The Horrie and Belinda Show

20/10/05

I had trouble answering the alarm in the morning so headed to Timbrell Park after work for a 1km rep session. I was unsure how many I was going to do before I started but had no doubt that 4 was enough at the end of the 4th. Averaged 4:00 for each km to meet my goal I had set at the start. I know I have a long way to go to get to where I was at the beginning of the year so there is a lot of hard training ahead.

21/10/05

Belinda and I headed out on our 10.5km loop for a nice solid run. Pace was slightly quicker than the 6 minute kms from Tuesday. Belinda's running is getting a nice edge to it at the moment and I can sense some good times ahead.

22/10/05

We headed down to Bondi with the plan of running into the city before following the City 2 Surf course back to Bondi. All was going to plan until I did a quick calculation at Lyne Park which made me realise we would not get back in time to drop our daughter off at Saturday sport so we had to give Heartbreak Hill a miss this time. It will be there for another day. A good hitout of 16.5km in 1:45 was the end result after heading back to Bondi turning off at the Rose Bay Hotel.

23/10/05

Today was our day off so we decided to take Tim to do the Maroubra 4km fun run. We knew there was going to be a stack of Cool Runners there but were still surprised to see Uncle Dave and Papa Luigi not long after we arrived. Tim was really excited about the run and was adamant he was going to run the whole way without walking. He managed to run about 10 minutes when he decided to have a walk break and a drink. Then came the long hill that Belinda and I run on our 10.5km loop and we sensed this was going to be tough for Tim. Here he announced 'Run up that hill - you've got to be kidding me!' So we decided to break it up for him from here to run to a designated point and then walk to another designated point. He was relieved to get to the top of the hill before he turned the corner and saw another hill when he repeated his 'You've got to be kidding me!' quote. This then became his mantra for the rest of the run. The run sections got shorter and the walk sections got longer. As the course started getting undulated we told him to walk the uphills and run the downhills. This worked well for him and he loved seeing the faster 8km runners passing us including Uncle Dave who took time to encourage him even though he was having his own battle with the heat and the hills. Tim then heard the bagpipes and then we ran past where we had parked, he knew the finish was getting closer. Then Kit took our photo and Tim got really excited to learn that his photo was going to be on the Cool Running Website. We ran down the big hill before the finish where I used to do my hill reps at the beginning of the year. We tried to encourage Tim to run all the way to the finish but he needed a break before we hit the path that took us back to the finish. He was really doing it tough here but kept slugging it out. Then we got to the car park which signalled the end, I suggested that he might want to finish in a burst. He then repeated his mantra before surprising me 20 metres from the end to leave us in his wake. He finished in 40:42 and got plenty of encouragement at the end. We were both so proud of him that he managed to finish a gruelling run in very hot weather. We then finished off the morning at the Oktoberfest where he had a camel ride, a sausage sandwich, a drink and a snow cone. He can't wait to do it again next year.