That's me on the far left
Today's plan was to run 4:10 pace and see what would happen, a beautiful morning, sunny, NO wind at all and nice temperature to start a HM. For the first 3kms I ran with my uncle Gary and Adrian, we passed the 3k marker in 12:25 (5 seconds ahead of schedule). Just after the 3k marker Gary started to pull away and then a km later Adrian started to move away too, I thought I must have slowed down, but at the 6km marker the time was 24:54, so I was still on target. A couple km down the road I started to get a little bit of discomfort in my right foot in the fore foot pad which got sorer with each step. Just past the 9k marker I passed Burkie & Clare (team photographer today) and asked for her to get my Nike Zooms from my bag and I would change at the 12k area. The pain was very distracting and I was starting to realise I was not fit enough to run at 4:10 pace so I slowed to 4:20 pace for the next 3k and then changed my shoes, much to the amusement of a few 'bloggers' who were spectating today (Em, Jo, Sam, Sara & maybe others too) and they were sitting next to a large contingent of Western Aths supporters too.
The change in progress, always hard when you are tired & sweaty
The offending shoes were my racing flats, very light and didn't work well for me today.
I recommenced running and the extra cushioning helped heaps, but I had now decided I would cruise the remainder of the run and for the next 2km I sat on 4:30 pace, throughout this time I decided as it appeared all of the Western A' guys in front were going to finish I thought I would offer some pacing duties to one of the young girls who was running her first HM and looked to be starting to struggle, she was aiming for sub 100 min. She said yes, so I slowed up and basically jogged 6 min pace and slower until she caught up. I ran with Bec for 7 and a bit km and we sat on 5 min pace and she crossed the line in 1h 39m 30s, she was very exhausted but very happy.
So overall I was disappointed with my run today, but at least something good came from it all and all 15 Western Aths runner finished with loads running PBs, but sadly we had one guy who really struggled for the final few kms and appears to have re-injured his strained abductor.
32 runners & supporters made our way into a cafe in Richmond and we enjoyed a great brunch and a good chat afterwards. :-)
7 comments:
Glad you didn't feel ill today though.
You know it was good natured ribbing :-)
We all thought you would make a crap triathlete though, you spent way too long in transition LOL
yeah..you did take a while changing those shoes...too busy heckling us on the sidelines
So thoughtful of you to help a fellow runner to achieve her goal. A few times people have done that for me and it really does make such a difference.
Too funny about the shoes :-)
You really looked like you were running effortlessly today- the shoe change did amuse us for a while, though we would have preferred a t-shirt change ;).
Congratulations on the run Stu, you obviously thought "team" which is an admirable quality!
Good running Stu .... :-)
Wewill get you pacing a marathon group yer ... lol
Eat Em
That's a great result for the club Stu. Sorry about your race, although you made something good of it with the pacing.
You should have changed shoes again and it would have been just like a formula one 2 pit-stop race ;)
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