The Horrie and Belinda Show

19/8/06

Belinda and I headed out to the Royal National Park to run the Sutherland Half at the unusual time of 1:45. As it was in the early afternoon, it allowed for us to do our usual Saturday morning chores. Belinda took our daughter Grace shopping for an outfit for a party she was going to. So with a light snack for a lunch, we headed out. We met up with CR Roses and Blue Dog. Louis Commins was also there backing up after 12 Foot last week. It was like a mini reunion.

There were about eighty odd runners and we decided to self seed ourselves at the back of the field. It was an accurate judgment as there were not that many runners who turned up that would consider themselves slow. Off we went at the tail of the field but still got caught in the vortex and went through the first 2km at 5:40/km pace. As that is the pace Belinda ran at Lane Cove a couple of weeks ago in the 10km, I knew it was too quick as this was easily Belinda's longest run since her comeback. So at the 2km mark, I took the pace right off and Belinda started to relax. So we started talking about the plan for the race and decided to run at a comfortable pace and dropped further behind Roses and 2 English ladies we started with. At this stage, there were 2 runners behind us including one bloke we named the mobile drink station as he was running with a camelbak. We got to the 8km drink station and Roses had decided to wait for us. It wasn't long before she started to draw away from us again. Not long later we passed the 2 English ladies who emerged from the bushes giggling like school girls. Not long later, we could see the turnaround ahead so we kept the rhythm going and after reaching the turnaround began to take advantage of the now downhill terrain as going out was mostly undulating uphills. Belinda really opened her stride up here and was flying. Through these couple of kms, we were able to go past Roses and Peter, who I had previously met at Woodford to Glenbrook. Belinda was having a zen like moment and was really flying at this stage. She knew it wouldn't last long so took advantage of it while it lasted. As we started to hit some uphills again, the pace started to slow. Roses rolled her ankle somewhere at this point and after stopping and making sure there was no damage, she then had a zen like moment and took off,leaving us in her wake. We were still making steady progress and still holding our lead over the 4 runners behind us. We soon hit the 18km mark and Belinda was very happy to see this mark as she was really starting to feel quite tired now and just wanted it to be over. She dug deep and kept her stride and then 19km and then 20km passed, she knew there wasn't long to go. So we surged a bit when we could sense we were coming to the finish. Belinda was very happy to reach the finish in 2:13:30 only for this heffer of a lady to push past her and give me the higher placed card. This isn't the thing she needed after just finishing a half marathon. As we headed down to the recording table I swapped cards with her but she was still upset with the process that had taken place. We hung around for some lucky draw prizes and I scoffed some food down before we headed home. Belinda was feeling quite content with her run but feeling very tired as we drove home.

20/8/06

I had an hour on the program today so I just headed out for a nice leisurely run around my 10.5km loop. I took it pretty easy as the quads are still not 100% and the inflamed tendon in my left foot is still giving me a tiny bit of grief. I felt very comfortable running at this pace and my HR averaged 134 throughout the run. So I was very happy to complete a full week of training after last weekend's adventures.