Go Hard

What a race. Things definitely didn't go as expected. More on that later, but I'll start from the first leg. It's been quite a while since I've competed as part of any sort of genuine team. Being part of a relay was an intriguing venture. Used to being reliant on myself for the overall result, it was good to be in the different situation. I welcomed the concept of the extra pressure of putting in for a team brought with it. Fighting not to be the weakest link  was a big motivation. Full details about the race are on the website Marysville2Melbourne.com.au . Our team 'MidYoungYounger' was in the open, 3 person relay category. I was doing the two run legs, we had John on the double bike leg, and Alan hitting the final two legs of paddling. The other two had both their legs back to back. My runs were on either side of the bike. That gave me the honour of starting on the gun and hopefully setting up the team. Then I had 2.5 to 3 hours while John hammered the p...

The easy days leading in seemed to be what I needed. Not exactly a taper, but enough to get my tendon and leg issues under control. Pre-race I was still aware of a certain level of stiffness and the generalised low grade aches that goes with a heavy training phase. So I gave myself a long gradual warm up of 45 minutes to get everything primed. On the start line I felt more relaxed than usual. My knowledge of the course was based on the info on the race website and the areas around the start and finished I covered during my warm up. I brought my racing flats along in case the surface was more straight forward than the previous two races. After the recent rains, a lot of the tracks had turned to sludge and trail shoes with grip was definitely required. Looking at the times for runners I knew from last year, I guesstimated that if I ran okay I'd probably hit a bit under 75 minutes, and sub-70 would mean I was firing. All runners will gather in the start / finish chute in Sil...