Tag Archive for ‘graph’ at Comrades Marathon Blog

Tag Archive for 'graph'

Two Oceans

Published
by
Andrew
on 18 March, 2008
in Races
. 2 Comments

This Saturday, I shall be attempting my first ultra marathon, the 56km Two Oceans Marathon. I’m feeling fairly confident, but good race results and solid training allows me to be confident.

Some of the thoughts I have floating around in my mind:

  1. The last 14km are notoriously hilly, and that’s after running a marathon. How am I going to handle that?
  2. Going out too fast is a worry, as the first 28km is nearly flat. However, since negative splits are nearly impossible, it’s important to go out fast. So what pace do I run at?
  3. With that said, what time do I aim for? The best time I could hope for would be a 4:10 (4:27 min/km), so realistically I’m hoping to get under 4:20 (4:39 min/km). With a fairly hard second half, and it being my first ultra, predicting is hard.
  4. Wind. The infamous south-easter is well known in running circles for make life difficult when running down Chapmans peak.
  5. 56km!

As far as pacing is concerned, I got emailed this wonderful excel file* which gives you splits to aim for and is based on profile on the course. To achieve a 4:20, here are my target splits:

Distance Time (Split) Pace (min /km)
10km 45:36 4:34
21km 1:34:56 4:31
42km 3:12:22 (1:37:26) 4:35
56km 4:20:00 (1:07:38) 4:39

 

To prove that negative splits are difficult on this course, here’s a graph of my goal pace per kilometre (click for a larger version):

OceansGoalPace

That would make a first half time of 2:06:30, and then a second half 7 minutes slower of 2:13:30.

Ok, so those are some of my thoughts, with it only being 4 days away, I’m starting to get nervous, and when I get nervous, I start searching for numbers to calm me, is that clear here?

*Attie Anderson developed the sheet based on splits run by Elizabeth McCaul and Garry Wilford

Race Update: 2007 Voet van Afrika 21km

Published
by
Andrew
on 29 November, 2007
in Races
.

As promised, here’s the update from the first race on the list, the Voet of Afrika.

After some thinking, and chatting to a few knowledgeable people, I decided to attempt the Caltex Voet van Afrika Half Marathon. While I had completed a race since the op, this would be my first 21km in nearly a year.

The Voet van Afrika (Foot of Africa) Marathon is well known in South Africa, and is regarded as one of the toughest marathons around, while providing fantastic views of the Overberg scenery. The half marathon however, does not have the same reputation, and I was told it simply trudges along next to a highway.

Anyway, the flyer promised a new route, I entered anyway, and wow was I glad I did. The route change proved very popular, and was especially good during the first 13kms, while we messed about in the Overberg.

The graph below shows the altitude (red line) compared to my split times (blue bars):

 VoetGraph

It illustrates my race quite nicely. The plan was to run about 1:45/1:50, so around 5 min/km was my goal pace, which I managed until about 8kms, and we started going downhill. The ankle felt great, so I opened up a bit, and made the mistake of letting my race ego take control.

I built up momentum, and just got faster and faster and faster. It was a great feeling, but at the back of my mind, I knew I was going to pay for it. Well I never did, my ankle recovered fine, and I finished in 1:37:53, which equals to an average pace of 4:39 min/km. My average heart rate was 163.

So, first half marathon out of the way, and while I ran it significantly faster than I had planned, the ankle held up fine. I think it also showed I was fitter than I though. :)

You can find the results here.