Photo from Mount Royal, Frisco, Colorado.

"That is happiness; to be disolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep." - Willa Cather

Sunday 21 April 2013

BT Halvmarathon

Per, Jimmy and Ole from our athletic club, HGATM.
 So yeah, back in January, Ole convinced me I could run a 1:25 at BT half marathon (today) and because of that expected finish time I was put in the elite group (with the above guys) and they were rightfully laughing at my presence. And I made it clear I knew I didn't belong there, but anyway.
Note absence of Gamnin. And, guys, I swear those are super strong abs and not a pot belly. .. 
Soon we sang "Sweet Caroline" in honor of Boston. 
Nice start photo by Jeppe Bjørn Vejlø. 

Anyone want to wager a guess as to which of the above people won? (Hint it was not 1807, but she was the wife of the guy who won and she took 4th for the women in a sweet 1:20:13)



A fantastic view of the start by Mikkel Barker.

There was no reason for today to not be my day, but it was not. I felt it as I was warming up. I had tapered, followed my training plan exactly, but I just didn't feel it.

My excuse du jour is this:
"Many of the female runners I’ve coached have experienced their worst training days in the few days leading up to and including menstruation" says James Karp, PhD in exercise physiology, on Uber Mother Runner. He goes on to say women perform their best when estrogen is at it's peak.

At the end of the race, it was no surprise that Aunt Flo had just paid a visit.

So maybe, I could have run a couple minutes faster had progesterone not been working against me, but clearly there were other reasons I did not PR.

My 5k split was good: 20:32. But then the stomach "cramps". Of course, as explained, this pain is related to the McKenzie back extensions I have been doing. And it sux. Even before 10k I wanted to drop. Dang, this was not good. I was not having fun. But I decided this would not be about having fun or getting a PR, but simply getting a good training run in since I paid for this race and SR and his parents were being so extremely generous by watching the kids.

I came through 10k in 41:58. I drank and used a sponge. It was pretty warm today. I then ate a gel and started to pep up. The pain in my right side eased up. Thank goodness. But the tightness I guess had to go somewhere and it moved back into my right leg. And the sound of my right foot pounding against the pavement sounded terrible.

15k split: 1:04:11. Slowing significantly. We had a tail wind at this point. I had hoped to use it, but couldn't muster up any sort of fight.

Then my legs just wanted to give up. Am I having fun yet? NOOOOO!

THEN, (and I had heard the route was flat and fast), we entered a section of hilly trails! Hello? I remember saying at some point that I "loved trails". Well, hmmm. Just not right now, please?!

Meanwhile - the winners:
Elasri Ebderrahim in 1:04:58 and Sara Sig Møller in 1:15:09

I picked it up for the last 1km. Somewhere I found strength. I was probably still angry at the anonymous person who wrote the comment "jackass" on this blog last night (on the post about gun control). Or maybe I was just happy because it was almost over. 

Final time was 1:31:29. Honestly, folks I shouldn't complain since it is my second fastest half marathon. But not what I expected. Maybe the 60k took more speed out of my legs than I had imagined. Notably, Dorthe Dahl (the first place woman at Fyr til Fyr) ran nearly 4 minutes slower than she did last year (she ran a 1:24 something). I hope this doesn't come off as selfish or mean of me- but it was kind of comforting to know that maybe we were in the same boat, struggling to get our speed back after the ultra.

Pia Joan Sørensen (2nd place female at Fyr til Fyr), on the other hand, just ran the 3rd fastest 100km by a woman in Danish history: 8:34-something. She would have won for the women yesterday at the Mad City 100km USATF championships, just to put this in perspective! Amazing race, Pia!!

Pia- grabbing a snack on her way to an 8:34 100k in Albertslund
Running Song of the Day:

Everything is embarrassing by Sky Ferreira 



5 comments:

Rikke said...

Such fun to read about your race today:-) I was there and my experience was very
similar to yours. I ran just behind you for a while on the last part of the route (at 17-18 km?) and I actually noticed the sound of "your foot pounding against the pavement". Yes, that sounded terrible;-)

sea legs girl said...

Hi Rikke! Thanks for writing! That is quite funny (and not good!) that you noticed my foot. If your last name starts with E - I think I found you on the results! Awesome time. Though I'm sorry if your experience was similar to mine!

PiccolaPineCone said...

Jackass? really? what are we, in third grade? Honestly, you almost have to feel sorry for someone like that who is so obviously enraged but so obviously deficient in intelligence or verbiage that they are completely unable to make any kind of intelligible point and so are left with nothing more than school yard insults. You almost feel sorry for someone like that... or else you resort to my third grade insult of choice - jackasshole!

Ok, seriously, what is up with the string of not feeling good on race day... it totally makes sense what you said, onset of menses and ultra last week-end, these certainly add up to not feeling great during a half marathon but I do think you should be keeping a log of variables in the days before you race to look for greater patterns - food, sleep, hydration, training... you never seem to catch a break!! I don't think the 1:25 is at all unrealistic and yes, you DID belong there.

mmmonyka said...

My tri coach keeps track of her cycle and how it affects her training/racing and she has found out that her performance a few days before and the first one-two days of her period is way below what she can normally do. Thus it is a legitimate excuse (well, it is not really an excuse. It is real!) for some women.




Karen said...

Aunt Flo isn't just an excuse. I struggle horribly the 2 days before and first two days of my period. Always. I'm running a marathon in two weeks so I was really excited to get cramps and my period this morning so there won't be problems on race day :)

That combined with running an ultra the week before probably did you in. I think you still had a great time!