Loop De Haag 2018

Background

In February 2017 Julie and I ran in the Barcelona half Marathon. The dive into the international running event circuit went so well we decided that we should definitely do it again. One thing that struck me in Barcelona was how flat the course was. It had one serious incline towards the end but otherwise it was flat and on a good road surface. Most of the Irish courses I had run on up to that point where much tougher. In Ireland almost every half marathon that I have ever raced in has had some really tough hills, awkward drags, the Atlantic headwind blowing in your face for two thirds of the course, poor road surfaces (pot holes), at times terrible organisation (The Dublin Half Marathon 2017 springs to mind. See my earlier blog for more details) and then of course our unpredictable weather. Far from trying to take a swipe at our Irish road races what I'm saying is that in my opinion fast and flat courses are not our thing which makes a PB hard to obtain first and then second difficult to break.

The Loop den Haag Half Marathon course in Holland was and is in complete contrast to your typical Irish race. The Half Marathon world record was broken on the course in 2007. 

By looking at the course map above you can see 11 sharp turns. Combined with an overall elevation of just 19 meters this course is ideal when you are trying to pull off your fastest performance in a half marathon race. To a runner looking to PB this would mean that there will be plenty of time running in your rhythm/target pace. The time spent braking, changing directions, climbing hills, reestablishing your pace and catching up costs seconds and if you are turning every few hundred meters or assaulting hills at your target pace that will cost minutes mostly because you're putting out more energy trying to maintain the pace which saps any reserves you might have for race time (typically the last third of the race).  

Day before the Race

The day before the Loop De Haag Julie and I paid a visit to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. This was inspirational. For the record I am not an art lover, my artistic skills are terrible and art whilst brilliant has always been illusive to me. Some human beings appear to be gifted with a fantastic god like ability for producing art. Intuitively, I have never been able to understand how such unbelievable skill seemed to be bestowed on so few people. Vincent Van Gogh was not like this at all. After several failed careers he moved back in with his parents at the age of 27 and began training to be an artist. His early paintings like the potato eaters are in my opinion terrible. To me they look like cartoons so why was this inspirational? Van Gogh clearly wasn't bestowed with incredible artistic talent and what he did next was pivotal. He didn't give up, he grafted his way from laughable to magnificent. He studied everything in art he could get his hands on (this was 1886 he didn't just google it either) spent 10 hours a day painting, refined his method, developed a vision, spent time on every detail, corresponded with other artists, copied other artists work and drew endless numbers of self portraits. Van Gogh struck me as a kindred spirit a grafter obsessed with his passion, not immune to criticism or failure but still possessed the steel to keep moving forward. I was astounded that even in something as right brained and abstract like art refining skill helped Van Gogh move the entire field forward. Practice made Van Gogh better then it led him to become visionary.

Personally I saw some parallels between me and Van Gogh. When I came to running after several failed sporting careers it was because I wanted to refine my athletic performance to it's highest possible level. I didn't expect to be a world beater nor do I now but I picked running because it annoyed me that running was the first sport I encountered where I wasn't fit enough to take part in it. In my first Marathon in 2010 I finished in a shocking 4:53:10. Nobody was thinking he's a natural clocking that kind of time I can assure you. Before that run I thought I was above average fitness. That result delivered a much needed blow to my ego. Back then I thought I was naturally fit enough to run a marathon. Presently a minimum of 6 months training is required to even consider a running a marathon. And if I don't hit minimum of 33 km in a long run I won't be lining up to start the race I'll be in behind the barriers at the finish line disgusted that I didn't put the work in. In 2017 when I finished the Dublin Marathon with a time of 3:28:42 I was starting to notice a correlation between how much time and effort I put into running and my finishing times. I add a cautionary note hear. I am not saying I ran more miles in training. I ran a lot yes but I refined my training runs, every run had a purpose (speed, technique, tempo, endurance), I built a better mind set and I spent time on my race strategy. All of these are still active projects but like Van Gogh, I am still examining every detail, questioning it, is that evidence base showing up in your training? Is that run working for you? Did you eat the right food today? The questions are endless. You find a good question to ask about your running you answer it and 3 more appear. Then you have to prioritize what direction you wish to take. The most obvious priority based decision runners make is probably do I run many races? Or do I run a distance and get as fast as I can at one particular distance.  

