PBIM HM Worst (hopefully) Performance

 Hopefully, this is the worst HM.  I was walking after 6km of run.  At times, I wanted to run and tried to run, but can only hold for awhile before I have to walk back.  I was really thinking DNF, but I couldn't find runners sitting aside waiting to be carried back, so, I just walked back painfully.

In the beginning of the run, I didn't feel any different.  The only thing was, for the last few training seasons before the race, my heartrate elevated easily.  Typically, my heartrate was ~135bpm when I ran at 8 min pace.  However, for last few seasons, my heartrate was close to 150bpm even at 8 min pace.  So, I have decided to take it easy this time.

However, after ~6km of run, I started to feel dizziness when I looked down, and I felt the dryness of my lips.  Since my friend sent an article on people die while running with one of the symptom is lack of water.  As I was worry about my situation, I started to walk/run a bit in 7km.  After having a drink, I tried to start running but the dizziness feel when I looked down still remained.  So, I decided to just walk until the end.

The thinking of DNF started to surface up in my mind.  I was looking around to see if I can find any runner sitting beside the road waiting for transportation to fetch them back.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find any.  So, I just kept walking and told myself to stop if I see DNF runners.  While walking, I started to wonder I can finish the HM before the cut0-off time.  This is the 1st time I had that doubt in my mind for HM distance.

Eventually, I finished the distance at 3 hour 19 mins, 10 mins before cut-off.

When I think back, these are the possible issues I had for this race:-

1.  Lack of water:  From all previous races, I will need to pass out urine before the race and then after 1 hour+, I will need to pass out urine another time for HM distance.  For this time, I don't feel the urge to pass out urine and even for the whole 3 hours + walking.

2.  Lack of rest: For this time, the day before, I still visited Taiping Zoo with family and only reach Penang ~4pm.  While trying to sleep at 7pm, I woke up 8+pm and couldn't sleep again until the race started.

3.  Higher heartrate: For some reasons, my heartrate was higher at typical pace, which I still have no idea of the cause.

I can have solution for the first 2 possible causes but not the 3rd one.  I can only monitor the progress of the 3rd one and hopefully the medical check out in Feb will have some hints.

Fuel:-

1.  Instant noodle with eggs 2 hours before the race.

2.  1.5L water 2 hours before the race.

PBIM HM with Garmin Training Plan

 This is the running post agan after 4 years.  Mainly due to lack of event that I joined in 2019 and no event organized during the year of 2020 and 2021 due to COVID.  Starting 2022, running event started again.

However, in 2021, only virtual running events were being organized.  For the last 2~3 Virtual HM, I find it harder and hard to complete it.  Thus, I decided to follow a free trainng plan.  Garmin Training plan was chosen since I am using Garmin watch.

Throughout the whole training plan, I did follow more than 90% of the training, except for cross training.  The training that I skipped was due to either raining or personal engagement.  Out of 80 trainings, only 2 activities that I skipped due to personal reason.

By following Garmin Training plan, I managed to increase my weekly mileage to more than 30km without serious pain.  Previously, when I run on myself, whenever I reached weekly mileage of 20km, I started to feel pain at my leg.

There are 2 main differences between the training plan and I run by myseft.  Firstly, the training plan ask for cool down (walk) of 5~10 mins after each training session that I didn't do that when I run myself.  Secondly, there are variety of running style, Interval, Easy, etc in Garmin Training Plan while I always run at almost the same pace when I run myself.  These are the 2 main different that I am able to log more than 30km per week, I think.

Although I am not able to improve my time after joining the Garmin Training Plan, but I didn't feel out of breath by running with this pace, not like a few HMs before.  I guess this is the improvement from the plan.

Following is the HR vs Pace for HM from my available data, ie. 10.6sec/km improvement for 5s increase in HR.

As for this particular run, the pace vs HR is as follow.

HM in Storm

It is really a true experience for me to run in thunderstorm.  The wind was very strong until I felt the pain as rain drop hitting my face.

With lack of training, the last 3 km was really suffering.  In all the previous run, I felt excited when reaching 18km and wanted to run faster too complete the race, although not able to...  But this time, at 18km, I really felt like to walk for 3km to complete the race.  Anyway, I dragged myself with slow jog to complete it.

The heavy rain started at 16km on the bridge.  My eyes could hardly open due to the rain and have to use my mouth for breathing while the pace was down a bit to around 7min/km.

Except for the 1st 2 km where I was getting myself away from the crowd, I was running in a manageable pace of around 6:30min/km with heartrate of around 170bpm.  I guess that could me my space for 10km without really training...

Adding this run statistic into the heart rate vs pace will get the following:-

Comparing to other HM in 2018, I experienced a higher heart rate that could due to lack of training.

HM Heart Rate Trend

While I focus a lot on the heart rate, my pace has been reducing tremendously recently.  My hope for training with heart rate (MAF) can help to increase weekly mileage without injury was wrong.  I have been suffering from Plantar Fasciitis for the last 2 months.  This makes the coming PBIM to be challenging as I have reduced my weekly mileage to less than 10km/week for almost the whole October.

However, I took the chance to summary my HM pace trend together with HeartRate as follows:-

As the pace slower recently the average heartrate also reducing.  I will interpret this as no much change in terms of heart rate vs pace.

Plotting heartrate vs pace will get the graph below:-

Hopefully, to run at 170bpm I can be with pace around 6 min/km.