Into the Valley of Death

One of the most intimidating parts of the Around the Bay Race is 400m climb from the base of the Woodland Cemetery to York Road along Valley Inn Road. Though I haven't done the entire Bay race, I did the 3 x 10km relay last year and there was much jockeying among my partners - both Bay veterans - on who would do the last leg. Though from what I understand, the entire course has hills of varying sizes, the last leg is the worst, principally due to the Valley Inn climb. I drew the short straw and ran the last leg.

And the hill is tough. It's long and steep. It comes with only a few kilometres remaining in the race and even though I was doing only 10km last year - the last leg is actually 10.5 km - I was gassed after running up the entire 400m after completing 7km. I worry what toll it will take after 27 km or so.

The hill has an intimidation factor to it. I drove my leg of the course before the race last year so I knew what to expect. The whole race I was thinking about that hill, worrying about that hill. And I was right: it sucked.

But it has to be done. So yesterday instead of my usual route, I ran from the Spec out to Valley Inn Road and then down across the bridge at the base of the hill. It was a nice round 5km. Then I turned around and chugged back up the hill.

Yep, just as bad as I remembered.

The pitch is relentlessly steep and you can't see the top until the very end, so you're going on faith that it actually ends. The view is quite nice off the left, but I can't say I really cared. At some point during that hill it becomes about survival.

My run was even 10km and I finished it in 53:41 - not great and not terrible. That's a 5:22 pace and I was at my old reliable 160bpm average which seems to be my most comfortable heart rate - or at least the one I end up at most commonly. My Garmin was acting up a little so I wasn't getting reliable bpm numbers the whole time. And my mp3 player ran out of juice, so it wasn't a great run, technologically speaking.

Based on that 53:41 time, this great site puts my predicted time at 2:50:43 - under my three hour target. It also apparently puts my result in the 51st percentile - perfectly average athlete, that's me. That site has got lots of cool calculators...

A number of runners at the Spec are, like me, fretting about the weather and it's impact on training. I'm certainly not the only one not getting in my alloted number of long runs. I figure I've got one more long one in me before race day and I'll just have to survive the 30km.

And I'm going back to Vally Inn Road a couple more times just to be ready...