(long) Musings on the Sydney Half

You may have noticed that I've been writing all the reports lately. Poor old TA is absolutely up to her neck in study for this course she's doing, so the little quality time she gets on the computer is not going to be spent blogging! Hence, you'll have to put up with my ramblings again.

Wonderful day today. I don't understand why everyone doesn't get involved in days like these. The alarm went at 4:45am (hmm.. there's a reason for a start :-), and we had breakfast and attempted to (ahem) awaken the nether regions. Not wanting to make too fine a point of it, but if you don't manage it then, chances are that the body is going to get well and truely awoken about 5k into your 21.1k run, and you don't want to waste all that energy holding your sphincter clenched for the next hour and a half!! :-)

Anyhow, we arrived in North Sydney at about 6am for a 6:30 start. This is *so* much nicer than the city to surf, where you have to line up for at least an hour just to get a half reasonable start position (of course, the other option is to run fast enough to get preferred runner status, but that's just a little unlikely, hey? :-) We wandered around, meeting the assembled CRs, dropping the gear off on the trucks, etc, etc, and only lined up for the race at about 5 minutes before gun time. Bliss.

The first k of the race is allmost all up hill. Combine that with a total lack of warm up (slack, I know) and it wasn't the most comfortable of starts. Still, running across the bridge is pretty cool, and the weather was really nice (overcast but just the right temperature).

I've been a bit concerned about my knee for the last few weeks. I twisted it a bit on the last run of the last day boarding a few weeks ago, but I *never* notice it walking, running or anything else. The only time that I notice it is when sitting with my legs crossed (so don't sit with your legs crossed! Duh!). However, over the last few days it's just niggled occasionally; just enough to make we wonder how it would hold up. By the time we crossed the bridge, I was getting the answer. Not good, not bad, just there. The good news, though, is that it stopped hurting again after a few k's, and never bothered me again.

TA ran much stronger than last week - I could hear in her breathing that she was on for a good run, lack of preparation notwithstanding. We held a good even pace just under goal time for the first 8 ks, but then things started to go a little awry. Number one thing was that we were heading straight in to a rotten little(!) head wind, number two was that we were on the long hill up to Norton St, and number three was that TA's preparation was coming back to bite her. Being a fighter, she battled on through the series of 'undulations' (Blackmores obviously have Real Estate people writing their descriptions for them). Coming in to the drinks station before the old Pymont Bridge, I suggested that we share a Gu - having never used them we had no intention of trialing something in a race situation, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and I could hear that TA was starting to struggle.

I think that it helped (it definitely didn't cause any harm), and we worked our way through Pyrmont and around the warves. At the Hickson Rd drinks station, I noticed TA rubbing her hip as she walked with her drink. It turned out that she'd been in pain since about the 8k mark (not coincidently, the point where things had started to go awry as noted previously). We still don't know exactly what it is, but the muscle at the top of the hip is sore to the touch.

Anyhow, having struggled that far, there was no point in not struggling further. At that point, we realised that we'd been overtaken by the black balloons (the 120 minute pacer) which was a bit of a shock. We attacked the observatory hills as best we could, walking a little, but running mostly. We met Go Girl here, also struggling from lurgy-related issues. Then we headed on into the corkscrew and on to the Cahill Expressway.

I have to add an aside here. I grew up with my mother telling me stories about how during the war, if the air raid sirens went off she'd have to run from her school (Fort St) down into the corkscrew and use it as an air raid shelter. It was funny running down there today and thinking of her doing it 60 years ago. We passed a bloke lying on the side of the road with a couple of others helping him. TA, of course, did the standard thing and said "are you alright", to which he raised his head, said "No mam, I'm in a world of pain" and put his head back down again. And people wonder why we run... :-)

Not much else to tell. Passed Lulu doing a sterling (and lonesome) job as the sole member of the CR cheer squad, then down to the finish in 1:59:55 by my watch. Not what we'd set out to do, but given the weather (I forgot to add, pouring with rain at one stage) and TA's hip, a very creditable time indeed!

I should say something about joining Lulu and a bunch of others to form the cheer squad for the Marathoners, but I've subjected you to quite enough for one night, so it can wait for another time.

sfG