This week I got in some quality running during 5 sorties, culminating with a strong half marathon at Rueil-Malmaison. I didn’t make the weekly kilometer objective but made up for it with a good perf in the half.
The weather was cold all week so a certain amount of courage was required to get out and brave the elements.
For the half marathon, fortunately the sun was out to warm up the atmosphere a bit. I guess it was about 3°C at the 10:30 AM start. There was a gym where runners could hang out until it was time to do a warm-up jog.
Like the half-marathon the week before, I was able to sign up to run on race day. By the way, I had no lingering effects or extra tiredness from the half I ran last week at Savigny-sur-Orge.
At the start, I positioned myself just behind the 1:40 objective sign where people with that objective were supposed to line up. I should have moved myself up further because the first 2 km were on a narrow track along the Seine which made it difficult and dangerous to get up to my target pace of 4:40.
At km 4 there was an unexpected hill that hurt and hurt even more on the second lap, this time at km 14.
My average HR was 144 or 85% of max which is just about where it should be. Average pace was 4:44/km. Over the last 5km I averaged 4:32/km.
I did the first 10 km in 47:49.
The first split in 49:40 and the second in 48:49. It’s always good to have a negative split like that.
My overall time was 1:38:29 which I’m happy with at this point early in the year. If I had had a better position at the start and if not for the hill, I think I could have approached my half PR of 1:35. I’ll have to save that exploit for another race.
I finished 48th out of 220 runners in my V2 category.
Next Sunday is the Maratrail, which will be a tough 42 km test. I want to do it in a round 5 hours.