Sun 28 May 06, Sri Chinmoy @ Williamstown

20km today for the week so far, 16/28 runs this month

A freaky dream last night woke me about 3ish in tears, but excluding that I had one of those BIG sleeps that I don't have often, in bed 10:15pm and asleep quickly and woke at 5:30am (before alarm). Had breaky (porridge) and then showered and got ready for what I was hoping to be a great run. The weather was very fine, according to Foxtel it was 8 degrees in Hoppers at 6am and the wind was 4kts, very pleasant morning! Luke (one of Cam's mates) arrived at 6:30ish and we chatted until I was ready to go, he was following me. Luke runs with Western A's but due to his apprenticeship he is having trouble racing on Saturdays, so a Sunday race works well for him whilst he is preparing himself for the State X-C Champs on 22 Jul at Jells Park.

Caught up with Beki, Chris & Em whilst waiting for Luke to pick up his number and then took off for a cruisie 15 min warm up along the waters edge on the HM/Marathon course. Changed into race gear, singlet, shorts and flats and then made our way to the front of the pack to do a few strides and plonk ourselves on the front line.

Normal Sri Chinmoy pre race talk and minute silence for health and peace. This year every race was starting together, 4k, 10k, HM & marathon as well as walks, whilst this worked ok for me, I am sure it was a little more congested at the back of the pack.

Even though I have had a few hectic weeks, resulting in an operation, which got infected, vomiting and losing appetite for a few days, falling over and knocking myself out and have an ordinary training week, I was (for some reason) still confident I could manage a sub 40 min performance!!! WTF/OMG what was I thinking.

Started off fairly aggressive (I know, what's different to other times), and thought I settle into my groove fairly quickly. Around the 3-4k mark I did notice that was breathing was a little more elevated than normal, but I was still hopeful, but when I hit the 5k at 20:03 I knew the game was nearly over. I tried to push a little but it wasn't really happening now, I continued to try and push myself but when I hit the 8k I knew it was over, but I thought I would continue at my peak (well today's peak) until the finish line. Crossed the finish line and to say the least I was not happy and a few unsavoury words came out, thankfully Ads who also runs with my Club was there and suggested I should go for a cool down straight away and wipe the run out of my head. And in hindsight, a great idea, with 5 minutes or so the conversation was not related to my race and I was enjoying a run with a friend and chatting about anything and everything. We stuck to the HM/Marathon course and provided some encouragement to the front runners of the HM, after 15 min Adam exited right towards home and I continued on past the track for a bit and ran for 35 minutes.

Afterwards I chatted with many and a few with GPS units were thinking the course was about 350m too long, but I was still out of contention, anyway...

My Club did ok on the day, the 4km women's winner, Ashleigh and the men's 10k winner, Luke, as well Adrian ran 38 something for 10 and my own efforts of very high 41s.

The sad & sorry splits are here:
3:45
3:54
3:59
4:07
4:16 (***)
4:10
4:12
4:14
4:47 (***)
4:28
Total: 41:58

I felt that both of these were out, esp the 8-9k, this was noticed by many, even the winner of the 4k questioned that km, strangely she ran faster at MDC which had Anderson St....

Hindsight is a marvelous thing and if I could do it all over again, I would not have entered the race and I would have waited for another appropriate race, but many have said to me it will make my victory when IT DOES happen even sweeter.

Edit:The full results are posted now. I finished 22nd overall and 13th in my category. As I said above, my Club had 2 guys who finished well, 1st and 6th in the Men's 10km, well done guys.