31.5km run

Been too busy these few days to write down a review for this race done on last Sunday.
It was pretty interesting as I managed to figure out some new stuff.


Official results from the TriFactor page states that I have completed the 31.5km run in exactly 3 hours, so that works out to be about 10.5km/h pace on average. Not too shabby considering the minimal amount of long D training that I had put in over the last couple of months, just 3 x ~12km runs on 3 weekends, and I was targeting an optimistic timing of 3.15hr at my current fitness level. 3hr flat just surprised me.


Key difference in this race was the rain and the strict discipline on following through on a high cadence short stride combination.


Had tried the high cadence short stride combi in training a few times and ended up making my heart rate ramp up much faster than my traditional low cadence long stride combi.
However the books and techniques that I had read up states that long strides will cause a braking effect and will waste more energy and place unnecessary stress on the knees.


Given the non-optimal fitness condition with a bad left knee, and the tested and proven heavy taxation on the body from the low long combi, it was perhaps a stroke of genius or act of desperation that I did the unconventional by trying a new technique during a race.
Somehow I had managed to pull this high short combi off (the rain has definitely helped), and maintained it for the full 31.5km without any real stops (excluding short drink breaks) and kept the heart rate consistent at 162~168 bpm for about 80% of the run. 
This is in my zone 3, also my lactate threshold grey zone (since I have never managed to clearly define my Max HR to get a clear set of numbers), so technically speaking I could continue running at the same pace for the full 42.195km with enough LSD endurance training.


However, I could feel that I was starting to tire towards the end of the run (also incidentally my traditional break down point at 3hr), so this means that I will need more LSD endurance training to make this pace last through the final 10.5km.


My rough estimate is that if I could put in more training for the high short combi, achieving another sub 4.30 for my final SC 42k will not be a far fetched target.
With another ~4 months to SCMS, time is on my side now to make a difference.
Hope I can make my 10th anniversary run a good one.