Thursday, April 14, 2016

Manchester Afterthoughts

There isn't an awful lot to say, really. I missed my target by a fairly small margin but I had gotten over that within a minute of finishing and haven't been dwelling on it. The fact that Manchester was not my main goal for the year definitely helped, no doubt about it.

I've learned a few things from a few mistakes I made during training, and maybe I'll still remember them for my next training cycle, if I ever target another marathon, that is. The race itself was very well executed I think. The one mistake I made was not to react at mile 21 when I realised that runners were starting to go past me and instead wait for another 2 miles until the pacer finally caught up to me. If the pacer had been on target that may actually have worked but he wasn't. Mind, I do not blame the pacer at all: I ran too slowly and that is the one and only reason why I did not break 3 hours.

I think the organisers should definitively deploy more than one pacer per time band, though. Not only does it help to spread out the group, the pacers can keep an eye on each other to ensure they remain on pace, two very crucial things.

Anyway, let's move on. My next marathon is only 3 weeks away (2-and-a-half at this stage), in Limerick. I haven't decided yet what pace I'm going to target; in fact I may well wait until a mile into the race and then make a decision depending on how the legs feel.

Recovery is going pretty well. My weight has shot up by a few pounds, as it does after every marathon, and I expect that to come down again in a few days. Monday's run wasn't much fun and Tuesday maybe even less so, but I got through them, though I had to cut them both down to 4 miles due to lack of time. However I already felt worlds better on Wednesday, which would explain why the pace was entire minuter per mile faster. It was enough to extend the mileage to 8 on Thursday, once again feeling a bit better, though I can clearly feel the effects of the marathon, even if they are diminishing. The pace/HR numbers have jumped up spectacularly already, let's hope that's not a false reading.

Right now I'm taking it day by day. There isn't time to do any real training before Limerick so I'll just try and not do anything particularly stupid in the meantime.

11 Apr
4 miles, 36:49, 9:12 pace, HR 136
12 Apr
4 miles, 37:12, 9:18 pace, HR 131
13 Apr
5 miles, 40:39, 8:08 pace, HR 141
14 Apr
8 miles, 1:04:06, 8:01 pace, HR 139

2 comments:

  1. Pacers not being on target is very frustrating! I had the same experience at my last race. Wishing you a great race at Limerick!

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  2. I have learned that pacers, though kindly souls, are often more trouble than they are worth. Nothing worse for me than going through a mid-run sticky patch and losing pace with a pacer making it mentally all the harder even if eventually I get through the patch what I want from the event.

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