The previous run was in June 2008 at North Head. I was on fire with my running at the time, PBing every race and training hard to go sub 3 hours at the Sydney Marathon. I had cracked a 10km PB at that race, went to Canada a couple of weeks later and then on the day I returned got injured with a stress fracture of the pelvis and didn't run again for 6 months!
Anyway fast forward to today and after ironman, followed by a month of slobbing it up overseas and very little running in the previous couple of weeks, I wasn't expecting too much, but secretly hoping to go sub 40
It was chilly, a good temperature, with clear skies and no wind. A flat course and home of my 10km PB exactly one year ago, so I hoped I’d be able to pull a good run out of the bag in my comeback race.
I arrived at the start in plenty of time with Andrew, Kathryn and Charlie and we registered and waited around… then with about 5 minutes before the start I suddenly had that overwhelming toilet feeling. Oh no, I knew I couldn’t run under those conditions, so trotted off to the public toilets, hopped up and down waiting for a stall and then had to rush out of there to the start line, arriving just as everyone took off!
I hadn’t managed to get anywhere near the front so spent the first km running as fast as I could to try to overtake as many people as possible and get myself into a good position. I got around the loop breathing hard, and then tried to settle into a decent pace I could hopefully hold for the whole race.
Once again I tried the method of checking my time at every kilometre marker to see how I was going. My internal plan was to get under 40mins so I wanted to make sure I ran just under 4 minute kilometres the whole way along. I managed ok for the first few, but it was never easy going and even though I wanted to give myself a bigger buffer, I just was not able to push myself to go any faster at all.
The first 5kms passed in much the same fashion and I ran in a bit of fear, expecting that the 40minute pacer would pass me at any moment. At one point I heard a runner gaining on me from behind with something metallic jingling in his pocket and I thought “Oh no this is it!”. I tried to push, but couldn’t do it and the pacer came closer and closer … and then finally passed me and it was just some bloke with keys in his pocket! Phew.
At this stage I knew that Kathryn must have been right on my tail because when I ran past her son Charlie he cheered for me and then said “Go Mum!” about 2 seconds later. Sure enough she came beside me with about 4km to go. She looked to be running very well and I thought “If I can just stick with her I’ll make it through in under 40”. But I tell you what, it wasn’t easy.
Kathryn ran steadily and the whole second half of the race I was on the very edge trying to stay next to her. I kept inadvertently dropping my pace and then having to spurt with a short sprint to come back up with her, it happened again and again and each time I thought “This is it, I’m not going to be able to get up to her again”. I did manage it, but I was in some pain and it took serious mental effort to keep myself going at that pace. I had to keep telling myself that it was only a few minutes to go and I just had to hang in there. I obsessively looked at my watch every 30 seconds to distract myself and also to make sure my HR wasn’t going through the roof.
Finally I made it to the finishing straight and Kathryn picked up the pace a bit which I couldn’t stick with. I came in just behind her and Andrew came in only just behind me. I managed to squeeze in under 40 minutes at 39.42 and even more exciting Andrew finally cracked the 40 minute barrier which was an awesome milestone for him!
* Photos courtesy of Marty, who’s wife Janelle was running the race as a part of her training for her first ever marathon up at the Gold Coast a month later. She did bloody well too!
Stats
Km - time - HR
1 - ?? - 174
2 – 3:54 – 176
3 – 3:50 – 175
4 – 4:05 – 176
5 – 3:59 – 176
6 – 4:10 – 176
7 – 3:57 – 176
8 – 4:05 – 178
9 – 3:57 – 180
10 – 3:50 – 182
Total time 39.42
Average HR 177
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