Sat 16 Sep 06, AV Tan Relays

12km today and 58km for the week.

This morning AV conducted the final round of the Winter 2006 Series on the 'infamous' Tan track, which surrounds the Botanical Gardens here in Melbourne. Western A's had entered 3 open men teams, 2 open women teams & 2 junior women team. Today's race we required 3 officials as well as an official with each team, so a big effort for a small club (which is growing). The men lost 3 runners throughout the week to a calf strain, ITB issues & an achilles issue, but thankfully we were still able to field our 2 main teams.

Even though I was not a part of Div 4 today, this is where all of the men's interest was, we needed to finish in front of Wendouree and we wanted a top 3 finish and we would stay 2nd on the ladder and be promoted to Div 3 for Winter 2008, which we hope may attract more interest in the running community.

The Div 4 team filled with Adam (ads), Darren, Dave T, Brad (1st time in Div 4) & Cam (my son), with some very good performances they finished comfortably ahead of Wendouree and finished strongly in 3rd position, so Div 3 here we come. As a club who 4 years ago was struggling in Div 6 & 7 we are very happy and proud of our team.

My team today was Gary (my uncle), Dave S (trg partner), Richard (1st race for the club) & myself, today we were running for ourselves and to cement the team in 6th, which is excellent as we have only filled our team 5/10 races (2 wins), it just shows we could have been highly competitive in our first season in the Div if we could have filled each race.

Off to a great start with Gary breaking 14 min, Dave running high 14's and setting a PB, and then Richard surprising and running 14:03 and finally me in 14:40 (10 sec off PB) and finishing in 3rd spot.

My race, when I started we were in 4th spot and I had Collingwood, Sandringham & Mentone in front of me, and I was following a Wendouree Div 4 runner and I followed him. I missed the 1k split as I hit the wrong button but got the 2k at 7:39, which was a couple seconds ahead of PB pace, but around the 2.5k area I started to feel it in my quads. I tried to relax around the 3k area and work on my form but it didn't really happen and managed a 14:41, which is a good consistent run and faster than last year's race.

Finished the morning with a 25-30 min run with some friends from the Club, a BBQ and then home for a couple of beers before the celebrations tonight at a 'house cooling'...