35 days to go: The Importance of Race Craft

Every week I try to take a lesson away from training and life. Micro-growth. Sounds like the utter cringe you read in the self-help annuals that proliferate airport book shops and spouted by Tik Tok influencers who can’t help but contradict themselves so much that they eventually argue themselves inside out.

But, I do subscribe to self reflection and growth as a result. And boy did this week land a couple of important lessons.

The training has been above average. If you remember a couple of weeks back I talked about how my training had been average. And that this was ok. The last few have nudged up in terms of quality of it is showing in my runs.

I don’t often talk numbers but it has been an 90 mile week. However, in that 90 miles been around 13 miles of high-intensity work (around 14%). Then the volume came not from super long runs (25 miles was the longest) but by having in effect 3x double days this week. This creates the space for me to take on load whilst not over-exerting.

Some people hate double days. Others love them. I am in latter camp. As an early morning runner who then is tethered to Zoom for about 80% of my working day, being able to break the day up with a second run (or a walk!) is fantastic. As I get older I enjoy them more. It is good for body and mind.

The main highlight of the week however was the Stirling 10k. This is where I re-learnt a massive lesson. Before the race I met a few familiar faces including prolific blogger Mark Gallagher and the exceptionally handsome Barkley Fall runner, (that’s this week, Wednesday 13th) Ally McColl.

My race plan was simple. My official 10k PB is 36:00 mins. I know! I hadn’t really ever run the distance. But I had done 34:30 in training. I expected to be somewhere in between these today. Lo-and-behold I split them right down the middle, 35:15. But… and there is a but so big that Sir Mix-A-Lot could write a song about it. [Google it if you don’t get the joke…]

Two miles in I was at 10:40. Just ridiculous and stupid. I was 9:55 for 3k. I’d take that in a 3k. I knew was in a spot of trouble. The often shared Limmy meme “don’t back down, double down” came into play and instead of immediately realigning my effort to ensure a sub 35 10k, I pushed. If Doctor Watson was to write a Sherlock Holmes case about this race it would be called The Case of the Particularly Piss-Poor Pacing.

The image below tells its own story. Michael Jackson didn’t moonwalk this good.

In the midst of all of this though, and having cracked 5k in 16:57 (2 seconds quicker than my Parkrun PB) I actually held on better than I hoped. I genuinely had thoughts of just stepping aside. Then I quickly put them in the bin and remembered, the point of this race and the Kirkcaldy Half was all about race craft. The suffering I left myself open to was going to replicate the last 10k in Toronto right?

I mean, I know I am in danger of using the biggest can of Mr Sheen to polish this pretty brown turn, but the reality is the reason I entered Kirkcaldy and Stirling was to practice race craft. That’s prep, pacing, mindset, nutrition and all of the peripheral stuff that goes around racing.

In an ideal world I would have paced smarter and ran 30+ seconds quicker. When I ran 34:30 in training my GPS recorded 5k splits were 17:13 / 17:17. It’s a reminder that at this kind of pace, getting a tiny bit greedy comes back to bite you on the arse like a rapid dug with a penchant for chubby cheeks. The 20 seconds or so extra time I gained in the first half probably got taxed by nearly a minute in the second half.

A very timely reminder. In the marathon I am aiming to PB, which would be <2:39. And 2 seconds per mile under pace target in a marathon is worth nearly a minute. What’s 2 seconds amongst friends? Well, perhaps a long last 10k! I need to remember this, and more come October 15th.

And here endeth this week’s lesson. For me at least!

Thanks for reading!
(Written by James Stewart)