2012 Race Plans

On the eve of the New Year, I thought I would post my 2012 race plans. There are a couple of “concrete” events, and there are a few other “could be” races on the calendar.

For me, it is always a balancing act between getting my running fix and ensuring I don’t blow the budget and spend too many weekends away from my boys and Bel. I hate being away from the family, but have found its easier to taper and get set for a race without the kids – although as they get older and sleep better it hasn’t been as bad as my first couple of years of running.

Obviously next week I will run my first Ultra Marathon. The Hares and Hounds at the Glasshouse Mountains Sunshine Coast, it’s a 55km trail run. I had registered a couple of months ago, as part of my preparation for The North Face 100 (TNF). I wanted to run an Ultra, identify any issues with fuel or my gear so I could be more confident come race day in May. The other funny thing is that as my training has progressed I have run two training runs longer than a marathon, so I’m starting to feel confident about the distance. I’m heading to Brisbane by myself and my sister Monica is going to crew me, so it should be a great weekend.

After H&H my plan is to do all of my training here in Rockhampton before TNF in May. I was tossing up about travelling to the Gold Coast for the Nerang 50km trail race but I think I might give it a miss and train instead on Mt Archer.

Mt Archer provides a good training venue, there are 2 key types of runs I plan to do. The first is a trail run, you can park at the

German Street

car park and run up First Turkey to the summit and back for 25km – so two laps would be 50km. I plan to do that in February, March and April. Another key session will be to run Mt Archer up the road, it is a 10k return trip from the

Pilbeam Drive

sign to the summit and back. So I plan to do this 3 times, which will be roughly 1650m of elevation over 30km. Its pretty tough, I ran it twice on Christmas eve (20km) and got some weird looks on my second lap from the walkers! I plan to do the Mt Archer road triple a few times also.

After H&H my next series of races will be the shorter 10k races that the Rocky Road Runners put on, these will no doubt be done on tired legs, but are a great chance to catch up with the Saturday crew at a race. I think the first one is the last weekend in January at the Sports Expo (check out http://www.rockyrun.com.au/ ).

My next long race after H&H will be the TNF 100. I won’t go on about the 100k trail race here – as I’ll save it for another post, but it has been on my running “wish list” for 3 years…so feels very weird to be registered with flights booked for the 19^th-20^th of May!

After TNF I plan to have a break, my first race back will probably be the Rocky River Run Half Marathon on the 3^rd of June. Depending on how broken I am after TNF it could be just a fun run! I would secretly love to run under 99 mins for the half, but will need to see how I pull up from the brutal hills of the Blue Mountains!

After the Rocky River Run, I plan to take the family to the Gold Coast for the Gold Coast Airport Marathon on the 1^st of July. Not sure if I will be in PB shape by then, but if I am – I’ll be having a crack at 4hrs. Again there is probably a couple of blogs about my marathons and not being able to get under 4hrs!

After Gold Coast I will be getting serious about running a marathon PB, I will be running the Brisbane Marathon (which coincidently is 30 years since Deek won Gold at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane) – I have good memories of Brisbane, having run my PB of 4.05 there this year. This race I might even recruit a pacer – Benny has offered to get me under 4hrs – so he might come to pace me through the 42.2.

After Brisbane, I will run another Marathon 2 weeks later in Adelaide on the 19^th of August. My good friend Donald has just started running, and is keen to run his first marathon in Adelaide – so it fits in well for me. Will be a bit of a recovery run, I hope he can go under 5hrs. But as it’s his first, it will just be special to run a marathon with him. Adelaide will also give me a marathon is South Australia. I have already run one in QLD, Vic and the ACT so really looking forward to running in the City of Churches.

After Adelaide I plan to take a little break for a month, just to recover and concentrate on HRE work, so not sure what the second half of the year will bring – I would love to get to Melbourne and smash a PB down there, but it may have to wait to 2013. I also have my eye on either the Toowoomba Marathon in October or the Rainbow Beach Trail Marathon in November, but they are more a maybe than a definite. Rainbow beach might make a good mini family break.

So that about wraps up my year, a 55km Ultra, 100km Ultra and 3 Marathons all “locked in”….I find it suits my personality (and getting budget approval from the fun police) to plan my races a year in advance.

Have fun and be safe out there running

Sean  

Fortes Fortuna Iuvat