Orange Marathon: 4.59.31

Nice surprise result for this one.

Orange is about a 3 half hour drive west of Sydney. I left about 11.00 am after a cruisy morning at home.

That was after a nice dash around the Bay run before sunrise. I couldn’t resist the nice cool start to the morning with very light drizzle.  The Bay lap is 6.92k to be exact. Under 40 minutes for the first time this year but then again I rarely run one lap as quick as I can.

Nice late lunch in Blackheath and so arrive late afternoon.

The start was at 6.30 am with the sun just rising. The temperature at 13 with some cloud cover was perfect for running. It stayed that way most of the run and the weather for me at least never became an issue.

I ran according to my heart rate. I have calculated my lactate threshold (LT) with a heart rate of 154. Not my maximum. So on my current running theory I try to run between 125 – 130. By running within that range (130 being 80% of LT) I should in theory be able to run without putting too much stress on the body and to be able to run endlessly (well not quite) but run for some hours.

I train 80% of my runs within this range.

This was my first road marathon that I tried to put this theory in practice. That required me to only look at my heart rate on the Garmin only and to ignore the resulting pass. That took some concentration as it is easy to slowly increase the heart rate above the 130 and particularly on hills when the effort increases although the pace slows.

I might post more about LT and heart rate soon.

This course is out an back and is NOT I repeat NOT FLAT. It has continual rises and falls and while not really any steep hills but long fatiguing inclines. They take the pace out of your legs soon and so you need strength to run this marathon. What is needed is the ability to quickly recover after the up to deal with down hill.

I don’t usually get too technical but this time I thought I would.

Splits: 2.26 and then 2.33. My average heart rate was 135 (because I intentionally pushed in the second half) and maximum 154.

Race plan: run at HR 130 average to halfway and then slowly increase it on the way home. I managed that well and I think that is why I had a good time.

5k splits/average Pace and average HR for the split

33.56 @ 6.47            129

33.35 @ 6.47            130

35.07 @ 7.01            130

34.29 @ 6.53            131

35.16 @ 7.03            135

36.33 @ 7.18            137

37.36 @ 7.31            138

36.17 @ 7.15            140

16.17 @ 6.43            148

The plan worked as planed. I am sure the strong second half was possible by the patient and controlled first half.