Monday, October 08, 2007

Melbourne Marathon : 3.10.34

Was I disappointed? Should I have been disappointed? I still am not sure.

I had no real idea of what would happen in this race as since late August I have done no real sustained quality aerobic training. I have either been tapering for a marathon or in recovery mode and so the best I could have expected was to not loose to much endurance/speed. Don't get me wrong I have been happy with what has happened since Gold Coast as it has all gone according to plan as preparation for GNW.

At the start line I set a plan to stay with the 3 hour pacer for as long as I could - they entered the start and stood next to me - so I was on the bus by default.I knew I would not be able to go the distance but thought it would be nice to go quick for while. Then I planned to back off to a maintainable pace and hold it for as long as possible until the early fast start caught up with me.

The run then went very much to plan. I stayed with the 3 hour pacers until 15k and then eased very much off to run through the half in 92.45. At that time my very best finish was going to be 3.05.30. I just about held onto that pace until 35k when I slowed to take on water and then just lost the rhythm and could not get it back. That resulted on 35 minutes for the last 7.2 k and the time slipped back to put me over 3.10. Still better than the last two Melbournes that have been 3.17's.

Nice finish in the MCG. The ran back to about 34k mark and ran into the finish again with LuckyLegs. What a pleasure to be with such a detrmined runner. She would not give in and walk although it looked and sounded like she was doing it very very tough. There were tears in her eyes when she realised she would make it into the MCG before the gates were closed.

4 comments:

trailblazer777 said...

Well done!

I saw luckylegs and two other coolrunners at about 41k just before Barak bridge, (i know cos Digger told me) Iwas heading off to the Transport with Digger after my 4.10.

Tesso said...

Great work Ray! Hope you have decided that you aren't disappointed :-)

Pity the weekend went so quickly, we didn't get to catch up properly. Can't wait to have a run and a chat to make up for it.

Ewen said...

You ran well Ray - as you said, not the perfect preparation. I think I enjoyed the run back to LLs more than you did!

Good to see you again. All the best for GNW.

Horrie said...

You should be happy with that run Ray. You have maintained good form throughout the whole year. You are building nicely for GNW.