Great Train Race 2012

Yesterday, Sunday 6th May, saw the annual Great Train Race held in the Dandenong hills. And it also saw me get up at a ridiculously early hour, to compete in my first race. The race starts in Belgrave and threads through the hills to Emerald. As an added bonus, a competitor in the race is the local steam train, Puffing Billy, though for me, the backdrop of the beautiful rain forest made the run pretty spectacular.

Rain clouds over the rain forest before the start of the race.

My build up to the race hadn't been too good. Earlier in the week I'd come down with a cold, and on Friday, I was seriously considering not running. But I decided to go along and see how I felt at the start. Well, with the adrenalin kicking in, my cold disappeared and so I decided to give it a shot. The race was seeded into different groups depending on a runner's best 10km time. I was starting near the back of the group and hoping to get around the 13.2km course in about 80 minutes. I travelled up to Belgrave with my good friend David who started in the group in front of me, and there were a further 2 faster groups as well.

David

Me

It was pretty cool at about 10C which was good for running as you were not going to overheat. There were some troubles with getting going for some runners, but from the back the big bunch kept us all fairly tightly packed. The course starts in Belgrave, and heads downhill for about a kilometre before the first of 2 pretty decent sized hills ending in Emerald with a couple of kilometres downhill at the end. I decided to take it very easy over the first downhill bit finding myself close to the back of the field, but then just kept a steady pace up the first hill passing lots of runners in the process. A lot of those runners then passed me back again on the next flat/downhill section which I took again quite steadily, before the second hill which is steeper and longer than the first. This hill took it's toll on runners at the back of the course with lots stopping or walking for a short while (me included) but once it was over, the race was fairly easy to finish even though there was still about 5 kilometre's left.

The buzz of running with lots of other people, and the cheers of encouragement from spectators helps you along, and of course there was the sound of the steam train tooting in the distance. There are 2 trains that race. The first will finish the distance in less than 1 hour which is out of reach of the majority of runners. The second train finishes around the 75 minute mark which is something to aim at (in fact, I will make an effort to beat this train next year). During the race there are a number of train crossings to pass, and as the race goes further the train becomes more of a factor. I was aware of the second train somewhere near me around 8 km into the race, and it passed me just before a crossing at the 10km mark.

All that can be seen is the smoke going into the distance as Puffing Billy passes me.

I eventually finished the race in around 80 minutes, though I'm not actually sure of the final time. My legs were pretty heavy at the end, and I was pretty weak on the downhill sections of the race. But I was glad to finish and complete my first ever race. On completion there were free Gatorade for all competitors and free trips back to Belgrave either by bus or on the train itself. David and I decided to take the scenic option and went back on the train. This took the best part of an hour which is great for sightseeing but not so good for muscles seizing up while sat on the cold, open sided, train.

Puffing Billy taking runners and tourists back to Belgrave.

Puffing Billy

Taking part in the event gave me great satisfaction, and a great sense of achievement in being able to finish the distance. Today I feel a bit sore, especially my calves which are not used to hill running like they had to do yesterday. And I noticed a small piece in the Herald Sun today about the race. Forgive me while I try to work out how anyone can run 13.2km in 41 minutes 33 seconds....

...never mind, I'm planning to be back again next year to try to improve upon this year's performance.

Running around work

I recently set myself a running program based on a workout every second day. This would give me plenty of exercise, and some rest days. Well, I have my work timetable and it's fairly long hours for 4 days (Tuesday-Friday 8am-7pm) and a whole Saturday 9am-3pm. So it has become harder to fit my running schedule around this. I have therefore decided to change it, and will now try to run 4 times a week. The workouts will be:

Tuesday steady 8-10km
Thursday steady 8-10km
Saturday long run building up to 20km
Sunday recovery run

The plan is now to get the miles into my legs, and not worry about speed. I want to be able to run a half marathon in 2013, though I'm just concerned about the distance, not any time. Maybe I'll enter the Melbourne Marathon which is around October time, though there are plenty to choose from.

In the meantime, the entries have opened for the Puffing Billy Great Train Run. My boss has entered the race already so I better get my act in gear. The race is over 13.2km of pretty hilly countryside which should be a big test. My longest run so far was just over 13km last week and that took me about 78 minutes which gives me a rough guide to how I'll run. Although the course is harder than what I normally run, I will be running with others, whereas I usually run alone. I'm guessing these factors will wipe each other out and anything under 80 minutes will be good for me. The race is on May 6th which gives me 2 and a half months to train for it. I will hopefully have a 15km run behind me before May!

