Numbers! Numbers!

Seeing it’s rugby international time in Wales again, so to quote Jonathan Davies -Numbers! Numbers!

6188 to be precise.  6188 seconds is apparently how long it takes me to run a half marathon. This was my chip time at the Marrakech half marathon on Sunday. It was also my chip time for the Cardiff half marathon back in October 2012. Now that is consistency. I keep a spreadsheet of results. I’d already cut & pasted the previous half marathon and changed the name and date details before the half marathon. But when I came to fill it out with the times and pace (on the plane back as it happens), it was already correct!  For those not wanting to do the maths, that’s 1hr 43mins and 8secs.

Rather sweaty but looking resplendent in my Cardiff Tri vest

 

At first I wasn’t particularly happy with the time as I thought I should have run faster but on reflection, and a few beers later, it wasn’t so bad.  Although a flat course it’s not the easiest run with changing surfaces, bends, dogs and sometimes motorbikes getting in the way. Also, although it was a bit misty at the start it soon burnt off and it must have been about 25C by the finish. That was quite warm for me but I guess it's good preparation.

It was the first race I’d run with my Garmin +HRM +Footpad.  I’m not really a gadget man but looking at the data later did indicate some good things.  The bad things were my complete inability to pace myself.  The first 2km I did at sub 4.15/km pace but the last 2km it was plus 5.30/km pace, with large fluctuations in between, depending on how I felt at the time. Hopefully, with the Garmin, this is something I can do a bit better in the future. I would love to do a negative split. The best thing was my average cadence of 90 spm over the whole distance.  And I didn’t even concentrate on it during the race. This time last year I was an over-pronating, low cadence heel striker. I can definitely now say that I’m a normal (with the help of orthotics) higher cadence mid foot striker. This is what I’ve been practising to be for the last few months.  After the race the only bit of tightness I felt was in my shoulders and I think this is because I was using my arms much more during the race. Higher back elbows and more pumping of the arms. Again this is something I’ve been working on. My average HR over the distance was 156 bpm.  I’m not really sure what I should read into this. I previously had a measured max HR of 188. So this would put the whole run into my level 4, anaerobic threshold or hard, HR range.  Which I guess is not too bad. Also this was the first half marathon I've done that my legs didn't ache for days afterwards.

Data entry on the flight home with my No. 1 supporter

 

So with all these gadgets to generate so much information and then calculate all the “metrics” that you working on through your training stages and taper to the race, what is the best criteria to manage?  Well, taking in my age, lifestyle and fitness, I’ve decided to base everything on just one metric and I’ll try and justify it in a later blog. 

However the answer is - “twice the meaning of life”    Can you tell what it is yet?