The Horrie and Belinda Show

4/11/06

Belinda and I headed out to Lane Cove with much anticipation. I was hoping to run a PB for this running life while Belinda was looking for another sub 55. After battling a stomach bug for the previous few days and having a couple of days off, she didn't think a PB was on the cards.

So after our warmups, we lined up in our self seeded way. I positioned myself next to Professor who never dies wondering at the start. I was looking for 4 minutes for the first km to get me moving in the right direction. We were off and after about 10 metres were soon into stride. I decided to follow O Runner through the field as I knew he was hoping to run sub 40. Then I noticed Colin and Blue Dog not far ahead of him, I knew I was going a bit quicker than what I wanted to. Sure enough, the split for the first km was 3:54. Soon after Jo Cowan came cruising past so I then used her as my pacer and the pace was a bit more sedate. She then proceeded to run away from me on the climb to Scribblys which didn't surprise me as I always lose time on these dreaded uphills. I soon caught up to her on the climb back down. Got to the 3km mark in 12:07 and was thinking that a low 41 was possible. Jo proceeded to put a bit of space between us and a 4:10 4th km told me what I already knew - that I was slowing down. The 5th km is always the toughest here as it is mostly uphill and just keeps going. On this climb about half a dozen runners went past and I was starting to pay the price for the overly ambitious start. I just dug deep and started to chase a couple of the guys that overtook me. I was happy to pass this guy in boardshorts before the top of the climb to the Ranger's Hut. I was happy to get to the top of the climb because now I could get to enjoy some downhill. I then managed to overtake another guy who went past me earlier and we were to play cat and mouse for the rest of the race. Sarge cruised past me around the 7km mark looking strong. I tried to go with him for a while but the legs just didn't want to join the party. Then the guy who I'd swapped places with went past me again. Then Barry Rutter went past me at around the 8km mark and offered some encouraging words. I was happy to hold him off this long as he usually goes past me around 2-3km mark. He proceeded to run away from me on the last little uphill. What can you expect when a heavyweight is taking on a flyweight? I hit the 9km mark in 37:56 which was still 10 seconds ahead of when I hit it in August to run my course PB. So I figured if I could peel off another of my all or nothing last kms here, the PB was still on the cards. The guy who I had been playing cat and mouse with about 5 to 10 metres ahead so I set myself the goal of catching him. I was giving it everything and just when it seemed that I was making no inroad into his small lead, I realised that I had taken a metre or 2 off him so I stepped it up. I was relieved to finally see the weir and really let rip. I then finally went past him with about 20m to go, knowing that it would give him no time to mount another challenge. I was happy to stop the clock in 41:48 by my watch to take another couple of seconds off the time set just prior to my debacle here last February. The official results gave me a time of 41:50 so happy with a 5 second improvement. After a quick walk to recover my faculties, I stood cheering in the rest of the finishers. I was very happy to see Belinda come into sight and it was great to watch her stride out along the weir to stop the clock in 54:22 for a 32 second course PB after an interrupted week.

We then stood around chatting for a while until we realised we had to get our kids to their sporting commitments.