Run Like The Wind

I wish, but there was plenty of wind this morning down at Williamstown. A cold and blustery morning heralded another year at the Sri Chinmoy Running and Fitness Festival. It just wouldn't be right if the day started warm and toasty. Giggles, her little sis and my parents all came down for the day. Always makes for an awesome race when you have a lot of support. BigD arrived just in time to enter and walk down to the start. I had already been for about a 25min warm-up.

There was the traditional moment of silence and then it was a mass start for all events. I positioned myself off to the side in the front line, and this proved to give me a nice clean start over the first couple of hundred metres. After last weeks pain of going out too hard I decided to take it a bit easier and stick to around 4:15/km for at least the first 5km. By about 3km it was all feeling pretty easy and I averaging about 4:10-12/km. I was next to a guy running the marathon who said he wanted to run a 3:30, so I asked him what splits he had. He said 4:10 which was putting him on track for 3 hours. Hopefully he doesn't blow up in the race with the fast start.

I hit the first turn around and was confronted with a ridiculously strong head wind for the next 7km. Looks like today may be a bit slower than anticipated. My splits show a slightly slower pace into the headwind. Not much else to do but suck it up and try to a get a draft off some of the other runners. The latter didn't prove very successful as each person I stepped in behind slowed down significantly each time. Maybe they didn't like my tactic.

I slogged it out up to the turn around just past the West Gate Bridge and was rewarded with a slight downhill and tailwind. I was now feeling good and naturally the pace quickened. Not much more to the race other than I maintained this effort to the finish and passed a lot of people over the last 6km. It wasn't that I sped up, more that I didn't slow down like most of the others. A solid effort in 1:29:39, which would be about right for the conditions. BigD came in much faster than he expected considering his very limited training recently. I always enjoy this race, great atmosphere, good food and I think it was a record number of competitors this year.


"Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even." - Muhammad Ali

Comments

  1. Anonymous28 May 2007 at 20:21

    Very well done considering the day.

    I ran a 10Km at the Festival last year, always a great atmosphere.

    ReplyDelete

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