And I’m sure to be on the competitive jerks thread, you do actually have to compete. When was the last time you raced again?

You would have to ask the OP that question as I didn’t start the thread.

I am quietly confident that I can get into PR shape again for CIM.  Stay tuned. 👍

I’ve text CommanderKeen twice and no response. His wife is crewing him and I can’t find any sort of tracking. Not shocked since I think there are less than 30 total runners in this event.

Southern Lakes Half Marathon, 6 May

Honestly I'm still surprised I even made the start line for this one. Wife's pregnancy has been much tougher than the first time around. and I've been doing practically everything around the house and looking after our 6 year old the last couple months as my wife's been in and out of hospital a few times. Thank god for the in-laws (never thought I'd say that) who greenlighted this trip.  After missing Waterfront HM due to being sick, I would've been disappointed to miss this as there's few other decent road races until spring.

And it was great to be back in Wanaka, the best place in the world.  This is a race that normally gets pretty optimal race conditions, on a fun course with beautiful scenery.  Honestly it's only a matter of time before these sorts of events that run on roads still open to traffic get shut down (the most famous road relay course in the country was the latest victim), so you gotta enjoy them while they last.

I ran 1:09 a couple years ago here in possibly the best race I've ever run, and 1:12 last year in what was definitely not the best race I've ever run.  I don't have a time goal this year, and my only objectives are to run well and have fun.  Juggling all the above with training and a pretty demanding job over the last while has been a lot.  With the second kid on the way I know training will probably take a bit of a hit, and it's going to be about running the best race I can rather than focusing on time goals.  That being said, I did somehow manage to keep more or less to the plan training wise over the last month.

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the wind, which was not a great start.  But who knows what it's like further up the valley?  On the bus, I had a good chat to a guy, Cam, who is off to that super famous ultra event in France, so there are obviously some solid runners around today (he ended up coming 2nd).

The temps are definitely warmer than in previous years, and unseasonably so for autumn here.  I've been cursed with rubbish warm, windy weather the last month and it looks like I may have brought it with me.  On the start I see Caden Shields, who missed the course record by 1 second a few years ago and is having another go today.

Duck shooting season has just started.  As we're waiting for the start, we hear a gunshot from a duckshooter, a few people false start and everyone laughs.

Anyway then we actually start and Caden takes off, followed by a guy in tights (way too warm for that!), and then Cam.  I catch up to Cam and we ran the first 3-4km together, alternating a km each leading.  The first few km felt pretty good although I'm already sweating so it's obviously warm.  Rhythm feels good although the breeze is a bit evident from around km 3 as the valley widens out a bit.  Then Cam picked it up a bit around km 5 and started to build a bit of a lead.  After those fast first couple of km, I decide not to risk it and stick to doing my own thing.

Then the wind started to get rough in places, and went from mildly annoying to significant.  I stuck to the same effort but the pace definitely suffered a little.  I was trying not to look at the splits a la Darkwave but I knew they were getting a little slower.  The course is downhill but there are a few rollers, although these almost provided a little respite from the breeze and I felt pretty good on the way up them (mostly).  The last couple years my wife and daughter have been at this race supporting, and there's a few spots where I remember them parking up to cheer me on, so I imagine their voices too and that gives me a smile.

Tights guy started fading around km 8 and I reeled him in not too long after that.  Then there's some good cheers as we come past the 10km start line which provides a nice distraction.  The patch through the middle, from km 12 to about 17 was definitely the toughest wind-wise.  It did feel like I had to noticeably battle it at points through here, and I was counting down the km's from about 13.  I realised also that the shady patches felt noticeably cooler so it's certainly warm.

But in a weird way, I was enjoying it. It was slower and tougher than I expected, but I was grateful to be out there racing.  My stride felt pretty good, the body felt pretty good, and there were some great memories of the 2021 race as well.  On the topic of stride, I did feel like the VF3 made me feel I had to work my stride a little more than the Next%'s, stretch out a bit and work the toe off a little more.  Not a bad thing I guess, but a little different.  I may go back to the Next%'s next race just for a comparison.

