Post 147 - Scottish East District 10K championships

Immediately after the Scottish duathlon 2 weeks ago where I placed third overall, my legs felt fine. I was quite happy that I’d put out reasonably good bike power and yet still had a reasonably low heart rate in the bike leg. I went to bed on the Sunday night feeling tired but fine. I woke up on the Monday and my legs were pretty sore – specifically my IT bands. Through the day at work, I usually get up and walk around about once an hour. And on Monday, every hour I got up, they got worse and worse.

I don’t think it was the running that did it, but the bike – 3 weeks of bike training in the lead-up to the duathlon probably wasn’t enough time to re-condition my legs – I had good fitness from running but not good bike leg conditioning. So for most of the week that followed, I was in recovery mode and didn’t/couldn’t train hard.

I was entered into a 10K race 2 weeks after the duathlon. I thought surely my legs would be back to normal by then. The Scottish 10 mile road race was one week after the duathlon. I’d had a good run there last year, but I hadn’t entered it this year, thinking it was too soon after the duathlon, and wouldn’t do my 10K chances any good either in the week that followed. I’d rather focus on the 10K since my 10K PB still isn’t where it could or should be. 

I’d love to run sub-32, I've wanted to do that since I was 18 and first joined Metro Aberdeen Running Club and after a few weeks, the coach there told me "you've definitely got sub-32 in you..." At this stage I would have done well to break 40 and so this was a hell of a statement and it is one of the things that has kept me going in running all these years. I thought that currently, I probably wasn’t too far away from sub-32.

Anyway, I went over to watch/support at the 10 mile race, and did my own tempo run just before it started. Conditions were perfect but I could barely hold 6 minute mile pace for 40 minutes and for me to run well in a 10-mile race, I’d need to run sub-5:30 miles for ten miles. So it was a good call not to race the 10 miler because my legs were still suffering from the duathlon.

A Scotland East team-mate named Darrell who I beat by a minute in the mud at the UK inter-county cross-country in Loughborough a few weeks previously (over 49 minutes) absolutely blitzed the 10-miler, almost breaking 52. I congratulated him afterwards, it was a heck of a run. He said, “But you’re fitter than me!” I said, “No way would I have run a low 52!” The rational part of me I thought I might have run under 54, but not under 53. But seeing Darrell's run got the more irrational side thinking that maybe I might be in better shape than I thought, and maybe I might have a decent chance of running sub-32 at the 10K a week later (I will not be content with my running career until I’ve done sub-32).

The 10K was meant to be a decent, flat, fast course at Grangemouth and it doubled as the Scotland East District 10K championships. It was a nice day, not much wind and there was even some warmth in the air – no gloves needed! I did a warm-up, talked to a few people beforehand, met a few guys – good athletes – I’d run with in Loughborough – one on my Scotland East team and one on the Scotland West team. Darrell wasn't running. But it seemed there might be a group looking to run mid-32. Really and truly the rational side didn’t think I would get under 32 this time: I thought 32:40 or maybe even 32:30, but the irrational/silly/ambitious side kept thinking about Darrell’s time in the 10 miler and the permutations around that.

I’d hoped to run the first mile in 5:15 (i.e. “slowly”) but clocked it at 5:05 (too fast). Those ten seconds of difference don’t sound like a lot but in reality, they are huge. The most influential 10 seconds of the whole race. There were two leaders clear and a pack of maybe 6 of us behind. I tucked in and for the next two miles watched my times drop from 5:05 to 5:12 to 5:22. Poor, poor pacing. Stupid. The first mile always feels so easy, but you have to run it easier than easy, and let people go, and have faith that the race will come back to you. For me, it seems this is easier said than done.

Parts of the course were flooded and there were some twisty sections through the park, so as a group running in very close proximity, we splattered and soaked ourselves going through these sections. It wasn't great having soaked feet. Oh well. The race goes on. I started to lose strength. Fighting to hang on and keep pace. Had I done my first two miles in 5:15, I’m sure I’d have felt strong at this point. Sub 32 was out the window. I fell a little bit back off the group but just kept ploughing on. I at least wanted to run a PB and a sub-33. But this was now hard, hard work.

