Read the fine print
On Saturday I'm running The Great Race of Agoura Half Marathon. It is half on roads, half on trails and I thought it would be a good training run for Wildflower. I've started doing regular hill runs in Griffith Park with about a 350 foot elevation gain; Wildflower has 400 feet of ups and downs so I felt I was beginning to prepare myself. Tonight I decided to take a look at the Half Marathon run profile for the first time:
Doesn't look too bad until you do the math. NINE HUNDRED FEET??!!! Are they gonna have sherpas manning the aid stations?!
I'm doomed.
posted by Wedgie @ 9:02 PM
4 Comments:
You'll be fine. This is where your bike fitness comes to play. Being strong on the bike (riding a lot of hills) so you can ride a conservative bike with plenty of power to spare for the run. You still have time to ride a lot of hills. Don't be fooled and put all your eggs now into running because you are worried about the run. The run is hard, but you'll walk most of the hills anyway and after 7-8 miles you can hammer the rest of the way. So train hard on the bike but race a very conservative bike, then you do easy running/walking the first 7 miles which leaves lots of power to run very well and fast for the last 6 miles. Plenty of time, you have the base, just start adding a little more suffering into your biking when training. Suffer in training, race easy!
Jon
Thanks for the pep talk, but I realize now my post was confusing. That's the elevation for the Agoura Hills Half Marathon in two days. Wildflower has more ups and downs, but Agoura has twice the elevation gain. So that's one I'm worried about now!
You shouldn't worry about Agoura. You are not swimming and biking 56 miles of hills first. WF is not really up and down. It might look like it. The first 2 miles are flat, then for mile 2-7/8 you are going up and up. Most of your elevation is covered over these 5/6 miles. Some serious steep hills. After that there is only one more hill to worry about but it is ok since you get to run it down first. It is sooo cruel......
Good luck!
Conversation earlier in the week between Mr P and the Sea Monster:
SM: "Hey, got any training going on this weekend?"
MRP: "Eh, I just have a half in Agoura."
SM: "Cool, I think I'm gonna bike a 50 and swim... later."
MRP: "Later."
(OK, that's quite abbreviated as I'm extraordinarily long-winded, especially when it's tri related... but I think I captured the essence).
We train with these crazy Ironman guys who put "just" and "only" in our lexicon, to wit:
It's "only" a 900 foot climb and "just" a half. :-)
Seriously, I can "only" do 1/2 of that race so best of luck today, I can't wait to read the race report!
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