Easy week and Terwamarathon - by Jyrki

Easy week...

The start of the week felt like I was completely recovered from the last race (click).
I Still had to take it easy since I was going to run our home town marathon, the Terwamaraton on Saturday of this week...

My plan was to test the pace that I think that I would be able to keep during the marathon part of IM Kalmar in August. From my running exercises I was thinking that 6 min/km would be a good pace. That would mean an end time of 4:12 for the marathon part. I think it would be a really good pace since my best marathon time ever is 3:34 (Kiiminki 9/2013). 6 min/km is also quite hard to run... it feels like the legs does not want to run that slowly... :-) Well at least if felt like that before...

Beginning of this week however my coach analysed my running at Mallorca Ironman and decided that it would be best if run at 5:30 min/km for half the distance and then increasing the speed a bit. So, it was not going to be a long easy run after all... :-) First of all when telling me to increase the speed a bit, you have to define "a bit..." :-)) I just asked Lasse if he will get enough information from the run, for us to be able to define a reasonable pace for IM Kalmar. The answer was yes, and we will get more info from Finntriathlon in the middle of July. I was actually really happy to "be allowed" to run faster. Running faster is more fun :-)

Race day... 

I slept the night quite ok. This was not a "big" race so I was quite relaxed. I tend to be a little bit nervous on the last night before big races. It is a positive feeling but still affecting the sleep. But now there was no problem since it was not the purpose to break any personal records this time. This time it was supposed to feel good.
The evening before we read an interesting article on race day breakfast from Ironman.com. We discussed it with Niina and I decided to try to follow the basic principle. But "Low glycemic, low fat, low fiber" is actually not that easy to find. I tried to google what foods would be like this but the glycemic index issue seemed fairly complex... ;-) So in the end I did not take it too seriously this time...

I took my faithful "Bar Bike" to the Raatti track and field stadium where the race center was built. The feeling at the stadium was really nice. They have been able to build a really nice happening around the Terwamaraton in the last few years...

The weather was really nice. Sunny and way over 20 degrees Celcius.

The Race...

At 12:00 the gun went off and we started of from just outside the stadium. As always, the start of the run is really slow since there are so many people. I positioned my self just ahead of the 4:00 Pace maker. I decided to really try to set off with the right pace this time, and not to go with the flow. The flow at the beginning is normally way too fast ;-)
After around 5 km the running got easier and there started to be more space to run. I was doing quite well and keeping the planned pace. Heart rate was easily below 150. My aerobic threshold is 154 and anaerobic threshold is 169. So below 150 is feeling really easy. Some screenshots below from Polar Flow.

The first half

When we started the second round, I increased the pace as planned. First it was going quite well... The next 9 km the pace was slightly higher, heart rate was higher than I wanted. It was still feeling quite good. At around km 26 - 27 I started to feel some problems in my thighs... Not feeling that good anymore.

Still feeling rather good...

At 30 km it started feeling really bad... My legs were completely jammed. It was a pain to run and I even had to walk for some bits to ease the pain. When I tried to run, I was not even capable of keeping 6 min/km :-) I was actually laughing at this point. It is good to get these feelings every now and then. 

Let the suffering begin...

 My net time in the end was - 4:00:53

Actually it would not have been a bad time for this test run, if it would have felt better in the legs. Now I am not happy with the result.

I got a short massage after the run. Walking was really painful,  I was not so happy with the thought of cycling back home :-) 

I decided to have a pit-stop at the Oulu market place on the way home. I had a "lonkero" in the Keltainen Aitta. The sun was shining, the legs were starting to feel better...  

All-in-all it was a good day.

Next steps...

Now the real preparation starts for Ironman Kalmar on the 16th of August. Before that of course there is the Finntriathlon on the 19th of July.

The planning will now start together with my coach Lasse Seppänen. I know we have to start working at least on mobility, core strength and weight. I would suspect that there will be slightly more running during the summer than what I did during the winter and spring... 

To be continued...

- Jyrki