Training Log Archive: OJ

Event: Yorkshire Three Peaks
 

3 Peaks, the big goal of the season and a big fail. Not an ideal run-up to the race after the JK, but felt pretty good for the last 5 days or so and good on race day. Decided to run the race I wanted to run and hope that things fell into place. I had an idea of what splits I should be running to at the summits and had a goal time of ~3hrs after running 3.06 last year off 3 weeks in Moscow and what felt like a poor run on the day.

Just like last year the pace was nice and easy out of the start with plenty of chatting as the group bunched up to avoid the worst of the wind. It felt very comfortable and I started to enjoy myself, even found time to look around and appreciate the views. 20mins in and all was well. Then boom. It was as if someone had flicked a switch. My chest siezed up, I got spat out of the pack and started going backwards. It was all I could do to keep moving up the hill as the pack pulled away and I even had to walk a couple of sections of this pretty easy climb. I got passed by about 12 people by the summit and another few on the descent and was powerless to respond.

This went on for around 25 mins. I lost 2mins on my race plan to the summit (in 10mins) and another 3 on the descent. Game over. I made up my mind that something wasn't right and that the only sensible course of action was to drop out. Only trouble was, Jenny and all my stuff was at Hill Inn, 2/3 of the way round the course. I decided to press on to there and drop out at the car. I struggled on to Birkwith drinks point, which I went through in about 28th, stopped for a drink and suddenly felt a lot better, the tightness all gone. I kicked on and accelerated away from the group around me and started working on reeling people in. Ran well up Whernside then cruised down the other side, still ready to pull out.

When I saw Jen I realised that there was no way she would let me quit, so I carried on. I stopped for quite a while for a drink and banana at the drinks point. Then there were people everywhere for the next couple of kms and I was too ashamed to stop, just waiting for a place where I could do it inconspicuously. John's mum kept me going by reminding me that we were on for the team prize. Once I got out of the crowds and onto the flags up Inglebrough I ground to a halt and sat down on a tussock to consider what to do. Came to the conclusion that I had no good excuse to stop so got up and pushed on as well as I could. Felt pretty much fine all the way to the finish.

Ended up 12th in 3.11, having caught 13 places and run 2mins faster than last year from Ribblehead to the finish in spite of the constant negative vibes and stopping for a sit down - there was clearly nothing really wrong with me. I'm glad that I finished, but upset that I came so close to stopping just because I wasn't doing as well as I wanted. I don't know what went wrong between 20-45 mins, the pace was nothing special, slightly slower than last year which seemed easy at the time. Something is not right, I don't know whether it is in my head or in my body, maybe a bit of both. Whatever, I haven't managed to run a good race this year. I think it's time to step back and stop forcing it - I'm going to sack off racing for a while and just try to enjoy running again.

Brilliant running from Rob and John in 3rd and 9th (and Jon in 19th) to bag us the team prize.

C • Can sympathise about not en... 6

Hillsborough Park for a set of drills and a couple of death intervals in 2.19, 2.21. Wet, windy and waterlogged so not ideal, but feeling OK.

Drills, strides and sprints in the rain. At least it kept the dog walkers away.

HFW via Crosspool and Rivelin at a decent pace, esp on the downhills.

IW via BHP, feeling spritely this morning, a welcome change after the last few days.

HFW via Blake St for 7x20sec bounds then 2xreps in 44 secs each. Fast times, but they filled me up with lactate and left me reeling, amazing that 2 short reps can have such an effect.