Feeling like a runner.

It's been two weeks since I started my marathon training and my mind-set is shifted to the runner's one now, having done an over 100km week for the first time since spring. So far, my legs are OK, just some soreness in my thighs.

●Week 1 (Sep. 15 - 21)
85.5km incl. 30km with 5min/k pace

●Week2 (Sep. 22 - 28)
101.7km incl. 35km with 5:05/k pace and 16km with 4:30/k pace (was slight faliure)

9 week marathon training

Now Sado tri is over and what's next....Tokyo Women's Marathon!

Last week, Brett made a marathon training programme for me and I finally started the marathon training. Considering that I only have 9 weeks (now 8 weeks) before the race, every run looks so precious and I can't skip any of them. At the same time, cramming too much training into the short period is very risky. In fact I pulled the leg muscle last year when I ran 30km a week after the triathlon race. So I set the principles for this time as follows;

- Don't be obsessed by mileage or time too much.
- Stay sensible side, never overwork, think about recovery cycle.
- Focus on what you do every time. Think about the purpose of the training.
- Eat well and drink sensibly.

And, this time, I would like to focus more on endurance side rather than speed side, so I will put at least one over 40km run before TW's. To be honest I wanted to put more than once, but it seems difficult now considering recovery period after Sado and tapering period before TW's.

I ran 30km with 5:00 - 5:10 / k pace last Saturday and I felt OK (2 weeks after Sado). I think some endurance has been already built through the triathlon training. The issue is how I can convert it to a marathon specifially. Now I have no speed at all. I am very slow at the track. So this will be the experiment to see if endurance base actually covers lack of speed at a marahon. Let's see.

Sado Triathlon B type

Last Sunday, I completed Sado Triathlon B type (2km swim, 105km bike and 20km run). This was my 4th proper triathlon and 2nd middle distance one. Here are my result and report.

Overall time: 6h08m50s
Swim leg (2km): 47m48s
Transition: 6m37s
Bike leg (105km): 3h35m39s
Transition: 3m58s
Run leg (20km): 1h34m49s
154th overall
12th overall woman
Won my age group :-D

Two summers ago, I started triathlons as a seasonal fun activity and I have never expected "racing" in triathlons. For this time, I had a feeling that I was not only participating, but racing.

I got up at 3:40am and caught a bus at 4:20am to the starting area. The rain stopped and by the time we arrived the transition area, the sky was nicely overcastted and it seemed to become a pleasant cool day.

Swim
The sea condition was perfect, the water was almost as flat as a swimmingpool. As I knew that I am a slow swimmer, I started with the slowest groupand started swimming very slowly. First, I was just concentrating on keeping the form I learnt from my excellent swimming coaches, then soon I realised that I was passing many people, which was very encouraging for me because it never happened before. One mistake I made was that I happened to go into the inside of the course and got involved in the "battle", but even after having a Lariat at back of my neck, I didn't panic and kept　"racing" with people around me. When I came out of water, my honest impression was "is that it?". 2km swim felt much easier than 2.5km last year to me (is there any "wall" between these distances?), and I was excited when I saw my watch showing 47 minutes! I never expected under 50 minutes.

Bike
After taking an energy gel (ume aji, my favourite!), I got on the bike in an extremely good mood (go me!), but tried to keep sensible pace because 105km is not easy distance for me. Since I lost my cycle computer the day before, I couldn't monitor my speed at all, but I kind of knew the right pace from my feeling. Early part of the course was straight and flat through the golden rice field, then you hit the coast line where it started to get scenic but hilly. Around the one third of the bike course, it started raining and around 50km point it got hard, but it didn't bother me much somehow and I kept passing people. I was surprised that I felt even strong at the uphills and passed lots of guys in front of me. I thought I was not a climber because when I went for a long ride with Namban triathletes, I was always left far behind at uphills. Now the hard bike rides with those excellent athletes paid off! I passed more than 200 people at the bike part. Well, it's the privilege for a slow swimmer.

Run
I wasn't sure how hard I could run after 105km bike ride, but I was feeling OK, still had some energy left in me. My only concern was cramping. Before I started running, I drank Electro Shotz drink and grabbed Athlete Salt and Sports Beans, but I forgot to bring Cramp Stop spray with me. Anyway I was nearly fully equipped for cramping. But near the 5km point, my hamstrings started to cramp and I had to stop to stretch. I took Sports Beans praying "please please stop this cramp!!! I want to finish this race!". I slowly and carefully started to run again and went back to the decent pace. I had to run very carefully all the way because when I sped up to a certain speed, the cramp came back and I had to stop and stretch. It was a frustrating run, but at the same time, I was running faster than I was hoping to and I passed nearly 100 people during the run, so I can't really complain, right?

My Sado experience was so much fun and it became a good confident builder for my first Ironman next year (I got into Canada). On top of that, I got the first prize in my age group. That was a nice bonus. The cool weather helped a lot, and my energy supply went pretty well. Those two factors mattered a lot to this result.

Thanks to all who trained with me and gave me advises and encouragement, and to Brett who cheered me and helped me at many different points on the course.

I shall come back to Sado for A type race some day! Tri is fun! So much fun!!!