Another successful run today and a whole new pb! I don’t know where they are all coming from but it certainly helps when I’ve got someone to chase or even better when I have someone hot on my heels - I run and squeal like a girl when I get chased.
I was battling it out with one of those pesky run/walkers. I think it was her first time at the Bushy Park Time Trial so she was foxed by the deceptive finish straight. She overtook me at the bend going at a fair old pelt but I nodded sagely to myself - not a chance she’d be able to complete without another walking episode. Sure enough, the finishing km took the better of her and she slowed right up, I sauntered past her and with about 500 m to go I felt I could start my final sprint.
If you check out the heart rate curve above you can see the point at which my pace and heart rate soared in the middle of the final lap. You can also see that I maintained it only for about 150 m before realising that even as a seasoned BPTT’er I also had been foiled by the dreaded k. My pace dropped right back down to my usual shuffle and the pesky run/walker grabbed her chance. She passed me easily but seemed to have lost some of her earlier sprint prowess, my killer instinct snapped and I delved deep for a previously unknown speed and took her on the line.
Now for my time, the watch records an amazing time of 34:04 for the 5km route which matches the time called out by the timer on the finish line BUT the darn official time is recorded as 34:21. It’s still a pb but just not quite as good a pb. It looks like the positions were muddled a bit at the back as my time was swiped by the person two positions ahead. Never mind, it just means I should have room for another pb soon.
**UPDATE** the great guys at BPTT have just contacted to let me know of the position error so my official time is being bumped back up to 34:04 Yay!!!
Kieran has posted his heart rate plot for todays BPTT, also recorded on the RS800SD, he’s taken the time to explain all the features displayed on the polar protrainer chart. It’s interesting to see how my back of the pack performance compares to his 20 min performance. One thing we have in common is a max HR which far exceeds our age predicted max and which also exceed that recorded in maximal testing environments - just shows how gruelling this event can be! As expected Kieran runs with a cadence slightly faster than mine and a stride length at least 50% greater than mine. Mmmmm….. now what is one supposed to do with all this amazing info?
Straight after the run I met up with Jason for another blast around Richmond Park on the mountain bikes. I’m sitting at home now absolutely shot to bits. Jae is considerably faster than me at the best of times but he was out on his swanky new bike with waver thin tyres (waver thin by mtb standards) and it nearly killed me trying to keep up with him. It was fun skidding around the dust and trying to avoid trees that kept jumping out in front of me.
There are some pretty monstrous hills in RP and I kind of expect to be overtaken by runners as I bob up them in my granny gear but today there was some superman trail runner on the track and he actually overtook me on the up hills and down hills! He was flippin amazing in a totally irritating fashion.
Here’s a snap of Jae and myself in the park, if you look carefully you can probably see superman passing us again on his second lap. 
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