| 0-5k | 0:22:52 | 0:04:34 |
| 5k-10k | 0:20:42 | 0:04:08 |
| 10k-15k | 0:20:50 | 0:04:10 |
| 15k-20k | 0:21:12 | 0:04:14 |
| 20k-25k | 0:21:51 | 0:04:22 |
| 25k-30k | 0:23:14 | 0:04:39 |
| 30k-35k | 0:22:39 | 0:04:32 |
| 35k-40k | 0:23:37 | 0:04:43 |
| 40k-42k | 0:11:03 | 0:05:01 |
I guess they tell their own story pretty well. Lost about 2 minutes in the first 5k, and all of that in the first 2k. If I was going to have a good day though, that 15-20k split should have stayed down around 4:10 or 4:11 pace, and I should have stayed fairly comfortable up to at least 25k. The set-in of discomfort in my legs around 18k was the sign that the gamble wasn't going to pay off. The slower 25-30k split was due to a 1-minute toi-toi break. That is now my third marathon in a row where this has happened after getting through the first three unscathed. And then things get a bit ugly over the last 12 km. I think at least a small part of the drift over the final 12 km was due to some mental capitulation once I knew that even a really ball and leg busting exertion would only get me a couple more seconds per km...nowhere near enough to salvage the torpedoed goals.
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10 comments:
I wonder how it would have been with a smooth unimpeded start? You don't need a shot of adrenaline 2k into a marathon.
The final 12k drift is understandable. Pretty hard to kill yourself when only racing against the clock for a 3:0X.
There's always Nagano ;)
Yes two minutes faster in the first 5K and 3 minutes faster over the last 15K would have seen you set for a final sprut over the last 2 kms and a sub 3hr time.
I'm convience that the above is realistic with a slight change in crowd and weather, so don't go changing your training much from last time it would be like throwing the proverbial "baby out with the bath water."
Hey mate - being completely selfish about this (given my big dance is coming up) - how much (if any) of a role did those last couple of longish runs have +ve, -ve or nuetral.
Also re: the toi-toi break I discovered that once I started taking carb loading seriously I had to stop during long events too and that apart from the time loss it could also be quite painful - so now days I don't carb load on the day before just eat normally and restrict physical activity - works for me :-)
Thanks for sharing the splits - every one of them is faster than my last 6 months 5k PB!!!
I'm keen on seeing the answers to 2Ps questions :-)
Those middle splits are great, I wouldn't mind snaffling a couple of them for my next 5k race.
OK Tesso, well, I did in fact reply to 2P off-blog because I'm not sure if people will re-visit post commenst. Anyway, here is what I said. There isn't much in it for you despite the length.
****Email to 2P ***
Thanks toops,
mate, the pure and honest answer is, I dunno! I really don't. What you do on the day is a function of all the last weeks and months and years of training. I seemed to be aerobically really ready to rock 'n roll, but somehow my legs didn't hold up. So you ask yourself why. And given that I was aerobically comfortable even when I couldn't generate any more speed from fatigued legs, the role of the long runs starts to loom large in the questioning. And it is exactly the same questions: did I do the last ones too close, or did I taper too hard?
I have to be honest and say that given that some of my better long training runs, or even the half marathon a few weeks before the race, have came at the ends of long training weeks, I am starting to swing back towards the idea that maybe I (and it can vary so much from person to person and race type to race type) I tapered too hard, or that I was short of a long run or two on those weekends in January. Or maybe it was just the convergence of a few minor factors: the cold, the crowds, slight over-pacing early on...to the point that the long runs had no major influence one way or the other. If there was one thing that might have been lacking, and this probably doesn't translate well to Six Foot, was a couple of longish race pace runs, up to 30 km or so, at the target pace of say, 4:10/km. I had them leading into Ohtawara in November, though for a slower race pace, and my adjusted Tokyo time was almost the same as that anyway...
I guess that is still a long way of saying I dunno. Sorry to be so unhelpful. If you tied me to a wall and held lit candles to my feet for an answer, I suppose I would go with saying that doing the final long runs gives me a degree of mental confidence such that I wouldn't feel comfortable NOT doing them. If that makes sense.
Good luck with the final long, frustrating, confusing days of the taper.
And maybe it all depends on your day's form in the end...
We're complex systems after all. Otherwise we'd be still crawling around like amoebas. The point I am trying to make is that sometimes it's just impossible to pin it down - and then it helps to blame it on the day's form, which may even be true!
Old man, what's your running doing? It's been a week without a post!
again, congrats for your race!
btw: are you doing a long run on sunday morning? (csom - AT SIGN - gmx AND HERE A DOT ch)
Ah, here you are...hopefully your recovery is going well. Nice run, sorry your legs went for a nap at the end. Next time.
Cheers!
They're damn impressive stats to me, Stephen. Consistent pacing is the key to so much of this distance running business. But just when you think you have got it all sorted out, it can still come unstuck.
As you have noted in your comments to 2P, so many factors can come into play. You are a very intelligent runner and the fundamentals seem very sound to me.
Yes, Steve (following up on Ingo's comment), you kind of got us into this bloggery, don't leave us hanging.
I hope you aren't suffering from the marathoner's equivalent of post-partum depression.
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