pbsapeer, I just wore the reissue of the
Hoka Clifton 1 for my Marathon yesterday. They went well and I did a pb of 3:15:20, crushing my 3:20:00 target and knocking off over 6 minutes of my previous pb. The Clifton 1 is light enough to race but cushy enough for slow recovery runs. Surprisingly stable on corners given the high stack. It's a good all-rounder that I'd buy again if they last 500+ km, though they look ridiculous and don't have second eyelet at the top for lock lacing (I've figured something out to give me the heel lockdown I like though). These are the only Hoka's I've tried.
Yesterday's Marathon was a blast, with torrential rain, sunny hot periods and relay runners on the mix on an undulating course on a summer's morning. Went out way too hot and lost 9 minutes in the second half, but finished 19 of 130 and 3rd in the 40-49 year old men (of 14). Won a couple of
glass platters and got a kettle for spot prize. My buddy also got his target of sub 3:20 and our social group put in a relay team that came in third (of the mixed teams). A great road trip to the Westcoast via Lewis and Arthur's Pass.
Eheh, well done !
I did my half marathon 3 weeks before marathon race yesterday and it leaded to some... interesting results.
I got in the race with honestly no idea what time to target, the only thing that I knew was that I wasn't gonna give 100% because I only wanted to use it as a stopgap race to see where I stand.
So basically I'm in the tail-end of marathon training, did a 26k long run the Sunday before and only did a very small taper (not pushing as hard during intervals that week, shortening the short Saturday run and skipping the 40mn hometrainer on Wednesday), I also happened to catch a cold that really prevented me from sleeping well during a few nights (hard to breath with a drippy nose) and the day of race there was heavy rain + strong winds (up to 80-90kmh) which conveniently happened to be headwind right when the race went into hills,
and hilly it was (km 6-7 at 3.8% on average and 8.8 to 10 at >4%).
So still room to PR I guess you would think right?
Well of course, also start right in the middle of the pack because it's much funnier to have to zigzag your way to the front, 0 energy wasted that way, only banking time, that's how it works, keep pushing, ignore than wind, ignore that rain, easy to do.
Then by km 5 I quickly came to realization I wasn't gonna set any record today, my average pace was already slightly above my previous PR, the biggest hills had yet to come and I was putting way too much effort at that point of the race, for the first time ever I mentally gave up, it wasn't the race where I was supposed to give everything and even if I did there was absolutely nothing to gain here, the big race I have been running hundreds of km for is in 3 weeks, no point burning the legs right now to gain a few minutes here in this half in the middle of nowhere.
So I just cruised, the hills were done at very slow pace, others kept passing me for a few km and I only put slightly more effort by km 13-14, passing a couple others and not getting passed anymore, I didn't even bother speeding up much for the last km, what's 10-15s when you're minutes off from what you hoped for?
Ended up with a low 1h26 which is not too bad in the end, had I bothered I could have probably logged a 1h23 something, considering the hilly profile it's probably worth a 1h21-22 on a more flat course and there you got, that's my PR, right in my mind, not quite in my legs that day.
So keeping the positive there, marathon prep still alright, didn't put too much stress on the body and logged a decent time despite all of what was described above, it does give more humilty towards races too, you need failures to learn, and learned I did, I'm probably gonna lower my expectations for the marathon a little bit (from 2h52 to 2h53-54) and look forward to it more than ever as a way to bounce back from here.
