More ups and downs

After my last post things have generally been on the up, but training has not been without its interruptions. I ended up with a very swollen gland in my neck and had another visit to the doctor. There wasn't any apparent cause for the swelling, but the Doc thought it might have been something like 'sand' in my saliva gland (a small piece of grit produced by the body in the same way that the kidney can produce stones). It was very painful and put me out of action for 4 or 5 days.

Thankfully the swelling and pain disappeared within a few days and just a few days later I managed to run a PB for 5km in training and things were looking up again. Then, just 3 days later I rolled my ankle at a rugby practice for the Colts team that I am coaching, when I stood on a loose piece of turf during a game of touch rugby. You must be kidding! I was really beginning to wonder if someone or somthing was trying to tell me to give up altogether. That put me out for another couple of days and by the end of the week I was also needing to rest my ankle again.

That was Friday last week and I had the Balclutha Half Marathon on Sunday. Somewhat foolhardily, I figured that I'd still give it a go and not only that, I set myself an ambitious target to shave some significant time off my PB.

Given the last month's events, I have no idea why I was so sure that I would be able to get anywhere near a PB, but I was very confident. I set the following targets for my splits:
5km        23:00 (all down hill)
10km      46:30
15km      70:30
20km      95:00
21.1km 101-102 (the last km is a real slog up hill)

To my very pleasant surprise, here is what I managed to do:
5km          21:57 (PB by 64 seconds)
10km        45:20 (PB by 2:34)

15km        70:01 (PB by 3:15)

20km        95:16 (PB by 3:36)
21.1k      101:02 (PB by 3:45 – based on corrected Cromwell time, only 1:34 better than actual Cromwell time, but it is definitely a shorter course)

I am stoked that I was able to achieve the pretty ambitious splits that I had set myself. The first part was faster than I had hoped to be doing as I got with a bunch that I could comfortably keep up with (and at times I even pushed them along a little). At about 3km I contemplated slowing to my target pace, but I felt strong and was able to stay with the bunch right through to 10-12km mark (when the group disintegrated anyway). Just as well I pushed a little harder for the first 10km as I was a little off target for the second and third 5km blocks. In the back of my mind I actually had 1:40 as my dream time for the day, but I knew that the last hill would be a major hurdle in achieving that. I gave it a bloody good nudge though. It wasn’t the perfect race, but getting up there in terms of knowing what my physical limits were and going right to those limits. I know that on the day I simply could not have gone any faster at any point of the race and I have never felt that before.

Average pace overall 4:47 min/km (11sec/km faster than my previous best pace).

In the meantime my weight is doing some weird things - up on Mondays and down on Thursdays, swinging as much as 2.5kg in 3 or 4 days. The upshot is that I have been hovering either side of 99kg for more than a month (as low as 98.2kg last Thursday and as high as 100.7kg the Monday before that). As is normal for me I am struggling a little with the nutrition plan. I am probably about 90% to plan, but it is the 10% that is letting me down. A 1:41 half marathon, though, has really spurred me on to lose more weight and acheive a 1:30 half marathon in the relatively near future.