An impromptu race...

Monday 02/04/07:
For some unknown reason I had a very restless nights sleep last night and getting out of bed at 5.30am was a bit of a struggle. The one thing I hate about wearing contacts - trying to shove them into your eyes at some ungodly hour when your eyes do not want to be open at all...!

Still, I was out the door by 5.45am and onto wet roads. No iPod today, I had forgotten to charge it and it was totally dead. Not that I actually turn it on till it gets light these days or until I am on the main, well-lit roads at least, and even then its at very low volume - unlike at other times!

Did a loop course, never checked pace at all, just made sure I kept it pretty comfortable and relaxed thruout... Bit of an assault on the nostrils as I ran past two supermarkets where the bakeries were obviously in full swing baking fresh bread - torture!

Brisk walk warmup: 5mins
Steady paced run: 49.21mins, 10.07kms, Ave 4.54min/kms.
Brisk walk cooldown: 5mins

That was where I expected my running day to end... However at work today I got an email reminding me that tonight was the final run in the O'Hagans 5km run/walk series. Back at the very beginning of this year when I blogged about what I planned for 2007, I mentioned that I would like to do some runs in this series - mainly because I have never (as far as I can recall) run a 5km race and because its fairly local to home. Trouble is, start time is 6pm and I'd have a lot of traffic to get thru, even tho its not very far away. Needless to say, here we are in April, its the last run of the series and I hadn't done any... You can see where this is leading can't you?!?!

So the seed was planted and as the day wore on I decided I would get away from work a bit early (no small feat right now, but hey, I worked on Saturday so why not!!) and go do it. Tee'd up Mum to babysit, all went to plan and by 5.40pm I was lining up at O'Hagans (an Irish pub in case you were in any doubt!) had paid my $2 entry fee and was pinning on my (recycled) race number. Then it was a short walk down the road to the start line. This series has been going weekly thru the summer for about 5yrs all up, but tonight was the grand finale, so there was a good turn out - a couple of hundred people I would guess. There was a rather cool wind blowing and I had shocking goose-bumps waiting for the start. Got chatting to a bloke called Anthony who was a regular and he asked me what time I was looking at. I quite honestly told him I had no real idea, as I did not know the course at all and had never done a 5km race before. He told me he usually ran somewhere between 20 & 22 mins and was hoping for his best time this year so far tonight. It crossed my mind that I should probably look at trying to stick with him, but right then the race organiser yelled "on your marks" and that was it.... we were away at a cracking pace and I had no idea where Anthony went!

Part of the loop took as thru Lloyd Elsmore Park, but all on concreted paths. The rest was round the streets and part of the course I have run before when Courtney's been at gymnastics. After several minutes I started to wonder why my Polar - with lap counter on - hadn't registered 1km yet - surely I'd gone that far??? When a stole a glance at the watch I found I'd obviously not pushed the button properly and it was still on 0.00!!! Not happy!! I started it anyway - knowing I was probably about a km in to it... The rest of the time I just ran as fast as I could - there were two fairly minor hills, nothing major, but the wind was a bit of a pain at times. I hadn't seen any woman up ahead of me - but that didn't mean they weren't there! I continued to over take and be over taken by men of all ages, including some fairly young ones. With about 2kms to go I saw a familiar figure alongside me - I'd caught Anthony! I struggled to blurt out "C'mon mate - I need a pacer and you're it!" He blurted back something like "I'm f***ed, but I'll do my best!" He increased pace for a little while and I stayed right beside him. With about a km to go he was slowing and I blurted "Last km, last run (of the series) lets go!" He blurted "You're on for a good time, you go, don't wait for me!" There was a little rise which was not too welcome at that point but I put my foot down and when I came around the final bend I swear I sounded like a charging rhinosaurus with a sinus problem - grunting and barely able to breathe! I looked ahead to where the timer had been set up beforehand which marked the finish line - but it wasn't there! Turns out it had malfunctioned, so they were calling times and recording manually. I crossed the finish line just 5 secs ahead of Anthony - he had a late surge left in him after all! A lady called my time at 20.35 mins. More surprising was when she told me I was the first woman home! Thats the first time I've ever actually 'won' an event!

Everyone gets a free drink at the pub afterwards - but I made mine a lemonade! I think beer (not to mention wine) would have been a bad idea - I was pretty shattered, I had given it my all and I hadn't eaten since a late lunch. Anthony was very friendly in a totally normal sort of way and introduced me to a lot of people that he's gotten to know thru the series. I also saw one of Courtney's ex daycare teachers there - her fiance had run. It was a really great atmosphere, very social and a lot of the runners belong to the Pakuranga running club where I have looked at joining. In fact even the event organiser Bruce came up to me and told me he had tried to contact me after the Sir Barry Curtis 10km event that they organised which I ran late last year, to see if I was interested in joining! I would love to, if only their session times worked for me...

Once all of the walkers were in there was a few annoucements, including who came first in each section - male, female and junior, so I had my name called out. They also announced that while the series will no longer be held at O'Hagans, they will be starting a similar 5km Monday night series, from the running club which is just up the road, starting the Monday after Easter! It will go year round apart from over Christmas and during the worst of the winter months- June & July. There was also some rather good spot prizes - but as usual I was not lucky! Highlight for me was seeing an 8yr old girl - a real cutie, who I had seen finishing and given a cheer for - win a sports watch! She was totally delighted! I know she was eight cos I asked her afterwards and was chatting with her dad about whether my 7yr old would be able to do that distance, even if it wasn't running all the way. I'm quite keen to continue with the 5km weekly races from Pakuranga and it would be good if I could get Courtney and my Mum (who would walk) involved as well.

So there you have it, a 10km training run and a 5km race in one day! The good thing about tonights race was that I didn't have time to think about it much or prepare, as if I did I surely would not have run this morning. I honestly don't think it did me any harm - my legs felt strong and sharp tonight and of course having not raced this distance before I was gauranteed a PB! But I was pretty pleased with an average pace of 4.07min/kms. If I do continue doing these, of course the goal will have to be to eventually go under 20mins!

Which brings me to another thing - it dawned on me last night that I haven't really put in writing what my planned events are since Redwoods, despite them all being in my head! Over the next few months there are several events that I have done in the past and would like to do again - Orca (previously Nike) Womans Challenge 8km (22nd April) Onehunga HM (6th May) then there is a new series, the Run Auckland Series which has 5 races of various distances/locations, (April-July) altho the first one is also on 22nd April. There is also the YMCA Womans 10km which I have done several times (even came 3rd once!) but thats on the same day as Onehunga HM.... We don't have that many events in Auckland - it's a pain and a shame when they double them up. Just how many of these I get to do remains to be seen, but they're pencilled in anyway...

Top points to Ewen for noticing my "running pose" with the clothes! I had fun doing that! Timely reminder from Steve on the I.D. too - I usually carry a piece of cardboard with emergency details on it, but didn't laminate the last one and it went thru the washing machine the other week! I hadn't got round to writing out a new one - will do so tonight.