The Horrie and Belinda Show

1/7/06

Headed out to Homebush feeling as though I could run 43 minutes as I was over the last of the niggles from PMC. Even the niggle in my left knee that I had before that seems to have gone away.

I started out and tried to stick to the Gnome as he has been running well lately and thought that would be a good gauge of where I was at 10km wise. I was surprised to go through the first km in 4:07 as I was concentrating on holding back. I was feeling good so I pushed on and left Gnome behind. I knew it would probably be something I regretted later on but was feeling great at this stage. After running the second km in 4:10 and starting to overtake some who took off like greyhounds at the start, my confidence was starting to rise. 3rd km was another good one as I overtook this lady who has beaten me in a few previous runs and the split for that one was 4:08. At this stage I thought I might be in for a PB for this running life. This just proves that you shouldn't get too far ahead of yourself as just after that I noticed the HR was higher than what it should be so I backed off the pace and just concentrated on form. This km was 4:18 and this was before the lap around Wentworth Common which for those who haven't run Homebush is gravelly or a wider lap if you stick to solid ground. I was really starting to slow here but was surprised to see the split for this km was 4:21. The split for 5km was 21:05 and as the second half is exactly the same as the first, I knew sub 42 was out of the question so I thought I would aim for sub 43. I just had to keep my form which at this stage was starting to get tough. My cardiovascular system reminded me that I hadn't been doing any fast stuff recently and my endocrine system seemed a bit out after the big effort a couple of weeks ago. I was happy to hold the pace through the 6th km at 4:18. The 7th km was a different story as you head up the climb of Pondage St. I had slowed to a 4:29. It was not long after this that the Gnome and a couple of others went past. This seemed to have a good effect and woke me from my slumber so I again started to concentrate on form and try not to let them draw too far away. Was happy to go through this km in 4:23 and told myself here that there is only 2km to go. Then came the second lap of Wentworth Common where I finally managed to catch Rocket Rod who I had been slowly gaining on from the 3km mark. This ended up being my second slowest km in 4:27 which gave me a 9km split of 38:44 so a quick calculation told me I would get the sub 43 if I could run a 4:15 last km so I just gritted my teeth and gave it everything. I was very happy to see 42:5X on the clock when i got to within 20 metres of the finish, I just let rip. I was so glad to reach the finish in 42:58 and was well and truly sucking the big ones in at this point.