A dedication

It felt like a turning point was reached on Saturday. I managed to shrug off the lethargy and sickness that had been at my back all week and started to feel positive about the race again:) The taper had gone well. My legs were feeling fresh and ready for action. After eating a biig carbo-loading dinner, consisting of very generous quantities of lentil soup and roast potatoes and pumpkin (a strange combination, but I'm more of a gourmand than a gourmet:P), I hit the hay. I thought I had a guaranteed recipe for sleep-inducement in my biology textbook (what could be more exciting than learning about cellular division:D), but didn't succeed until well past midnight. I figured it didn't really matter because I got a good 8 hours on Friday night, which is a lot more important than the night before. And besides, I had a newly-purchased box of No-Doz 'Awakeners' ('the tablets that assist you in remaining ALERT and WIDE AWAKE!') for that caffeine boost the next morning (I only took one, not the whole box!:P).

My mum had kindly offered to drive me to the race, which made things simple. A discussion about death and grieving seemed fitting given the dark and rainy scenery. Got there with plenty of time to kill, which was largely spent on the race toilets, clearing out the far too big dinner:P I had a bit of a jog around, but nothing too exerting. It's not really that essential before a Half Marathon in my opinion. For a 5k/10k, where you're running at a good clip, it's good to do a few striders beforehand, but for longer races you need to keep the kms in the legs, not on the road. The start to finish crew did a good job of ensuring that people started in the right corral. I'm never sure where I should line up given that the level of competition varies so much between events, so it was good to have the sub 1:30 and sub 1:15 boxes as reference points. It's seems a bit strange that some of the women got an 'elite' ranking and thus were allowed in the 1:15 box even though the female winner ended up doing 1:25ish? Can't have been comfortable for them at the start when everyone else surged past. Had a bit of a chat with Slim DJ before the start, he was hoping to go sub 1:30 with the pace group.

At almost exactly 7:15, the gun went off (which is a first for S2F events I'd have to say:P They always seem to have a few last minute delays) and we were off! I pushed forward a little bit, not wanting to get held back by the narrow start, and positioned myself with a few guys who looked like they were going a decent pace. We went through 1km in exactly 4:00, which I was pretty proud of, normally being someone who overshoots their target pace at the start. It felt ok, but it was a little bit more uncomfortable than it usually is. The 2km marker seemed to be absent, but had it been there, it would've marked the start of a fairly hilly section up to the shrine of remembrance. I struggled a little and dropped back a few places but was surprised to see 12:48 as we went through 3km. It must've been dodgey because there's no way I did the next km in 3:12, which included another hill. All the work going uphill was rewarded when we got to Anderson St. I powered down, catching up with the group I'd been running with at the start and more than making up for the time I'd lost. For a blessed while, we were running on a nice flat section of road. Hit the 5k mark in 19:48 and I was feeling good, picking up a few more places. It didn't last though. After we passed the MCG, there was a solid 3km of mostly uphill terrain. I was doing allright until the 8k mark and round about then, after being dropped by my running partner of the time, I realised that 1:24:24 wasn't going to happen. I kept up the effort, and caught him back up thanks to a nice downhill, but the next set of hills took all the sting out of my legs. Going up the last hill of the lap around Jolimont station, my calves felt as though they were on fire and I just couldn't go any faster, watching on helplessly as at least 10 people passed me.

This was the crucible test - would I be able to keep going hard despite the pain? Normally I let up, and slow down even though I have the capacity to keep going for a while yet. But today I refused to let it out of my grasp that easily and bared my teeth in a snarl for the photographer and pushed on after the hill. The course organisers must've respected my courage because the last 1.1km of the lap were slightly downhill. There was a checkpoint at the halfway mark, and I was pleased to see that I was still in the 42:40 range, still on track for a good time.

