the splits would have been more even, but there still would have been some fade and the end time not much different. So ultimately I just wasn't quite in the shape I thought I was...perhaps. It gives me a lot of food for thought about how to prepare now for Tokyo, and then, how to run it.

Race breakdown

Section	Distance	Split	Duration	Pace
0-5k	5	0:20:47	0:20:47	0:04:09
5k-10k	5	0:41:28	0:20:41	0:04:08
10k-15k	5	1:02:33	0:21:04	0:04:13
15k-20k	5	1:23:49	0:21:16	0:04:15
20k-21.1k	1.1	1:28:15	0:04:26	0:04:02
21.1k-toilet	2.4	1:38:10	0:09:55	0:04:08
toilet break	0.1	1:38:58	0:00:48	0:08:00
toilet-25k	1.45	1:44:54	0:05:56	0:04:06
25k-30k	5	2:06:08	0:21:14	0:04:15
30k-35k	5	2:28:36	0:22:29	0:04:30
35k-40k	5	2:53:09	0:24:32	0:04:54
40k-42.2k	2.2	3:04:01	0:10:51	0:04:56