Race Report: Aths Vic Trail State Champs

Wow, my last race report for the year, how the year has flown! Crazy to think I’ve raced 15 times throughout the past year, and I’m so glad this is the last one.

As I mentioned in my previous post (the need for speed), my preparation for this one probably wasn’t the best, and I had a few lingering doubts. I wasn’t running in my arch supports for the first time since seeing the physio, would my foot start hurting? What about my gut? Every time I’d raced in afternoon/evening I’d had some sort of problem, would it be fine for this race?

With these worries, along with the fact I didn’t know what the course was like; I went to the start line with a conservative race plan, don’t start out too fast and try to maintain a heart rate that wasn’t through the roof, and if I was still feeling good at the 10km point, push the last 2km’s hard.

Lining up at the start line with me were two top-notch trail runners that I’d come across at 4 Peaks, Ash Bennett and Mat Dore. So another thought briefly flickered across my mind, maybe try and keep up with them? As there were so few people actually running in this race (about 60) and I wanted to do well, I seeded myself at the front, which was a mistake as I forgot one important thing. This was an Athletics Victoria race, and I should’ve known from racing in previous AV x-country races that the starts are FAST! I got caught up in the excitement and ran my first km in 3.36, 25 seconds faster than planned. The second km was more what I was hoping for at 3.57 but the damage was done, my heart rate and breathing rate were sky high, and I struggled with the gradual climb over the next 4km’s. Such a high breathing rate also made my throat really dry, and I had to stop to grab a drink at the 5.1km point, which I’m mad about as it made me have a 5.05min km for my 6^th km, which is just too slow for a race of this distance.

After 6km was the biggest downhill of the race where it lasted almost the full km, wasn’t steep and should’ve been a blast to run down, but my legs felt heavy and I only managed a 3.57 km, which is well below my standards. From 7km to 11km was a mixture of gravel and leafy understory, and was flat and was my hardest section of the race. I was pushing myself to go faster, but my heart rate still hadn’t recovered from the beginning of the race and my legs still felt flat, and I felt like I was bleeding time. I hadn’t actually seen another person in front of me or behind me from the 6km point, but from the 10km marker I was constantly looking behind me, expecting to see another runner come flying past me, but luckily that didn’t happen. However, something strange happened with about a km to go. I felt great! My pace dropped, my heart didn’t feel like it was going to beat out of my chest and I had more bounce in my stride. Unfortunately the race was over at that point, and I found out from a passer-by as I burst out from the eucaluptus scented trees (from which we'd been running in for the past 3 km's) and out onto the dam wall that I was 10^th overall. This meant as I came across the finishing line 500m later in a time of 51.51 and 2^nd in my age group, the first time I’d finished on the podium at any state champs race!

I wasn’t feeling very tired at all as I came across the line, which sucked as I felt like crap only 10 minutes earlier. I’ve got to remember that I’m not Zach Miller and I cannot do well when I start fast, I’ve proven this to myself time and time again throughout the year but I still do it. I only wonder if my time could’ve been better if I didn’t start out so fast and maintained a faster average throughout the race, instead of slowing down considerably in the last 2/3 of it. Oh well.

Thanks to Aths Vic in conjunction with Trail Love for putting on a great race, my parents for taking me down and lets just say I’m glad I’ve done my last race of the year!

The TRN

The Need For Speed

Hill Reps

 This week’s thought is about speed. It has recently entered my mind due to the fact the second biggest race; for me, of the year is next weekend. The State Trail Champs. Which as far as I’m aware, is flat, lending itself to a speedy course. It’s also short, at only 12km’s in length. This means everyone will be pushing themselves from the word go as it’ll be over in the blink of an eye.

Unfortunately the turn-over from 4 Peaks until next weekend is too short for me to lose my mountain legs and gain speed, so the thing I’ve been trying to do over the past two or so weeks is to remind myself I can run fast.

Before I got into mountain and trail running, I was a middle distance track runner and short(ish) distance road runner. I hit my peak back when I was 16.5 (the racing season is in the summer and I was born in the winter) and broke 2.15 for the 800m, 4.50 for the 1500m and 19 min for the 5000m. And I broke 40 mins for the 10km about 6 months later on the road. None of these times are that fast, mind you. Never got me to Nationals, but they are a heck of a lot faster then I’ve run all this year. And to try and get me back into the mindset of being speedy I went back to my old track coach; Denis, who helped me run those times all those years ago.

For the past two weeks, Denis (and pro Adidas runner Craig, his son) from the The Tan Track Club have had me doing interval sessions, hill repeats and hill climbs, back-to-back workout days and tempo runs to try and drill into me a 4min/km pace, which is what I’ll need to run if I want to have any chance of standing on that podium this weekend.

So far I’ve been able to hit all the times they’ve set for me but quite frankly, I’m unsure whether or not I’ll be able to do it. My preparation time for this race could’ve been better. I could’ve planned my race calendar out better; to focus on this race I shouldn’t have done the Great Alpine Road Half Marathon a couple weeks ago. And with my niggling foot injury I haven’t been able to run as much as I had wanted to (for more details on the injury check out my race report here), but I think I can chalk both of those down to bad luck and limited experience.

So as I’m reading this once I’ve finished my Exercise and Sport Science degree and hopefully many ultras later, I’m hoping I’ll be able to answer these questions. How long did I actually need to prepare for this race properly? And how important is speed for mountain trail running, the form of running I want to be good at?

Until then, lets hope my body remembers what it’s like to be quick and hopefully I’ll be able to end up on the podium for my last race of the year!

The TRN