The Race

The race started at 2.30 pm in the afternoon. Flying out of the traps in the middle of the afternoon was a first for me. It worked well for me there was no rush to the start line after a 6 am breakfast or a late night inventory check and re check of my racing gear. In contrast we got up had a late breakfast collected our race numbers, breezed down to the start line in good form and had plenty of time to get warm and race ready. I was going for a PB. My training had gone well. The beast from the east snow storm had hit Ireland right in the middle of my recovery week before this race. I couldn't have timed the rest better. I was 45 seconds off my best half marathon (1:34:34 Cork Half Marathon 2014) on my intense long run two weeks out from this race. I had changed strategy with my training. Last year had thought me that I am the kind of athlete who must operate close to his PB to break his PB. I might be able to leap beyond this on a good day and really jump up 10 % on race day but for now I don't have that in my locker so when I was 45 seconds outside my PB on a long run which included 7 repeats of 2 km at 4:00-4:25 per km pace with a 1 km recovery jog I knew I was ready. There would be no 1 kilometer recoveries in the race. In addition I would be running on a flat course with an ideal climate. This was my achievement to throw away.

I nearly did throw it away mentally, I was about 50 meters away from the 1:35:00 pacers when the gun went off to start the race. I should have been right next to them from the start instead I got stuck behind a whole pile of runners who weren't going to be running anywhere near a 1:35:00 pace. Having built this opportunity to run a PB up in my head I was desperate to be in with a fighting chance at 17 km into the race. At 17 km if I was still at my target pace I was confident I could either hold it or race the last 4 km and cut as much time off my previous PB as I could. With not even a kilometer gone I thought I had made a serious strategic error. On a fast flat course I was wasting time and energy chopping and changing direction passing other athletes trying to get to the right position and pace. There was a moment where the 1:35:00 pacers were 200 meters away from me and it crossed my mind that this wasn't going well. Thankfully I checked my pace and that was on point. I resolved to catch up and pass the pacers at the best opportunity. At this point my hamstrings and calves were stinging. I always have something bother me at the start of a race and I had other problems like where I was positioned and establishing a race pace. I had to calm down and deal with these problems one at time. My Hamstrings and Calves would sort themselves out they were just a bit cold from standing around prior to the race. Passing the other athletes got easier as the road widened just after the first turn. Also a number of them fell away as they couldn't maintain their initial burst of pace.  I passed the 1:35:00 pacers at the 5 km mark. Here I took on some water. The cups came with sponges. Every time I meet cups at a race I normally point out that this is an insane practice and should be banned across all road races in the civilized and uncivilized world. The Loop De Haag organizers came up with a different idea. They slipped a small sponge into each cup. To take a drink you could whip out the sponge and bite it a little get a little drink repeat as desired. I have to say problem solved. As a suitable middle ground if all races in the world adopt the sponge in the cup solution I will lift my world wide ban on cups. 

After the water station we where on a long straight and I maintained my target pace easily. This was to be expected I was just over 5 kilometers in if I was in trouble here then my training would have to have been wildly off the mark. I wanted to hold my pace between 4:20 - 4:25 per km. There were tougher elements to this race at approximately 12-14 km you begin running on cobblestones. This was tough. I made a serious effort to speed up here and get away from that surface asap as did the guy who was running in bare feet. I am not joking there was an athlete running this race in his bare feet on the cobblestones. I'm not going to draw a picture but lets just say his feet were visibly injured and that I wouldn't recommend bare foot running. We climbed a short hill against a mild breeze to get to the beach. The breeze was welcome as the weather had gotten warmer and we had been running for over an hour at this point. The hill was tough and I was starting to notice a little tiredness creeping in. I have to stress at this point that the 5 second margin in my target pace is something you have to practice a lot which I did. My previous target margins could have been 10 or 15 seconds wide but to get closer to my PB I had to fine tune my body a bit more so much so that as I came into the final third of the race I knew intuitively that I was slipping out of my target pace.   

At 19 km I was desperately trying to break the PB and I didn't want to break my stride to check the watch. I knew I was slowing down and a PB was mine to lose. I kept pushing myself, pumping my arms to try and give my legs as much help as I could. My core strength secured from 6 weeks of intensive Pilates was a real help. I didn't sag in my core and this helped. I was praying for the final left turn to appear soon for the last 2 kilometers. I knew I was slowing my job was either to control the fall or drag more effort out of my tired legs. With the PB in sight I hung on desperately.....and I did it. I crossed the line with a chip time of 1:33:08. 

Aftermath

I was relieved when I crossed the finish line. Part of me couldn't believe that I had cut over a minute off my time. Even when my Garmin watch went bezerk and congratulated me on a new personal record I was still expecting a sting in the tail. The training and race had gone well, I had emptied the tank and about a week later after I had recovered and started training again I started to think..... I could break that PB again. There is more in you yet.