The new goal

Although I am prone to a bit of disaster and 90% of races that I plan to do never see me make the start line, I have decided to roll the dice and commit to a race that is 8 months away and in another country. Qantas were offering cheap flights so I decided to take the punt and book them before they went up.

The race I am going to commit to is one that I have been fascinated with for a while. It is a marathon in New Zealand which is mostly downhill. It features a 460m decline over the 42km journey. There is also a few uphill sections. Here is the website http://mountaintosurf.co.nz/

I have been interested in this race ever since I discovered that I seem to have some ability as a downhill runner. Maybe its all in my mind but when I completed the Great Ocean Road half marathon in 2011, I would pass faster runners on the downhill and they would then catch me when we went uphill and this continued until the end of the race. There is one way to find out for sure and that is to compete in a race that is mostly downhill. If I finish with a time that sounds unrealistic, they I will know that I am a gifted downhill runner. If I finish with a time that is nothing special flash compared with how fit I am at the time then I will know not to get too excited about it.

There are two main reasons why I have waited so long to do this race. Firstly it is in New Plymouth which does not have an international airport so that means I need to catch two flights to get there. As you can imagine catching two flights is not like getting two trains where you only have to wait a few minutes for the second one and the idea of flying to Auckland, hanging around an airport for 4-5 hours, catching another flight, enduring a time zone difference and then finally checking in to a hotel just sounded like too much of a hassle and not a very good preparation for a marathon. To get around this I have decided to spread the flights out over separate days so I can carb load and relax in style in preparation. Also its the same deal on the way back so I can recover nice and easily.

The other thing that put me off this event initially is the potential for hot weather. It is in the first weekend of March which means warm weather is very likely. I struggle in the heat so I was not too impressed with this however I figure that I will have Melbourne's summer to train through so I should be well adjusted to it. I plan to do some long runs when the temperature is in the high 20's/low 30's so I should be well suited if the mercury soars.

So at this stage here is the plan:

- get to a good level of fitness, averaging about 100km per week

- lose enough weight to get down to my proper race weight. I currently weigh about 77kg and I would want to have my weight down to about 66kg before I run a marathon

- 3-4 months before the race begin to do some training that is specific to this race such as downhill reps, long runs in hot weather and other things.

- do plenty of races during the lead up to ensure I have a good idea of my likely time.

Another thing that is not great is that I cannot do a half-marathon in the lead up. Having the lead up in the summer months means that I will be restricted to 5-10km races. A half marathon would be ideal but I would have to fly over to Hobart for that to be possible and I don't think I will be allowed a leave pass considering that I am going O/S in March. So the plan will be do to some races over shorter distances, then use the McMillan calculator to work out an expected marathon time. Once I have done that I can subtract 10-15 minutes due to the downhill factor. I believe if I put together 8 months solid training I would run a marathon in under 3 hours in a flat course so that means a very fast time by my standards on a downhill course but lets not get too excited. It's a long way off and I have made other ambitious goals in the past that have never seen light of day so I will keep it zipped for the moment!

This race does not feature a half marathon or a 10km race to downgrade to so it's an all or nothing affair. If I get an injury or some other disaster, I am not sure what I will do. The flights are all paid for but I did get them pretty cheap so it won't be the end of the world if something goes wrong. Anyway I should start thinking positive.

So getting back to the present. I have just finished a 14km run which gives me a total of 70km for the week.
The previous week I completed about 60km so I am building up slowly again. Let's see if I can get towards 80km this week.

I have entered the de Castella 15km run on August 26th which will be my first race of the year. Let's hope I can make the start line for once!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!