Last week was a little chaotic because of the Easter holidays so I had to switch some trainings around which wasn't the best idea but I topped it all of with an awesome half marathon on Saturday!
But first things first. I started of the week with a swim. I managed again to swim 3 km continuously since there wasn't much going on at the pools. I even added a few sprints every now an then just to keep things interesting. My second swim on Friday on the other hand turned out to be a little strange since I had a strange feeling in my stomach and was always close to vomiting (really don't know why) but all I all I was pleased with my swimming.
This month I'll have just one brick workout (1.5 hours bike/1 hour run) and instead of the other one I am doing a 2 hour bike ride. This week since I had to shuffle things a little around meant bike-run on Wednesday and bike on Thursday. I gave it all I have but my legs were still dead from the day before so I didn't put on the performance I hoped to but I knew that the best is yet to come.
On Saturday I took part in the Hendrix half marathon. The race is named after the railroad bridge with had the name Hendrix written on it for I don't even know how many years. Let's just say that the bridge is now known as the Hendrix bridge :)
Since I did solo half marathon 2 weeks before and finished it under my targeted 1:40 I was quite confident to repeat my performance this time as well. The organizer sent us an email 2 days before the race which included the info that there will be official pacers running. One of them was said to run a 4:15-ish pace to finish the race in 1:30:00.
This was 10 minutes faster then my personal best but I thought what the hell let's give it a try (go big or go home). In the end then changed her time to 1:35:00 which was basically what I was hoping to run in the first place.
I started the race quite slow because I, again, got stuck in "traffic". Since I don't want to push people around because I am really not someone aiming to win the race so the best position isn't key to me I had to overtake quite a few people in the first few kilometers to catch up to our pacer. I caught up on kilometer 5 and stuck to their pace. It was quite hard to catch up because I didn't want to push to hard and burn out but on the other hand I had to run faster than them or I want catch up at all.
There was a group of around 20-30 people running with the pacer and once I caught up I was pleased to see that one by one they were left behind and at kilometer 15 or so there was a group of 6 people and I was part of it still running strong.
Everything felt pretty good until the very last kilometer where I just felt squeezed out completely. I was trying to keep the pace but I just couldn't so the group of, then, 3 people got a slight lead on me and I finished 30 seconds behind them which is more then awesome if you look at my 1:34:06 time. I crushed my personal best by almost 6 minutes!
I key mistake I made was nutrition. I eat a good breakfast and had a gel just before the race but if I had one more in my pocket on kilometer 16-17 I could have avoided this feeling where I was just counting the steps till the end.
There was however a good side to me falling behind my group and that's the fact that I crossed the finish line alone so that the commentator had enough time to say "Number 478, Ivan Karačić is now arrive!" and everyone was cheering and clapping so I got my 5 seconds of fame :)
Here's a picture of my just some 100 meters from the finish line (just look at this relaxed face full of energy :) )
Let's have a quick look at the numbers before I sign off.
| Distance | Time | Pace | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swim | 5.10 km | 1:55:00 h | 22:32 min / km |
| Bike | 76.41 km | 3:10:23 h | 2:29 min / km |
| Run | 32.59 km | 2:26:50 h | 4:30 min / km |
I like this 4:30 pace here :)
| Distance | Time | |
|---|---|---|
| Swim | 109.90 km | 43:05:00 h |
| Bike | 1746.92 km | 78:20:22 h |
| Run | 491.04 km | 40:32:44 h |
Since I rested on Sunday, I had the ride done on Monday which means I'll have to long rides this week but more on this next time.
Until then, stay curious :)