This week I’ve had two easy runs. Firstly on Monday lunchtime around Pollok Park and tonight after work on one of my regular 5 mile loops. I’m feeling good and ready for the race.
I’ve been planning my strategy for the race and even though I don’t know the course I’ve put together a rough plan. As this is a 2 x 30 mile loop it will be really interesting to see whether I can run an even pace over the two laps. That is certainly my aim.
So here is my rough plan for the race …
One of the other things I’ve been thinking about is whether I will see any of the 100 mile runners. They start at midnight (8 hrs before the 30/60 mile runners). I think they do a 10 loop first and then 3 laps.
Samuel Bolton posted his plan on Facebook …..
If this is about right then I will probably only see the 100 mile runners who will finish under 22hrs. According to this chart anyone around 24hrs or slower probably won’t pass through the start of the loop until after we have started so they will always be behind us.
I’m already looking forward to the Strava flyby to see where everyone is in relation to each other!!
I’m not the link to the tracker I’m taking will be posted soon so I will put a link on my blog and facebook if you want to follow my progress throughout Sunday!
It’ll be another weekend of following online then 🙂
I think the aim to run both loops at the same pace will be a challenge both physically and mentally, but from a science experiment it’s good, lots of data you’ll be able to compare between the laps. Creating strava segments for different sections of the loop would enable you to compare how you did w.r.t average pace and HR for each section.
If even pacing can be achieved then we’d expect the HR to higher for the second loop as glycogen is depleted, dehydration sets in and running economy deteriorates as muscle damage and neuromuscular fatigue build up. Fancy words might this all sounds intimidating but it’s really just what you’ve always had to cope with during ultra’s, it’s a tough sport for men and women who don’t mind a bit of hardship to complete a challenge 😉
If you aim for roughly constant HR throughout the race I’d expect the second lap to be around 30 seconds a mile slower. To keep the pace up you’ll need to aim for an average HR in the first lap around 5 to 10bpm lower than the second. We really don’t have enough data in a form that we can extrapolate more precise values - after the White Rose Ultra we’ll have a better idea. Generally the first hour we’re still warming up so will have a lower HR, for the rest of the race we’d expect the HR to rise slower.
Account for this during a race by alternating the target HR range would be a bit mentally taxing, which I generally just go for a rough HR zone that I stick to for the majority of the race, and just tweak this a bit so that during the first part I’d stay at the low end of range, and then allow myself to progressively spend more time at the higher end of the range later in the race - if my body can still hack it.
As a practical example of this in action, at Jedbrugh ultra last week I averaged a HR of 156 for leg 1, 153 for leg 2, 155 for leg 3 and 154 for leg 4, with an overall average of 154. Leg 1 and Leg 2 are the same distance and roughly same ascent and descent, The outbound Leg 1 I averaged 8:54 min/mile, for the return Leg 4 I averaged 9:31 min/mile. I had twinges of cramp in Leg 3 and 4 so hadn’t to dial back the effort level a bit to avoid cramping up completely. The low HR in Leg 3 was partly down to chatting with other folk too much so running at their pace and being held up on narrow paths. Might have saved a bit more cramp later though…
For your “Guess My Time Competition” I’d go for 11:41:11 as the lower elevation compared to the Hardmoors 60 should offer give a 10 minutes advantage. Best of luck.
Thanks Robert
My plan is to try and run the first lap with a lower HR and see if I can maintain the pace throughout the second loop. It seems too good an opportunity with two equal halves not to give it a go!!
John