The Horrie and Belinda Show

21/1/07

I'm glad others thought it was hot as well. Colin floored me when we crossed paths near the 16km drink station when he said, 'lucky it isn't too hot!'.

Due to the heat, Eagle and I agreed to take it out at 93 minute pace and to wait and see what happened. After running at that pace for the first 2km we both agreed it was becoming a struggle to hold the pace so we agreed to back off. We backed it off to 4:30/km and that felt a lot more comfortable. We went through the 5km split in 22:30, which was bang on target. Then we held the pace as we passed the leading female runner at that stage and a sorry looking 2b stretching his calf on the side of the road. Not long after the 7.5km drink station we were joined by the new leading female runner and the Prank Caller. Eagle and I agreed that he was working far too hard at that stage of the race in the heat and with the big hill after 10km still to come. So we tried very hard not to get sucked into his vortex but within the next km we were passing him as he struggled to hold the pace. The surge to go past us must have taken the wind out his wings. We were now running in a pack of 3 with leading female and we were all very relieved to see Lulu and Yolanda manning the 10km drink station which we went past in 45:08. They were also armed with a hose which they gave us a spray with. We stopped for a short chat and a good drink the first of many cups of water over the head. We were now ready to take on the big hill. We worked together and got up the hill in good pace. Eagle and I budgeted on losing a minute and a half on this 5km split as it is the toughest that includes 2 hills. When we got to the 13km drink station, Eagle stopped a bit longer and leading female charged off up that hill. So I took off after her and left Eagle behind. I had almost caught her when we got to the 16km drink station but it was my turn to stop a bit longer at this one as I wanted to make sure I kept properly cooled and hydrated. I let her go at this stage and waited for Eagle to catch back up, hoping that this would refresh me a bit to finish strongly. It wasn't the case as I was working really hard to stay with Eagle at this point. Then when we got to the last hill, I really started to feel the pinch here and after we got to the crest, Eagle was full of running and was stretching out and started to pull away from me and close the gap on leading female. My goal now was just to not let him get too far away. This helped as I was able to overtake another 2 flagging runners in this section. Eagle had caught leading female and they were around 100m away. I have never been so happy to see a 1km to go sign as I was today. After looking at my watch, I knew sub 97 was in the bag, which is what our revised target at halfway was. I opened the throttle and finished the best I could to stop the clock at 96:30.