Simple satisfaction :-)

The week went well, and the weekend even better! I haven't had time to blog all week (and I should be going to bed, but if I don't get it done now, then when will I??). Tuesday's water run was as boring as ever. If anyone can think of a way to alleviate the tedium, I'm all ears. I'm in for the same tomorrow morning. On Wednesday I was aiming for 14k steady, preferably without needing a pit stop. Ended up doing 15.5k at a bit faster than Sunday's planned pace, and no problems. So far, so good...

Thursday was the 25k cycle in the morning, and a 3k TT at Run Club at night. Not having run at speed since July 13th (9 weeks ago - I didn't realise it had been that long!), I didn't know how it was going to go. I was sure that the ankle was OK for it, but I had doubts about how fast I could take it and hold on. I'd like to say that I decided to not look at my watch, but the truth is that in the half-light of the evening, I can't read my watch if I wanted to :-). Luckily, Tim stands at the 1k turnaround and calls the splits. First k was 3:53 (quite suprised). Second was slightly slower at 4:00 (really suprised, because it felt like I was plodding). Final k was the same, for a total of 11:53. Very happy, considering the lack of training and that it was only 10 seconds over my PB. Gave me confidence that things were starting to come together again. On Friday I walked the dog around the block as a warm up, and then did 4 sets of 10 lunges (per leg) and 4 sets of 10 squats. On Saturday I just did a quick 4k to turn the legs over. (Actually, it wasn't supposed to be that quick, but I got caught short again(!) and turned in a rather impressive positive split... :-))


We were at my Niece's wedding on Saturday night, which wasn't the best preparation for the half, but as my only real concerns were a) would I screw up the pace and destroy everyone's race, and b) would I make it through without needing to stop for the loo, I slept much better than I normally do prior to a race (albeit for only 4.5 hours). I got to the start before 6am as planned, got the pacers flag from Dave, and went and stood in the toilet queue for the next 20 minutes. Starting to get a bit panicky about how long it was taking, but luckily Chunderbolt and Will were there too, which helped pass the time. Finally finished and went to put my clothes bag in, only to find an desperate crush there too. Total panic now. Heard the announcer telling everyone that they could start to move forward. So much for the quiet meet and greet and explanation of pace tactics that was supposed to happen... To make matters worse, my pace partner was nowhere to be seen. (Turns out he was in the same queues. He cought up to us about 6 or 7 k in, poor bloke).

The actual run was fine. I probably took it just a little slow over the opening 10k, so that by the mid point I was 30 seconds behind net time, and thus about 2 minutes behind gun, which wasn't exactly the buffer that I was supposed to have created. I wasn't particularly worried, because I personally felt that there was a bit too much buffer in the schedule (but I've always preferred to run completely even rather than plan to slow down - everyone's different, I suppose). Anyhow, I picked the pace up ever so slightly after the turnaround, and was pleased to see the differential start to drop by about 5 seconds each k.

As we got on to Sussex St, I started suggesting that people go past me and try to pick up a bit of space for the upcoming hill, and then when we got to the aforementioned mountain, I just talked them up each stage at a time (only one more light pole, and then it's flat for a bit. Just a short, sharp section, and then it's flat, etc. At the bottom of Observatory Hill, one lady made me promise that there were no more hills after that! :-) )

As we went into the corkscrew, I once again urged people to use the hill and run away from me (I told them "that's what God invented gravity for"). Quite a few took up the suggestion, never to be seen again :-). I'm told that the Cheer Squad was in place on the Cahill by that stage, but I was so focussed on getting the group through the crowd of walkers who decided to use the "1/2 marathon" side of the road that I didn't even see them (apologies if I ignored you). By that stage, we were on gun time as required, so for the last k I slowed down a bit and called people through, eventually finishing at about 2:01 gun (30 seconds under net).

After wandering around the recovery village for a while, collecting my bag, finding anything I could to eat, and failing to find the Run Clubbers, I headed up to the cheer squad in time to see Uncle Dave dancing (believe me, believe me) along the last k of his marathon. The time up there was, as it was last year, just as rewarding as the run. 2 hours of clapping and cheering is a small price to pay to see the looks on the faces of the finishers, regardless of whether they had run 2:30 or 4:30, especially as this time I had a bit more understanding of what they had been through and what they were feeling at that point. Marvellous!

And to top it all off, the nicest thing was receiving some emails today (via the striders) from people who had been encouraged by us, and had taken the time to look at the running festival web site to get the striders' email address to pen a note of thanks. People are so thoughtful. :-)

Gnome