The Horrie and Belinda Show

17/9/06

After her strong session on Thursday, Belinda had 2 days off to freshen up for today with just a pilates session yesterday to finish the preparation.

After having a bit of drama getting to the start, caused by parking at Cook Phillip Pool and having a 4km warmup, we managed to meet up with Gnome, Ellie80, Will and Blkbox and the 2 hour pace group a couple of minutes before the start. This meant that Belinda was ready to run right from the start and not have to go through her normal slow start. As it was the start was pretty cluttered and it took a while before we could open our stride and went through the first km in a tick under 6 minutes. I knew we couldn't afford too many kms like this and made a conscious effort to lift the pace and was happy when we went through the second km in 5:40. I was even happier when Belinda opened up her stride on the big downhill from the harbour bridge into Darling Harbour and we had made up the lost 20 seconds in the 3rd km to be bang on target at 3km. From here it was just a case of holding a firm pace but not get too far ahead of ourselves. Belinda commented that she was feeling great at this point and I could sense she was running well within herself so we just rolled along for the next couple of kms building on the momentum we had built in that 3rd km. I felt Belinda starting to surge at the 6km mark and reminded her that it was still early days and just to back it off a bit, which she was happy to do. We were able to hold the pace as we made our way up the climb along the City West Link towards Leichhardt and couldn't believe my eyes when we went through 10km in 55:10, which was only 16 seconds slower than her 10km PB. It was a nice feeling knowing we had put 2 minutes in the bank and that she was running within herself. As we went through the turnaround, I just concentrated on continuing to knock out 5:40 kms, which we were able to do. Belinda was just starting to fade a bit at 12km but a well timed Gel did the trick and this enabled her to surge a bit here and hold a firm pace. The 5km split to 15km was 27:47 so we now had 3 minutes in the bank. It was good knowing the course from running this section the last 2 years as I knew we might need to withdraw some of that 3 minutes on the climbs back through Pyrmont but these were balanced with some great downhills and she really powered down through Darling Harbour so the splits were still averaging out at 5:40s. When we hit Hickson Rd, I started to relax a bit and realised that we were going to go under 2 hours if we just held a good pace from there to the finish, even allowing for the climb up the grassy knoll. This was as tough as always but I just kept reminding Belinda about her 10 reps of Big Bertha on Thursday. This kept her focussed and she ran this section really well and we passed several people through here who had resorted to walking. It was a great feeling getting to the top and getting back onto the Harbour Bridge for the descent down through the corkscrew onto the Cahill Expressway. Once on the Cahill Expressway I got concerned that we were now running into people doing the Bridge Run and the family walk/run. Dodging crowds and parents with 2 seater prams was not something we needed at this stage. I had words with a dad who decided to cut from the left hand side to the right hand side and almost managed to take out a few runners in the process. It was then great to see signs telling them to go left so we could keep right. So I loudly let them know where they should be running. Clairie would have been proud of me! It was great to run past the CR cheersquad at this point and it was a great feeling knowing we had less than a km to run and minutes still in the bag. So we pushed up that last rise to the turn into Macquarie St and I then asked Belinda for one final surge down that hill to the finish. She was really hurting at this point but she responded with a strong surge and then to see the clock read 1:59 for the gun time was a fantastic sight. Finally hit the finish line to stop our watches at 1:56:57 to see Belinda absolutely smash through the 2 hour barrier and record a PB of close to 7 minutes. When we finished, Belinda was elated and had trouble believing how well she ran. It was then a slow walk through and wait for the 2 hour bus and Ellie, Will and Blkbox to come through and catch up with them. This was a great way to finish off a great day and we all made our way up to the Recovery Village.

It was great to see Belinda pull out a run like this after the heartbreak of breaking down with a stress fracture a week before 6 Foot and working so hard at her recovery since. It just shows what can be achieved by putting in the work.

A special mention to Sean our coach who has given us a lot of confidence with our running lately. And to think Belinda has run so well after only training with him for 3 weeks. I am really excited about training through summer in the leadup to 6 Foot 2007 where Belinda will seek redemption and finish some unfinished business.