The Horrie and Belinda Show

27/8/06

Headed over to Dee Why for a 13km fun run called the Pub 2 Pub with Belinda. As Belinda wasn't up to running Willy 2 Billy yesterday, I agreed to run with her today so she wouldn't miss out on a race. She has really got the racing bug at the moment as it was her 6th race in 6 weekends. Maybe she caught it off me. ;-)

The start of the race is actually on Dee Why Beach and doesn't actually start at a pub. You get to run along the beach for about a km or so, which was pretty hard work. After getting nowhere running through the soft sand, I encouraged Belinda to run close to the water's edge. This was a great idea as the sand is a lot firmer there and we started to make some progress. The only problem was a few bigger waves rolled in and I ended up with soaking wet feet with sand in my shoes. 10 minutes later we finally got off the beach and the next 5 or 6km went along some flat paths and just when we thought the course was a bit boring, the hills started at around the 7km mark. We started to overtake a few on the hills as plenty of people were slowing down to walk them. It seemed like deja vu after yesterday or maybe it was Groundhog Day. Belinda was running the uphills strongly but it was the downhills where she was really flying and she again had some zen like moments when she seemed to be floating along effortlessly. But then we would be faced with another nasty uphill to snap us out of it. We got held up at a couple of road crossings by Police on duty so we probably lost about a minute there. The last km was downhill to the Newport Arms Hotel so the run actually does finish at a pub. Belinda again ran strongly to the finish to stop the clock at 81:XX but unsure of exact time as I forgot to stop the watch. It was about 2 and a half minutes quicker for Belinda compared to the C2S and considering the start along the beach and the traffic stops, it was a very pleasing result for her.