Making up some ground down the flat back stretch, I caught up with a guy about my age, who seemed not to be hurting as much as I was. I resolved to stick with him. He was going for 1:25, so if I could stick with him, I'd do allright. From now on, it was going to be a case of surviving, making it to the next km marker was the most important thing. I stopped checking my splits - partly because I didn't trust the km markers, and partly because I didn't want to see the inevitable decline in cold, hard, numerical terms. The strategy worked well, I stuck with him til the 16k mark, where surprisingly he was the one to peel off (toilet stop). With the realisation that I only had 5k to go, I suddenly felt a burst of energy. I made up a few places on the lovely flat road, and then about 500m later, dropped off at the mere sight of the MCG.

With a gap between me and the guys behind of a good 100m, I really struggled. There was no-one to loop an elastic band around, no-one who would make the relatively innocuous first hill up the pedestrian bridge any easier, and so I slowed, only picking up the pace when the footsteps drew near enough to be a threat. Only 3km to go, but the hills ahead guaranteed that they weren't going to be easy ones. To add to things, my hips were starting to cramp, making it hard to keep good form up the hills and costing me more time.

Surprisingly though, the hills didn't hurt as much the second time round. Maybe it was because I was going more slowly, but after announcing 'This is going to fucking hurt!' to the guy running next to me, the big hill across from Jolimont station felt quite easy. Halfway up the hill, a friend from my high school unexpectedly tapped me on the shoulder, which gave me another burst of energy. He'd been running with the 90 minute pacer, who had decided to slow down towards the end because he was so far ahead of pace:| I overheard two guys after the race saying that he'd gone through 10k at 1:26 pace and ended up finishing in 1:29. It'd be pretty annoying if you were only just going to make 1:30. There's no way he would've brought everyone with him.

The hard work was done now, the only thing to do was to enjoy the last 1.1k of downhill and make up as much time as possible. I quickly dropped my friend and flew down towards Birrarung Marr. My cramps vanished, allowing me to put on a bit of a sprint and make it to the finish line in 1:26:59 according to my watch:) It's going to be interesting to see what that last split was (if the 20k checkpoint is published that is):P My friend came in about 20 seconds later and after collecting our showbags, we had a bit of a chat about his plan to do the Perth Ironman in December this year. Standing still wasn't a good idea though apparently because my vision was half obscured by spots dancing before my eyes and I felt like I was going to faint. I remember feeling like that in the same race last year, even though it was only 5k. There must be something about the course:P

There was a nifty set up in Fed Square, broadcasting footage from the finish line with a 20 minute delay, so you could watch yourself come in. Trying to avoid the high kicks from the people taking part in the rather sexual aerobics warmup (Note to instructor: there are children present! Please remove those grinds from your repertoire.), I watched in envy at the guys trickling through in 1:18 (funny how some of the people finishing in 2:00 sprinted faster down that last stretch:P). There was a bit of an incident at about 1:24. Two guys ran across the line..from the opposite direction. There was a lot of gesturing and pointing in the direction of the turn off down the back stretch. The course marshalls must not have told them to cut through down towards the Yarra, so they must've continued round and run down past Fed Square. I'd imagine they'd be pretty pissed off at the organisers. That would've easily cost them a minute. I know one of the guys from the 8k time trial I did two weeks ago, and he'd have been in shape for a 1:22 (he ran 28:59 at the time trial), so he'd be really frustrated with that. I was quite happy with my form running down the back straight (*hopes they'll post a copy of that video, so he can watch it over and over again*:P), but have to say that I cut a rather dorky figure with my long white socks:P I'm looking forward to seeing the race photos. I can almost guarantee that they'll have caught me in grimace mode every time:P

So, overall, I'm pretty happy with 1:27. It's not as fast as I would've liked, but it was a tough course and I'm just pleased that I didn't hold anything back. It was probably the hardest I've ever pushed myself in a race. I've always thought that I could scrape a few tens of seconds or even minutes just by not letting up when the going gets tough, and I did that today, so it's hard to be disappointed with that:)

On a more sombre note, about 15 minutes after I got home, we got a phone call from my dad saying that my grandfather had died. I'm glad it ended now, because he was in a lot of pain and I can't imagine how hard it would've been if he had scraped on for another few weeks. So, Opa, I'm dedicating this race to you and I think you would've been proud.