Great Aloha Run Race Report

For me, this year’s Great Aloha Run was a lot like the Makaha Time Trial I did last week. It was mostly for fun, and a chance to see what needs to be done. In one way they were very different. That was my first time trial (not counting the ones I do in training). By contrast, this was my eighth GAR. I did my first in 2012, back when I had just started running, then every year for five more years. I skipped four years, from 2018 to 2021, because I was more focused on triathlon, especially swimming. The 2022 race was virtual and I did it as a distraction from Covid lockdown. 

The GAR is a point-to-point course, so transportation is a challenge. Every time I’ve done it I had my wife drop me off downtown for the start, then after the race I take the shuttle bus to Waikiki where we meet at her favorite place. No, not the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. Ross’s, on Seaside.

Here is a chart comparing some of my GAR metrics. The overall trend is significant improvement at first, then a plateau. It would be fair to say that I lost some running form during those missing years, and some of that due to aging.
 

My emphasis recently has been to get comfortable running faster. This whole heart thing kind of spooked me. Then, too, training for triathlon means never having enough time to train properly as a runner. I did a lot of work in low zone 2, the L1 break point, which provides the best combination of endurance development with minimal training stress. I felt as though I needed more time running fast, for better mechanics and efficiency. That does not mean less slow work, but a little more fast work. 

At the same time I am allowing for the possibility that the only way I will get through an Ironman is by walking most of the run. I experimented with that last year and found that I was miserably slow. Right after the marathon I did a consultation call with Jason Koop, author of “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning.” He was very supportive, with a lot of ideas. He said to spend a lot of time training the walk, and doing interval speed work much like running drills. That, and don’t expect to get much faster than an 18 min/mi pace.

That being said, my goal for this race was to see how much I could run at a 16 or better pace, and when I could no longer sustain that, see how fast I could walk. I thought I did very well at both – naturally I wish I could have ran the entire distance! I ran the first two and a half miles at my target pace or better, with a short break every so often, but on the slight hill coming into Iwilei I felt I had done enough of that and decided to walk the rest, with more running as I approached the finish.

What I did – not having actually planned this – was run until my heart rate hit 160 and my RPE was up around 7. Definitely not sustainable for two hours. Walk until heart rate went down, then go again. Eventually I reached a point where my heart rate would not come down much, and that is when I started walking. From that point to the finish I averaged a 17:45 pace. Very good! After mile five my legs began to feel heavy with fatigue, but not enough to make me slow down. I did try to run as soon as I saw the finish, but my legs would have none of that. At the finish my legs were sore but other than that I felt good. Tired, but not wasted.

That maximum heart rate value of 205 is a bit of a fluke. For much of the race my heart rate was flat. When I isolate a long section without the spikes I get 149 average and maximum 155. But at several points my heart rate either spiked or sank, as low as 70 bpm. I will call that a misfire, first cousin to a PAC. 

It has been awhile since I did a running zone setting test. My LTHR has been at 151 since last fall. That puts 149 right at the top of zone 4. Ten years ago my pre-race note said to run in zone 3 and allow an occasional drift into zone 4. Much like the bike time trial I was going by RPE, but I was watching HR and taking a break when it got to 160. After the race I got an exciting message from TrainingPeaks, “Threshold Notification.” New value: 152. Previous value, 151. Whoopie. But nice to know that the TrainingPeaks robot saw I was working hard. Maybe it was the spikes that pushed it up.

I was going to add something about my Frontier X data, but that started going off into the weeds, and I can’t find any useful pattern from run to run. I think I’ll send the EKG strip to my cardiologist, just to see what he thinks.

I was looking forward to the King’s Runner 10k and the Hapalua, but March has been overtaken by my cataract surgery, so I’ll have to pass. Hope I should be able to ride at least some of the HBL Metric Century Ride. I have until the end of April to prepare.