Sun 18 Sep, AV Tan Relays

17km today and for the week, 79.4kg


Well today is the final round of the Athletics Victoria Winter Competition, with Western A's having the possibility of winning three Premierships (Men Div 5 & U20 and Women Div 3, two are 100% definite), it should be a great day, followed by Club BBQ along the Yarra.

Today we were introducing 4 new U16s to the senior competition (not Little A's), 2 competing in the Men U16, 1 as an U18 women & 1 in the men Div 7 team, three of them ended up in teams that finished on the podium and walked away with team medals, well done.

Div 5, needed to win today to take the Premiership away from Mentone, the 2 teams have been very close all season and it should be a good race. We started with a 12.30 runner and were 62 seconds ahead at the change over, but our second runner ran mid 14s and there's 11:40ish OMG, from there we chased and discovered that our last 2 and Mentone's last 2 were of similar abilities and the gap remained, we crossed the second and have finished 2nd for the season and should be promoted to Division 4 next year!!! :-)

Div 7, the dumping ground, we had a team but so did more than 20 other teams, I have no idea where we finished, there were some very fast runners and then the normal guys as well. Most importantly we had a team, both myself & Mick ran PBs and the other 2 ran for the first time on the Tan, so we all walked away happy and hope we finished in the top 5 or so. TBA

My own race,warm up was a lap of the Tan with some team mates. I was expecting to race well, I was fairly fresh, but the few days before the race I had been having some sleeping problems and had only had 4-6 hours sleep over a 3 day period. To stop things off, the stress of my life was becoming a little over the top and I vomited a few times prior to the race, just to make things even harder (rolleyes), but I wanted to race today, I couldn't stay at home anymore. I was asked to run the final leg of our team, which I was happy to do, my previous best for the Tan was 15:20 and I was hoping to break that today, Mick ran an = PB of 15:07, so I was hopeful I could break 15. I took off at a quick pace and settled probably 300m into the race, at the 1k mark I was feeling good, but was aware I may have been 5-10sec too fast, with Anderson St hill in front of me, I maintained pace and really pushed myself on the flat and around the corner. The final 1k I was breathing harder than I can ever remember and I worked up on a Sandy Div 6 runner and past him with ease, I was starting to lose form with 300 to go but I held on for a great PB of 14:42.

Splits:3:46, 3:58, 3:52 & 3:05 for the final 800+.

Afterwards I felt very ordinary, and released the final contents of my stomach, thankfully with some dignity. I had a great cool down run on nearly 40 minutes and then enjoyed some time with friends.



The photo is on the start of the Div 5 race, our fastest athlete is wearing the hat (12:26, I think for the Tan).