Below is a graph of how my average speed varied along the route. Bare in mind that my target speed was about 10.5 km/h. I aimed to press for a new lap at each mile marker but as you can see there’s only 18 data points on the chart so I failed to do so. It’s surprisingly hard to see each of them although you know they’re coming.
The Dips
The first dip at 18.17 km is due to stopping in the pushes to relief myself and the second – between 32.68 and 35.95 – is when I arrived to the dry water/energy drink points. I’m surprised that I was able to climb back to almost 9 km/h after that, it felt a lot slower.
Lessons Learned
Starting the race at almost 1 km/h faster than the target speed is a mistake, I’m definite that the line would’ve been flatter if I had started slower. But, you know, it’s really hard to pace yourself at that point. Another lesson would be not to stop for a wee but that proved to be impossible.
Polar (RS200 SD, my running watch) proved to be very accurate, notice that the finishing line came at 42.75 km according to it. That’s only about 500 m more than the actual distance. Only just over 1% deviation. Nice
