Zebano great to see you getting back to running after your niggle.

Darkwave it's a great feeling when fitness starts coming back.  Keep up the good work.

Steve solid week for you after your race. I see you've had some mid 20 temps.

Flavio I think you are in great shape and reckon you are good for 37:ex

I watched London live. It was nice to see a real battle at the end of the mens race. Kipchoge had some cramp and a blocked ear and was struggling to get his drinks cleanly.

It was sobering to see the lead back lap some fantastic runners. The 2.12 type guys look amazing until the 2.05 pack go ripping past them.

Watson - Congrats on the race, placing, and nice RR. That first big hill looks particularly nasty.

Piwi - Nice week.

Mark - That's quite a steep taper! Like JMac I don't think we can really question your coach.

Flavio - Nice week ahead of the race. I agree with DWave, that 4x 10 min @ 10k looks quite challenging. There wasn't a ton of recovery during those, either.

DWave - Interesting stuff about the ultrasound results. Could the "split" tendon be the missing one? Or is there a chance that the tendon that couldn't be found is simply gone? My dad recently had shoulder surgery that involved rebuilding a tendon that was completely gone due to an old injury.
Anyway, I hope you get the ankle issues resolved quickly.

Steve - Nice week coming back from a race.

I front-loaded some miles last week so I could have a couple lighter days ahead of my race without dropping weekly mileage overall.
The race was a ton of fun and went as well as it could, though I'm very much not in the shape I wanted to have been for it. I wasn't able to pop my back/hips in the morning the day of or before the race, so my left leg in particular was a bit tight. Nowhere near as tight as it would have been a few weeks ago, which was nice. Overall I don't think it really affected me much other than being a bit incomfortable at times. It was also my longest (distance wise) continuous run in a few months ,which was nice.

The race itself was bigger than it had been before (though it's still a small race), certainly due to it being one of the only "real" races going on in the area. Volunteers at water stops wore gloves, but that was really the only "precaution" I saw vs previous years.

I am more and more thinking about skipping the full marathon I'm signed up for next month. I simply don't think I can be in the shape I want to be in by then and would rather not drive the 6 or so hours to get there for a performance that's not what I should be capable of. I have been asked to pace someone at a 100 miler later this month, which I'm giving some serious thought to.

Weekly for period: From: 09/28/2020 To 10/04/2020

Total distance: 75.15mi

Keen - nice week.

Piwi/Watson/Steve - Hayden Wilde is having a crack at the national 1 hour record at Mt. Smart on Saturday.  It's stood since 1963!  He might've got some inspiration seeing Mo Farah take down the world 1 hour record recently.  He ran a sub-29 10k on the Governors Bay to Lyttleton course a couple weeks ago which has some beastly hills in it so I'd say he's looking good.

Sub 29 on that course is awesome.  It would be rare for someone at that level to have 10+ seconds per km drop off between a 10k and a half.

Weather forecast is still looking good.  Bit cold at the start (4C / 40F) at 7am but warming up quite quickly to around 13C / 55F by 10am.  Light northerlies.  TBH that's the least ideal wind direction as it means we'll be finishing into the wind over the last 6-7km.  But light anything is better than the strong winds that can often crop up around there particularly in springtime.

Re pacing strategy for Sunday, I had a good chat earlier in the week with Luke when I was getting a massage.  The short answer is, steady rhythm and therefore probably even splits.  That's what's worked for me in every race that's gone well over the last 2 years.  My tempo blocks have been around the 3:43/km average mark with hills included so I guess that's what I'm aiming for.  Things might turn to crap at the 36km mark.  Who knows?

But the long answer is, it depends.

There are two hills (repeated twice) but they are both quite short and sharp so I think the optimal strategy is to keep momentum up and power through them.  There's also a long-ish false flat at the end of each lap, I don't think that changes the strategy but it's just something to bear in mind if the splits come up slightly slower for a stretch (particularly if the northerly is a factor).

If the northerly picks up at all (currently it looks pretty minimal) the last 6-7km into the wind may be slower so it'll be a case of also trying to take advantage of that on the downwind earlier in the lap and just not getting fazed by it (it can't possibly be as tough as Christchurch half last year and that turned out OK).

Fuelling will be a mix of Maurten gels and drink mix.  Will take 4 gels but likely to only use 3, mix of caf and non-caf.  Drink mix at 21km, will get the wife to pass it to me when I hit the 2nd lap but will probably drink it over the space of a km and dump it at the drink station at ~22km.

The other challenge will be how to manage the group, currently there's three other strong runners with PB's ranging from 2:35-2:45 (Matt Moloney, Geoff Ferry and Ben Twyman) so it seems quite likely four of us will stick together at least for a while.  I think as long as the pace doesn't get hotter than 3:40/km (~2:34 pace) I will stick with them.  Beyond that I think it's too risky.  Geoff will probably be the closest proxy, his 10km times lately are solid, he pumps out more mileage than me but probably has a bit less raw speed.  I pipped him by 3 minutes or so at National Half Champs last year but he has improved a lot since then (and also got a pair of Vaporflies).

I briefly talked to Geoff at the Wellington Road Champs - he was talking 2:45.  But he recently ran some big PRs Incl a 15:5x 5km.

 

Forecast is looking good.  The hills are quite minor.  Although hard in lap 2 if fading in the full.  The course is a little different to when I ran it, so the hills are earlier.

 

My aim is 1:28:17 which would be my 3rd best half.

I reckon he would be comfortably sub-2:40 based on how he has been tracking lately.  I think he ran a 2:45-ish full last year but he's definitely improved since then.  He is in the top echelon of Wellington Masters guys now alongside the likes of Stephen Day and Andrew Wharton (who ran 2:35 at Auckland last year), which is saying something as they probably have the deepest talent pool in the country at Masters level.

Yeah I figured those hills will feel significantly harder the second time around!

We are having a bit of a holiday around the race (starting tomorrow) so you guys will be spared the worst of my pre-race rantings which generally come when I'm at work and thinking about the race rather than working.  Mostly I'm just excited to race and I haven't really gone nuts yet.  There's still time though.