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| Feeling happy at the end of the race! |
Left Ronnelle in charge of cooking breakfast for the guests today and went off to Hermanus with Steve. A grey morning, it had been raining a lot the day before and it was very windy still.
Parked up at the junior school and went to register and pick up my number. Steve was supposed to have been running it but as he had damaged his calf a few weeks before, that seemed to be a silly idea, especially as he is entered into a 10k when we visit the UK soon. He was going to help marshall at the race but it turned out that they didn't need any more helpers!
A few trips backwards and forwards to the car (to change into my HW&R t-shirt, and to get an energy bar to eat!) and portaloos and the races started. We, the 10k Runners, were across the line at 10:03 just after the wheelchairs and off, out on to the main road and up the hill. The marshalls and traffic police were great and really gave all the 'Wheels and Runners' every right of way! I loved it when they held everyone up just for ME!
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| Just warming up - the first kilometre! |
There were only 88 runners and I don't know how many wheelchairs on the same 10k course, and I felt I was making good time. At this point the wind was behind me, which helped a bit running up the long, gradual hill. At the top the road levelled out and the turnaround point was reached.
Immediately on turning around, the wind hit me. It was strong! And I mean STRONG! But I couldn't worry about that, I had a job to do. I had run 10k as a training run the weekend before (when Steve did his calf in!) and ran it in just under 1hr 4 mins so I was determined to beat that! I had had some good training, with Taz here in March and Steve encouraging me too, and I had been concentrating on getting some speed into my legs!
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| Focussed! Only a few hundred metres to go! |
At this point in the run, I really didn't need to think about the headwind, and I saw that I was catching up, very gradually, over about 5km, a guy who was obviously struggling a bit. No-one in the race had passed me yet, which REALLY impressed me (that NEVER happens!) and I decided to go for it and pass him. It took about 20 minutes or so to do it, but I did pass him. Then he passed me, and then I passed him again. I think we finished with only about three seconds time difference, but the great thing was that absolutely no-one had passed me all race, and I really 'went for it', focussed, and GOT A PB!
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| Can just see the finish line 100m ahead! |
EDIT: I thought I had managed 1:02:08, which I would have been more than happy with - a huge PB in itself, but on checking the official results on the website this evening (16/5/2014), they had awarded me 1:01:54. WOW!
Getting closer to that 1 hour mark. Such hard work, but at last I feel I am getting somewhere now!
Hunts 10k - here I come! :)
Position: 44/88 in total
Category (over 50's): 3/14
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