I did get passed at about the 19km mark, which annoyed me a little. But equally, I knew it was too early for me to make an extra push, so I just rolled with it, and enjoyed seeing the lake come into view as we climbed the final undulation.  Those last couple km were a bit of a blur, but they went with the 2022 finish line in the eastern corner of the park, rather than the original finish line on the lakefront (which I preferred).  I didn't feel totally smashed at the end, just like I couldn't have gone any quicker, so I need to figure out how to rediscover that quick last couple of km that featured in some of my best HM's.  Stopped the watch at 1:15:45.

I congratulated 3rd place guy and Cam (2nd), and then had a brief chat to Caden who was also pretty dubious about the wind... I daresay he would've taken the course record comfortably on a better day but he missed it by 1 or 2 minutes.

And here's the weird thing, despite it being my slowest time on that course (6 minutes slower than 2 years ago!), I feel pretty good about it.  I've had windy days before, but never a headwind most of the way, and despite that plus temps that were 18C / 63F by the finish (normally it'd be 10C / 20F colder than that!) I feel like I managed the race pretty well.  First couple of km probably a little quick, but otherwise pretty well-managed and the effort felt consistent throughout despite a few dark mental patches through the middle with the wind.  I didn't have a superstar race in me today like 2021, probably no surprise given everything else going on right now, but I ran a pretty good race and sometimes that's all you need.

In some ways, this race was kind of the end of an era.  A lot more of my races from now on will probably be based around family stuff and I'm going to be a little more relaxed around training for the next while... it'll still happen but probably just less workouts.  That might even be good for me as the body has felt a little beat up at times over the last while.  I'm looking forward to the challenge of something different, with a trail race series over winter, and then its back to the classic Half Marathon Series starting in October.

Mark thanks for the report. A good hit out by all accounts and I look forward to your new era of running/family etc. Rotorua was yesterday. Did you have any mates racing ?

My week done.  Good week after illness on sunday/Monday. Group run with 3 mates today was great and went so easily. Tempo yesterday was strong. My 25 year old son ran the first 7 kms with me including the 1st tempo km at 4.05 and then I rolled into 5 more kms at pace.

Weekly for period: From: 05/01/2023 To 05/07/2023

Total distance: 45.20mi

piwi - Nice week, looks like you're rolling back into it nicely.

me - Another solid week with 2 good sessions.  The coming week is looking pretty big with what looks like a brutal long run workout on Saturday.  Nothing to be scared of though, just the next side of the Rubik's.  I saw a mental skills coach on Friday which I'll write about in more detail next week.

Weekly for period: From: 01/05/2023 To 07/05/2023

Total distance: 97.72km (60.73mi)

Jmac - Fingers crossed here for a quick recovery.

Mark - Excellent race. I like the way you're approaching training and racing, and I enjoyed your race report.
Kudos for being a good husband and parent.

Mikkey - I thought you'd be roasting some sausages as a homage to the King's fingers?

me - Just a bit over 90km for the week. This is great progress, though the niggles have been increasing as of late so I need to be more careful.

Weekly for period: From: 05/01/2023 To 05/07/2023

Total distance: 56.04mi

Marky_Mark - solid effort - I totally get the sense of satisfaction in the race you ran, even when you know it's not near previous performances.   Interesting comments about the VF 3.

I don't know if I stated this before, but I've read in multiple places that the VF 3 is really directed towards people who basically strike near their forefoot and push off again, and it doesn't work well for people who strike a little further back and roll over their foot before toeing off.  If I understand your comment correctly, your experience seems to support that.

Piwi - I'm glad that you are feeling better.  Nice 6K tempo.  As an aside, it amuses me that you do 6K tempos while I do 6400m tempos (the additional 400m lap is to make it ~4 miles, so American style.)

On a related note, my running group has a lot of people originally from Europe or NZ, and it's always amusing to me how those of us born and raised in the US will default to sets of 4 reps when doing 400m repeats, while those raised on the metric system will default to sets of 5 reps.

Steve- I'm really enjoying following your training, since your coach does some interesting things (and I mean that in a good way, not a critical way).  Doing 35 minutes at tempo on Wednesday, and then a long run with a broken-up tempo on Saturday, followed by a medium long run on Sunday, is an example of this.  I see what he is doing - building your stamina and strength.

Flavio - thanks for sharing the video and the image.  I know you are being careful, and I hope you continue to stay safe.  It may be different in your area of the world; in mine I know that 6:30 am is usually safer but not reliably safe, especially in the sketchy areas.