My big A-race for this season is now three weeks in the past. Time to look back and reflect a bit on the race. What I liked, what went well and areas I need to improve for next year …
First off – so I don’t forgot it – I really enjoyed the training and the race. I was training at record levels for the run (and Zeroes both for the swim and the bike). My season starts in October, and until End of May I had run 1842km, my previous “best” was 1472km. Even so I had enough time for work and home stuff. This was a nice change from the Ironman training with all the swims (always +1h for getting to and from the pool and the “little things”) and long bikes (long session = at least 4 hours).
The race organization was great as well. Race package pickup, dropping off the finish-bags, starting area (with lots of porta-potties) – was well done. The aid stations were placed at decent intervals and extremely well stocked and organized – not too many races I have seen that spotted menus at the aid stations and really large signs pointing you to the right tables. You could also tell that most volunteers have done this a couple of times in the past, in fact you could tell that it was a kind of tradition for them and they were really proud of what they were doing (and rightly so!). The finish-area was big enough to handle all the people (during the day there must have been between 15.000 and 20.000 finishers with all the races they were offering), but still small enough so you don’t have to do much scurrying around to get all your stuff. I can’t think of one thing that they could improve.
I’m happy with my race performance, too. Even though I was an hour slower than I had planned, most of this was due to the hills that were much steeper than I had anticipated. They were taking a lot longer than I had thought. Even will all that, I didn’t run into any major problems during the race, and I even had that almost magical 45 minutes or so towards the end when I was almost “flying”. I’m sure I could have run a bit faster (and I may try to at a later time), but as this was my first try at an Ultra marathon, I didn’t want to run for time. I’m not sure how much faster I could have run this year (15 minutes? 30 minutes?), but certainly not close to the 8 hours I had planned.
So – while my endurance was good – I’m still thinking about “how to get faster” in the future. I don’t have any immediate, specific goals, but at some time in my life I’d like to run a Boston qualifier time or get close to run a marathon in 3 hours. For that, I think there are a few changes I have to make in my training. This year my focus was on going the duration and in order to do so I was working with an upper HR bound (~130 beats). With that, I think I was going a bit “easy” at times (HR around 110, with averages typically under 120). So what I would like to establish for next year is a lower bound as well – I’m thinking of 115. I’ve been trying that in the last few weeks and it already feels a lot “faster”. I’m experimenting with a similar concept for cycling as well, but here I’m shooting for a steady wattage of around 150 watts even on my long rides.
This year I added a faster run into my program (the 8*4 iPod interval session described in an earlier post) and that worked well. I’ll continue that but will also add some other session like that.
One big issue that I’ve been working on for years is my weight. For the last two years I have not been paying much attention or energy on losing weight. So, at 87kg, I was again a bit overweight for my race. I’m not sure what impact that had, but I feel that if I want to get significantly faster than I am right now, I will have to loose some weight. For next year’s race I’m shooting for a much lower weight than I had this year – 84kg or under. Somehow, this has been “on the list”, but I just didn’t manage much on this front. I know it’s holding me back, but for now I just didn’t have the energy. Hopefully, next year I’ll be better. Hmmm ….
All the race prep leading up to the race has been fine. I think over the the years I have built a taper, pre-race meals etc. that is just working fine. Even the big morning meal has not been causing any problems for me. During the race, I have found that I don’t need much food. With the stuff offered at the aid stations, I didn’t need many bars, gels etc. I was nibbling a bit on a Clif bar, but didn’t even finish a whole one. Carrying the Camelbak didn’t cause any problems, and it was nice to always be able to sip some water and to have some storage space for clothes. But in a different race, that will be “too much”, a FuelBelt should be enough.
This leaves me with some ides for races in 2010. After a break this year, I would like to do another Ironman. A friend of mine will probably do her first IM, and it would be nice to go through this experience with her. In my past Ironmen, I have yet manage to put a solid run together. This will be a goal for next year, and I hope that all this year’s running will be beneficial to an Ironman run next year. But I will have to go back to “Ironman mode” again .. lots of swimming and cycling in addition to running. I’m still thinking of how to set up my season plan .. but I have a while to go.
For the rest of this season, I’m not sure what else I will do (and I will not do too much planning and play it by feel). Next week, I’ll be in Sweden for Vaetternrundan, and maybe I’ll do the Hamburg triathlon at the end of July. In August, my wife and I will go on vacation, and I guess after that I will start to prep for the 2010 season. I’m looking for someone to help me with the planning and fine tuning for the Ironman, and I hope to line up some support soon. I’ll keep you posted …
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