Club La Santa Half Marathon

While on a week's triathlon training camp the morning after doing an afternoon Aquathon and a few days in to training I took part in the resorts half marathon.

This was the Half Ironman (70.3) Lanzarote run route which is based at the resort including the finish line :-)

This was effectively a 3 lap out and back course, which others did not want to do as thought it would be boring. However I was using it as practice for the full Ironman run which is also 3 out and back laps next to the sea on the other side of the island but they would be bigger loops.

The loop started with a run to a turn around cone on the track which was 300m away then back and out the gate and headed to the La Santa village. This was in to a strong headwind and rain, there was even a rainbow between the turnaround point and the edge of the lagoon. You then ran the 1/4 mile through the village up the incline still in to headwind until the turn off down a side road to the end to the turnaround point where there was some water but I had my own drinks with me, at least this road you had side wind. You then headed the same route back and did the 300m loop around the track, at least this was in to a slight back wind.

Despite the wind and rain plus early start it was fairly warm enough for me to even have shorts and short sleeve t-shirt on!!!



As it was not a PB course even without the wind, I was pacing by effort without looking at pace with the aim of getting quicker and also not using much drink or gels. In the end I finished in a time of 1:55 (8:43 /mile) with a kick from 2 miles out and then again on the athletics track.



While also only using 1 gel at the start of the last lap (about 8.5 miles) and finished the drink by the end but this was due to being ready for the next session that day.

Below is my average mile pace for each out and back section, the red line is my average for the complete race.


Interestingly I was getting slightly slower (6 seconds then 3 seconds per mile) on each outward leg, however the wind speed direction and rain may have been different on each lap plus the incline at the end of each out section was feeling harder. However each back section I was getting quicker (4 seconds then 53 seconds per mile). Although at the last turn I picked up the pace with a small bit of a recovery part way back before I final push for the finish. This can be easily seen in the mile splits below with the red line as the average for the race.



I got a bit carried away in the first mile as it is a bit faster than the average as each section was about 2.21 miles you can see which where the outward sections (above the average) and back sections (below the average). You can clearly see where I kicked from 11 miles with the pace for the remain of the race being 8:07, 8:01 and 5:59/mile. The last part of the race was on an athletics track so I gave it a bigger effort which the last 0.28 miles was at a lot faster pace per mile.

Below is my average mile pace for each half of the race, the red line is my average for the complete race.

Based on the GPS information I hit my main targets of getting quicker and negative split. The only slight issue was getting slightly slower in to the head wind outward section, however I am not sure if the wind speed changed or it was fatigue on the incline at the end of the section although my back speed was quicker so it is less likely was fatigue. For the outward section there was a variance of 4 seconds per mile on average between the 3 loops, so not a really massive difference.