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| Victoria, Me, Bader (Lad) |
My first problem was a gangly Northerner called Hareth Bader. He'd already informed me of his race plan; sit on my shoulder and try to overtake me at the end. Great. He'd been putting in some good times at distances up to 7km and this was a possibility, despite him being untested at 10km. I could do without the aggro, even if I could drop him before he could execute his master-plan.
He'd spent the run up to the race in Perth, so needed us to pick up his race bib and deliver it to him at the start. Time for my own master-plan. Whilst Victoria went to find him, I did a quick warm up and made for the front of the A start group. By the time he'd finished his (daft) stretches, chose how many layers he was going to run in, dropped off his bag, and whinged about his Reynauds, he found himself at the back of the A start group. Problem solved. Good look dodging the optimists.
The second problem was that there was no official 40 minute pacer. Disaster. My own race plan was to sit on the shoulder of the pacer and try to overtake at the end. When I say "sit on the shoulder" I mean "hang on with every inch of my being". The Sydney Striders, the official pacers, were doing 45 minutes and above. I desperately searched Facebook for alternatives and on race night learnt that Runlab were providing "motivators", and one for 40 minutes. How these differ from pacers I didn't know, but my plan was now to find one of these motivators, sit on their shoulder and...you know the rest.
Conditions were the third problem. Cold and windy. Cold doesn't bother me, but the wind is always a pain. A tailwind never compensates for a headwind.
However, I had prepared as well as I ever have. Fully hydrated, tapered my running, and didn't get smashed the night before.
The gun fired and we were off. I had yet to spot my motivator, and the first kilometre was just spent dodging others, trying to maintain an even 4 minute split, and chuckling about the dodge-fest Bader would be in. Lad.
As Hickson Road turned south, at around 2km, a fierce headwind hit. Unpleasant. But there was my motivator, about 10 metres ahead, telling people he was running for 40 minutes. Ok, he may have just been a bragger, but I liked his arrogance and I fell in behind him.
The rest of the race is something of a blur. I tried to keep my motivator at a constant distance and run the course as efficiently as I could. In Manchester I essentially ran an extra 100m, by running corners the long way, and I wanted to get my total distance as close to 10km as possible.
It was tough. At no point did I feel comfortable. The hill onto Pyrmont Bridge took it out of me and I struggled to recover. My motivator started making gains on me. It is very demoralising to see the personification of your goal start moving away. There goes 40 minutes in a silly yellow singlet.
Coming back onto Hickson Road, this time running north, and another bloody headwind. I felt terrible. I could feel my splits lengthening and there was little I could do.
Suddenly though and what I thought was the 8km sign was approaching. Something about having just 2km to go pushed me on and, as I passed the 8km sign, I increased my pace. About 500m later I passed the actual 8km sign, but I was unperturbed. I was gaining on the motivator and the dream of sub-40 was back on. Racing the under the Harbour Bridge and into the harbour itself and the motivator was close, closer, passed! He was providing words of encouragement to all. I increased my pace again and started towards the finish line, with about 500m to go. I could hear the motivator shouting to push and then what's this? The bloody motivator was powering through, sprinting to the finish. Overtaking me. Sub-40 was overtaking me. He was telling us all to dig deep, sprint for the line, and I dug deep and spinted(ish) for the line.
I crossed just ahead of the motivator. The gun time was 40:05, the time on my watch was 40:01, but I was ahead of the 40 minute pacer who had started ahead of me. What was my time?
39:57. Absolutely chuffed. Ten minutes earlier and I thought I'd blown it. More than a minute off my personal best and achieved my target for this year in the 10km with six months to go.
The Runlab motivator made the difference. He slowed down to let those of us right on the cusp of 40 minutes pass him (a big psychological boost) and then powered us to the line. Fantastic effort from the motivator and I thanked him later on Strava.
What's next? Probably the M7 half-marathon at the end of the month. I think it is probably over optimistic to go sub-90, but I think I will give it a shot. At least I'll have some idea of where I'm at. Just need to find a "motivator".
41:33 for Bades (rubbish)
Some other results of my pals:
Hareth Bader - 41:33 (rubbish).
Victoria Arthur - 50:13 (our roles reversed from last week, Vic's turn to take it easy).
The Pancholis - Amit 57:57 (breaks the hour mark on first ever 10km, but uses inhaler four times incurring a four minute time penalty. Also incurs time penalty for racing faux pas (sticking bag label to his back) and wearing ridiculous headphones) and Teresa 01:01:45 (just missing the hour, but no use of inhaler and carried herself with a lot more class than Amit so beats her husband).
Katie Grooby - 01:12:46 (paced by the "broom wagon")
Tom Kennedy - overslept
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