Race Day!

Here is my race report - remember kind readers, that while I have been building a fitness base for 2 years I have only been seriously running since January this year, prior to that I was doing only 40Km a week at the most on a treadmill. I have just recently worked up to 60Km weeks, with all the running done outdoors (these feet have not touched a treadmill in 3 months) Finish time was 50:45 or thereabouts, will have to confirm when it is posted on the race site. I was definitely under 51 minutes though. So I can very close to my goal. I was running quite strong up until the 8Km mark, all splits except 7Km were under goal pace. But coming off an incline at close to the 8Km mark I felt really nauseous, I didn't vomit but I had to stop and catch my breath. I think I stopped for about 40 seconds and was able to push on again. Then about 500 meters from the finish I had another turn but only needed to stop for about 20 seconds and then just ran through it to the end. So If not for the "chuck" breaks I probably would have finished in my goal time. Some positives from today were that I PB'd on both my 5Km time and my 8Km time (about 24:48 and 39 something respectively, remember was feeling pretty bad at 8km) Here are my takeaways from today -

• No eating fruit before a race EVER, this probably contributed to the nausea. In future it will be dry toast and maybe a cup of tea or water.
• I will be incorporating weekly speed sessions into my training to help me improve my stride and efficiency. This is not the first time that someone has commented to me that I run flat footed, maybe a bad habit from the treadmill days??
• I need to do something about the race anxiety, I was almost having panic attacks out there, I mean for god sake, it is not sheep stations, what on earth do I have to be nervous about. This is weird behavior, hopefully it will go away as I gain experience. It effected my breathing and probably contributed to the nausea as well.
• Get rid of that negative voice in my head that kept telling me that I was going to fail and that I can't do this, banish that nasty little demon, grrrrrr!!!!!
• Most importantly keep getting out there every morning and keep enjoying myself.

I will certainly be back for more and I remain focused and confident that I can do the half Mara in July and the full in October.

Drum roll please, I will also now set myself a 10Km goal of 45 minutes. Give me a few more goes at it and I will be in a position to put a time frame on this :-)

Finally a big huge massive thanks to Rogo who paced me though the distance, kept my spirits up when I felt like shit and gave me heaps of great advice along the way and at the end. I can honestly say that without his help I would not have finished in the time that I did.

Thanks to all the other Ausrunners to for your cheers as we passed on the course.

Oh, there where quite a few camera's on the course so I am prepared for a very dodgy photo to turn up on the race site at some stage.

Just though I would add my splits for today as supplied by my most excellent pacer -

KM SPLIT TIME

1 5.12

2 4.57 10.09

3 4.51 15.01

4 4.52 19.53

5 4.54 24.47

6 4.55 29.42

7 5.05 34.48

8 5.11 40.00

9 5.38 45.38

10 5.07 50.45