I've seen enough photos of me running to know 

that this is me not looking good

We turned back towards the athletics stadium where the finish was, and there were a few welcome shouts from clubmates who were spectating. It makes such a difference. I had managed to regain contact with the group and my miles had metronomically stabilised at 5:22 pace. I knew we would soon double back away from the stadium again, and this twisty and tight section was through a park, so it was difficult to keep rhythm. With the slowing and accelerating around the corners, the strong runners were evident as they could deal with it better and it started to string out. I passed a guy at the back of the stadium and took fifth place. Then just before we got onto the track for the finishing stretch someone came blitzing past us like he was running a 100m sprint. I was down to sixth. The guy I had passed hadn’t given up on it and was right behind me. There were East District medals at stake here.

Into the stadium and onto the home straight there were three of us fighting it out. I had enough left to raise it enough to maintain my position and crossed the line in 32:52. A new PB and a sub-33 clocking but in all honesty a disappointingly-executed race. I had been hoping for a much faster time. Oh well. I can’t complain. I didn’t execute the race well, and I hadn’t trained specifically for this race (having been back on the bike and doing triathlon training for the past 5-6 weeks). If I want to run a sub-32 10K, I need to train to run a sub-32 10K. I can’t bluff it. I didn't deserve it. The problem now is that I have no idea when my next fully focused 10K will be. 2020?

Chatting to a few other people afterwards, it seemed that people were finishing a bit slower than they’d hoped. The course wasn’t quite as fast as I’d hoped. Any running sharpness I might have had in my legs earlier in the year had been dulled a little by the bike training. Oh well. At the prizegiving, I found out that although I was sixth overall finisher, I was the third Scotland East District finisher so picked up a bronze medal for that. Probably not on merit as I'm sure there were quite a few people that would have beaten me that were elsewhere on the day. But, that's racing. That's how it goes. 

I headed home. The afternoon was spent watching F1, Masters golf, and eating croissants. I even had a Guinness. I saw some Paris-Roubaix highlights on the internet and found out later that a 23-year old rider had died following a crash on the cobblestones. I've ridden the Flanders route on the cobblestones and they are brutal. Cycling is a tough, tough sport.

Next up is the Galashiels sprint triathlon in a week. Not a lot of recovery time, but I’ve decided I want to do 4 of the Scottish Borders Triathlon races to place in the overall series. I think there are maybe 7 races in total but for various reasons I can only make 4 of them, and you have to do 4 to place in the overall series. Three out of my four are sprint races and one little target I have is to try to win a sprint race, following my win at the Bristol Olympic distance triathlon in 2016. It would be good to win at both of the "shorter" distances. So to try and do this, I have to enter and compete in sprint distance races where maybe otherwise I'd decide that they are too short to fit in with the year's main goal of the Edinburgh half Ironman, and that one might be enough rather than three.

I confess I am very nervous about the bike leg in Galashiels – I have colleagues who live in Galashiels and who say the roads are in terrible condition after the harsh winter. So much so that I might not even use my triathlon bike and do it on the road bike instead. We will see…

Training done was as follows:

Mon 26 March: Rest
Tue 27 March: Swim 2.4km (paddles/band/pullbuoy drills)
Wed 28 March: 1 hour turbo
Thu 29 March: 40 min fartlek run
Fri 30 March: 2:10 turbo (180W/115bpm)
Sat 31 March: 1:45 turbo (1,2,4,6,8,8,6,4,2,1 interval pyramid)
Sun 1 April: 80 min run (7 miles hard)

Totals: Swim 2.4km, Bike 95 miles, Run 17 miles

Mon 2 April: Swim 2.6km (10 lengths easy/10 hard throughout)
Tue 3 April: 1:30 turbo (151W/98bpm)
Wed 4 April: 45 min fartlek run (5 x 2/2)
Thu 5 April: Rest
Fri 6 April: 30 min turbo, 20 min run
Sat 7 April: 20 min run
Sun 8 April: Grangemouth 10K, 32:52 (5:05, 5:12, 5:21, 5:22, 5:22, 5:21, 1:11)

Totals: Swim 2.6km, Bike 40 miles, Run 18 miles