A busy day today, Connor (7)had his final Little A's XC race which doubled as a handicap race and then the Club's Presentations & BBQ.
Connor was ranked 3rd in the U7s boys, this being his third year of XC and the second time he has finished in the top 3. Of course he was very excited to get his trophy, but the popular things were the Freddo frog, the Natural confectionary lollies & drink and he also got a MacDonalds Happy Meal voucher and some vouchers for a Pizza place.
After the Presentation I went home to get ready for the trip to Ballarat, with Cam & Ads for company on the way. Whilst on the road we discovered one of the girls from the club were following us, she was hoping we knew our way once in Ballarat.
Having run the course 4/5 years ago I had a fair idea of the course and knew that it was generally wet & muddy and the Secondary XC races had been held very recently. I started the day with a warm up and investigation run with Ads & Louise. We discovered that there was a fair amount of mud in the first km and we all knew that would be very messy by the 4th lap of the men's race. As per normal the women's race was prior to the men's, today due to work & illness we sadly didn't have a complete team, Narz was hoping to edge closer to a top 10 finish and Lou was hoping her very sore legs would hold out for her. After 2k Narz was sitting 8th but she wasn't able to hold that and finished a very credible 13th for a second race in a row. And Lou, well her shins are a mess and I hope she can get them sorted, this was sadly probably her final race with the Club due to work & other sporting commitments.
Western A's had 6 men competing today which meant 5 for Div 4 and only 1 for Div 6, which would more than likely be me. I started in the back half of the pack and tried to concentrate on a steady start and try and get a feel for the course, at this stage I was feeling a little hesitant as I was wearing spikes in a XC race for the first time, this was strongly suggested by Burkie and of course proved to be an excellent choice. Today's course was 4 x 2k laps, for the second race in a row I forgot my watch but this time I wasn't able to borrow one from one of the girls. According to the clock on the start finish line had my first lap in 8 min 20sec, second lap 16:50, I didn't notice my 3rd lap, but my finish time was 34:30. I still felt fairly strong in my last lap and was happy enough with my race and effort and this week I actually finished with a lot of faces that I was finishing with in the early races but had dropped off. I haven't compared my time to previous 8k courses because every XC course is different and its just not worth it. The last time I ran at Ballarat I was 95kg and I withdrew at the 5k mark, so I'll take that improvement.
After the race all of the men took their spikes off and left then in a pile, one of the club coaches took a pic, I'll try and post as I think it will give a good insight to the day's activities. I finished off with a 15 min cool down on the ROAD!
Due to the inadequacies of Blogger I have tried numerous times to post the picture mentioned above, so here is a link to the picture.
Drove home and then bummed around and relaxed trying to organise a Sunday morning run with a few from the Club. Throughout the night I notice my legs felt quite tired, in hindsight it would have been a good night to wear the Skins, oh well....
1 comment:
Well Stu, you must have worked pretty hard if you felt you needed the skins. Your recovery is usually quite speedy, if at all.
Would love to see the pic of spikes!
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