Ran: 10.8/0/8.8/3.3/10/0/21.1 54km / 33.5 mi. 4:26
Monday
3:00 — 10.8 River Run with varsity girls.
53:08. Out: 27:47 @5:09. In: 25:20 with last .7k slower. About 4:35/k pace.
Felt ok.
Weather: 25C/77F, sunny
Tuesday
Business trip, but planned to rest anyway (race on Sunday).
Wednesday
7:30pm — Club track workout. 1000/1600/800/800/800/800
4:12/6:17/3:21/3:24/3:27/3:30
Ran the 1600 @ 3:56 pace and cruised the rest easily. Miserable conditions.
Weather: 17C/63F, rain, windy, chilly
Thursday
3:00 — Thunderstorm, so kids could not run outside. Just ran 1.5k warmup, then 60m x 10 x 3 in the parking garage. A good "getting the legs to move faster than usual" workout.
Friday
1:00 — Gym workout.
5:30 — 10k in 53:41. 28:27/25:14.
The 5k coming back I ran 500 pickup, 500 easy x 5.
500 pickups started at 5:00/k pace and went down to 4:10.
Quads were a bit stiff, but felt ok.
Saturday
Bullet Train 2 hours north of Tokyo to Sendai, up where the tsunami hit. However, it only affected the coastal area, not the main part (most) of Sendai. Sightseeing in Sendai, which is a very nice city, lots of greenery and wide streets with green strips in the middle.
14 club members went, so it was a fun two-day trip.
Sunday
Sendai Half Marathon. A big Half, 8,000 men and 2,000 women, with two Japan-based Kenyans and Olympic marathoner Fujiwara and popular marathon hero Kawauchi. A Kenyan won in 1:01:30, with Fujiwara 2nd.
It was a good race — flat course and nice weather. Actually rather warm at about 18C/64F, and a bit windy. But I prefer warm to cold.
I ran 1:27:31, which was pretty good considering my lack of mileage over the past two months. This is a pace of 4:09/km. I had assumed 4:00 was out of the question, and anything under 4:10 would be good, so I was satisfied. Also, I beat club rival James Midgely, passing him at 15.5k, so that was enjoyable.
5k splits were: 20:50 (lost 30 sec. the first 2k because stupid Japanese races start track federation members - lots of slow people - in the front)/20:37/20:16/21:08 and 4:31 for last 1.1k.
Wore light 160g AdiZero Pro shoes and got my weight down to a bit over 61kg, so was not too heavy. And unlike James, I didn't drink any beer on Saturday....
Oh, no age group results were posted, nor have been posted online yet. Like many Japanese races, they do not understand how to use the chip data and website properly. But with 8,000 men, there were probably some quite fast guys in each age group.
Will take it easy next week to recover and because I will run a 5k in an ekiden on Sunday. A "semi-serious" ekiden.
The Namban Rengo runners:
Good race...well done. I saw a picture of you finishing...you looked in great form.
ReplyDeleteGood group photo Bob. Sounds like a fun weekend. Strange about starting those slow people in front - also about the chip/website stuff-up. I expect Japanese distance races to be perfect! 87:31 is a solid time - you're in good shape.
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