I've been using 2 websites a lot recently to do with running. Endomondo is an app for your phone which has GPS tracking that can monitor your workouts. It has a whole lot more on the website, including challenges and a community based feel. As an example of a challenge, I've entered a challenge to run 1000 miles in 2012. I'm a little behind schedule, but I intend to pick up the training over the year. The other site is a forum which is packed with information. Coolrunning Australia, is where I found out about the Puffing Billy Run and I've seen much more, including other events, health issues, equipment discussions and good old fashioned banter.

Running Program 2012

It was my 2012 New Year's resolution to run some races this year with the first being the Puffing Billy run in May. So I've set myself a training program in blocks of 10 days running every second day. This should give me a chance to improve, time to recover between runs, and still fit around my work and the rest of my life. While running has become a very pleasurable hobby for me, I don't want it to take over my life and finding the right balance is important to me.

So the training program will look something like this:

1. 8-12km steady run
2. Interval training, either hills or speed work
3. Longer distance run, building to 20km
4. Interval training, either hills or speed work
5. 8-12km steady run

I have finished the first set of sessions now and feel really good. My first run was the day after I landed from New Zealand and I managed 10km but was painfully slow. I felt a bit stiff to start with, but ran this off, loosened up, but couldn't build to a decent rhythm. The second run I chose a hill near where I live and ran around the block going up the hill 4 times. The hill isn't too steep, nor too long, but I was breathing more heavily than usual at the top of it. The first couple of hills weren't too bad, but it then became tough going and the end of the fourth run was a real struggle. In hindsight I realise that I was trying to run the hills too fast rather than to take them at a steady pace and was therefore tiring sooner than I should have.

My long run was great. I felt really good, and ran over 11km (I'd previously only run 10.5km) in the same time it took me to run 10km a few days before. I fell into a pace after about 1.5km and held it through till about 9.5km when I started to tire. I then ran the hills again, but this time tried to run at a steady pace and managed 5 repeats of the climb feeling better than when I'd done 4. I was able to recover comfortably as I slowly ran to the bottom of the hill, and after the hills, I even did a 2km cool down run and was able to pick up the pace a little towards the end. The last run of this session was 10km, but I really struggled as it was terribly hot, about 27C when I started my run. I ran at a decent pace, but had to stop at about the 7km mark where there is a drink fountain. So it was basically 2 runs, one of 7km and another about 3km with a break of 1 or 2 minutes between them.

I'm pretty happy with this start to the year and hope to build from there. I want to build my distance up to 20km eventually, but in the medium term, I want to get 15km and get a few runs of that distance in before the Puffing Billy run. I'm not so bothered about my speed as I'm already running faster than I'd expected to, but I've got in my mind 10km in 55 minutes which is an average of 5.30 per kilometre. I'm not far from there, so I see it as an achievable target. When I hit that target I'll think about something else!

New Year's Resolutions

It's the last day of 2011 and about 35C outside, so today I've decided to stay inside, try to stay as cool as possible, and work out what goals I should set for next year. Most of these are to do with running, but I'll get some others out the way quickly.

1. Play more chess and push my rating towards 2300. This is what I need to become an FM titled player. I have about 140 points to rise, but at this level that is very hard. I will have to up my game, which means putting some work in :(

2. More coffee!! My best coffee of 2011 was probably at St Ali's in South Melbourne. Unfortunately, St Ali's is always packed and the service is always stretched (don't get me wrong, they're really good in there, just always rushed off their feet). So I'm on the search for more good coffee places, and I'll no doubt hit some bad ones around the place.

3. Running. So here it is. What are my goals for the New Year? Well first, as far as this blog is concerned, I'm not going to post about every running session. I've decided to break my training into 10 day blocks and I'll blog about my sessions rather than each individual workout.

The sessions will consist of 3 long runs, 2 of 10km and one longer. There will also be interval training, speed and strength training as well. OMG, this sounds serious! Actually, it is pretty much the same as what I'm doing now except each run is targeted at improvement, even if only a small bit.

And the reason for this is that I don't want to make a complete idiot of myself when I enter some runs this year, which I am going to do!

Puffing Billy Run: I became aware of this after joining an Australian Runners Forum, CoolRunning, and the more I think of it, the more it appeals to me. So I am going to work towards running this race which is about 13.2km and I'll be happy to complete it in anything under 80 minutes which is roughly 6 minutes per kilometre. It's on 6th May so I have 4 months to prepare for it and as I'm already running 10km, I should be able to handle it....I hope!

De Castella Run: this is one I saw a flyer for in 2011. Unfortunately, it was about 3 days before the race was due to take place. The Rob de Castella run is a 15km run for a cause which is quite important to me, mental health research. My wife has been a mental health nurse for about 15 years so this seems an appropriate run to aim for. The de Castella run is on 26th August, so there is plenty of time between Puffing Billy and this one for me to train and try to improve more!

The big goal for 2012 is to push my running out to 20km. Then I will consider a half marathon for 2013, and maybe even take on the marathon distance in the future.