20 is plenty, for now...

Sunday 13th March 2016 saw the 2nd running and my first attempt at the Brett Lydd 20 mile run.  The course was a simple out and back across the marsh with my Garmin clocking an incredible 0m of ascent over the 32km's (though I think I have been short changed here as I recon there was at least 10m of ascent).  Having had a week of fairly relaxed training in the build up (less a good hard 5 x 1km interval session on Wednesday night with the Weald Tri Club guys) I was feeling very ready to race.

I arrived a little later than planned and after registering, quickly bumping in to an old friend (who all credit to him managed a half marathon PB on the day, well done Tom!) and rushing off to get changed I cued in the usual pre-race facilities cue.  The one slight hitch was that being a little later than planned, I managed to complete my warm up from the cubicle to the start line, just in time to hear the gun!  Not exactly the calm collected jog, dynamic stretches and strides warm up I was hoping for.

Weaving through the crowds at the Lydd 20 miler

This also led to an unfortunate start at the very back requiring some serious weaving through crowds during the first 3k to find some space and people running at a similar pace.  Once I found some space my pace steadied and I settled in to the rhythm I was hoping to keep for the next 29km.  This managed to be the case for the next 17km with a steady pace, effort and heart rate keeping me ticking along, with 12km to go things started to get a little more challenging with a concerted effort required to keep my pace at around the 4.40/km I was hoping for.  At 6km to go things got tough and became dis-proportionately tougher km by km from then on, leading to a fairly desperate finish.  Overall I lost around a minute from my target pace within the last 6km, which was a little disappointing, however with 3 weeks worth of long running in my legs before the marathon I don't see this as tragic.

Things I learnt:

1.  You can get sunburn in Lydd in March, who'd have thought it!
   
2. My nutrition stratergy worked well, I used Nakd bars to provide energy for the first 22k, eating one bar every 5k, these felt like they worked well giving decent energy while not being too chewy, easily accessible and most importantly settling well in my stomache.  The last 10k was fueled using High 5 IsoGel's which having been used for all last season settled well in my stomach while being slightly less synthetic tasting than other brands.
   
3. Race belts are very useful!  The ability to have 500ml of water, all my Nakd bars and gels available when I needed them was very valuable.
   
4. Once I get past 15 miles things start to get tough, something I am going to have to really think about during my long runs over the next few weeks.  

Overall I was very happy with my performance, finishing in a time of 2:32:27.  This sets me on track for my London target and with a one more block of training left I am hoping for a reasonable performance on the day.  First though, lets get through a steadier few days of recovery spins and runs! 

Strava log for the Lydd 20: https://www.strava.com/activities/516064187