Sunday, October 22, 2006

Race Report - Race 4 Life

That's right people, I made it out of bed this morning to head down to Elder Park...and what a crowd, way more people than I was expecting, I'd estimate a couple of thousand. Registered and stood around in the sun soaking in the glorious day...and there was pink everywhere. Rundave came over to say hello and I also met CR Derwood after he noticed my cap. After a very uncoordinated (for me) mass warm up the walkers set off to the beat of some drums, and as I watched the long trail of walkers snaking off along the path around the Torren's I wondered if I would catch them at the 1k mark or 2k mark. 15mins passed and us 9kers lined up and were away, I coasted along in the crowd, not really having any other choice really and it was like that for a while, and then we caught the walkers. It was generally a single file line of runners on the right and the walkers on the left. I pity anyone coming the other way.
Still just cruising along there were quite a few people passing me at this stage, one pair who I heard talking behind me when we were single file said they finish C2B in 70mins, so they were my targets. I continued to cruise the first lap while they and many others got away from me. The first 4.5k lap was a tick over 26mins. Cruised for a little while longer, and then surprised to still feel good in the legs after yesterdays 18k I began to boog it a bit, I started reeling in people one after the other, catching my target with about 1k to go and stretched out my legs with some long strides home passing about 20 people in the last kilometer. Finished still feeling surprisingly good in 51 mins, so a 25 min second lap average pace of 5:40 (which is faster than my 10k PB). Couldn't stay around afterwards for a free breakfast etc...had some shopping to do.
Now for shopping, I spent $250 on work pants and shorts...It felt fantastic to try on clothes and then go, wow these don't fit very well, they are TOO large! Get me the size smaller! Henve the $250 spent, it was all the endorphins.
Then as 2P has his mow-the-lawn patented, I will patent the, help-on-a-building-site recovery...today i moved wood for frames stacked in one place to another place.

5 comments:

2P said...

A sound recovery strategy is an essential component of any good training plan ;-)

Nice work on the 9k Simlin particularly since you were backing up off an 18k the day before - great stuff ;-)

Anonymous said...

Well done Simon, nice to meet you yesterday. It was a great day to be alive. I was happy with my run (18.42 mins)....sure glad I took the 4.5km option,I was knackered.

Cheers Dave (derwood)

Lulu said...

I'm glad your long run with me didn't do your race chances!

It's a great feeling to need a smaller size!

Ewen said...

Good news about the big pants! Don't throw the old ones out though - send them to me.

Looks like you're due to smash that 10k PB :)

RunDave said...

I noticed you had lost another half kg in Oct. Well done and well done also on the race. I think there would have been 1300-1500 out there. Whatever it was, it was too many for the course and the finishing setup. They will need to change a few things next year. But isn't it great to see so many people out exercising.