Sunday, June 22, 2008

Almost!

Well, I wanted two hours and I got two hours, three minutes. Still a personal best by four minutes. I'm happy. I honestly could not have given anything more today. I was on track and feeling strong for the first thirteen kilometres. The headwind on the return hit me as I knew it would and the last six kilometres hurt a bit. That's what you get when you've only been running a couple of times a week and your longest run has been 15km! With a bit more training and a few longer runs my pace wouldn't have dropped off so badly and I would have been able to make it under two hours easily. Shall we aim for 1.55? Yes, lets ...

Next year can we please not have young children stopping in the middle of the path or falling in front of me, women deciding they have to tie a shoelace RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE, and women who decide they need to use the toilet all of a sudden, totally cutting me off as they lurch from right to left. Although I wasn't as irate as the guy seen at the start shoving people aside, or the guy later heard telling people to get the f**k out of the way, I was a little vocal on the numerous occasions I found myself making physical contact with people who just weren't paying attention.

Enough of the negative stuff though. I had a blast today, despite the wind and rain. It was actually warm! It helped that I heard my name being cheered what seemed like every few minutes. Sorry if I didn't see you, but I was in my little head space and wasn't really noticing spectators. Sorry too to Sarah, who was an excellent pacer for the first half of the race. I felt a bit horrible about breathing down her neck. She didn't know I was there until Duck started cheering the both of us outside Freyberg, but then I got close enough that she could hear my slappy feet behind her.

I didn't win an iPod shuffle or a trip to London, but I did win a spot-prize of a pair of Adidas socks. That must be about $30 worth. I think it helps to smile at the people handing out the prize tickets! Last year I won a Runner's World subscription.

Right. I really should have a go at scrubbing off the pace times I wrote on my wrist this morning in permanent marker. It seemed like such a good idea at the time ...

6 comments:

Sass said...

Dude, you're totally O for Awesome. Have I mentioned you're my idol lately?:)

Pip said...

Aaaah, hugs. Stole your meme by the way. What, did we both get home and instantly start blogging?!

Wonder how Kate did with her 10km. Kate?

Kate said...

Nice work :-) It really is a HOPELESS finish at the Harbour Capital. The worst....

I had a Big Fat DNF, which I'm totally down with. Bring on New Plymouth in October- I'll actually try training for this one!

Pip said...

Aww Kate. No! Oh well, as you say, at least there's New Plymouth.

I forgot to mention in my post that I managed to run into the end of that little white fence between the footpath and road around Pt Jerningham on the way out - too busy looking at my Garmin. I've got a wicked bruise on my right quad now and I've worked out that the pain in that leg is due to the bruise, not sore muscles! I'm such an idiot.

Kate said...

OWW! That sounds like it would have been quite a sight, though! (and once you read my post you'll see there's nothing too awful with the DNF)

Sass said...

Heh one minute Pip was running beside me and the next I hear this sorta oomph/squeak/running into post noise. I made sure to warn her about the next set;p