The monkey is dead

That is, the PB monkey that has been sitting on my back for the last 2 years, OK, maybe not dead but I did bitch slap him around a little bit today.

Damn it was cold and bleak out at Sandown today, about 8 degrees, windy and almost constant rain, though it did ease slightly when we started at 230 this afternoon. For this first time ever I did a warm up in my tracky pants, I went out and did an easy 2km along the course just to roll the legs over and see how I was feeling. Besides being about as cold as I ever have been I was happy to note that I was feeling pretty good

For anyone not familiar with the venue, the Sandown racecourse is used for motor racing and there is also a grass infield for horse racing, however today it was the venue for the Australian 10km championship. It is also quite open and when the weather is bad there is just no protection from the elements, so when it is cold wet and windy you bear the brunt of it.

Back in the grandstand I started to peel back the layers and acclimatise. I was tempted to wear a crop top, mostly because if it was going to pour rain then my singlet would just get wet and drag down, it certainly wouldn’t help me feel warmer. In the end though the rain had backed off somewhat and I opted for the singlet. With 5 minutes to go it was time to be brave and off came the tracksuit, Brrrrrrr.

Standing on the start line I was feeling remarkably calm, I think mostly because I had not built this race up too much in my mind and it was so damn cold it had the advantage of distracting me from most other thoughts

Alright, you don’t need a long drawn out description of a 10km race, needless to say it is not the most interesting course, being 3 laps of a 3.1km track as well as a bit extra along the straight at the start and end to make up the difference. It was mostly flat, some small gentle downhill stretches and a slight uphill of about 700 metres along the back straight that really started to bite by the last lap.

I settled into a good pace early and was initially worried that I was not running fast enough because it felt too easy, I was really surprised once I started going through the splits considerably under goal pace. I also kept up a steady stream of really positive self talk, I kept reminding myself of all the 3 lap progressive sets I had run around The Tan (which has a much steeper 700 metre hill) and I kept telling myself that the downhills and flats were coming up. As I was ahead of plan this allowed me to slow a bit on the uphill and not panic which also helped keep my spirits up. Mostly I kept repeating over and over, “run tall run strong run tall run strong”, sounds daggy I know but it worked.

I think by far the hardest part was the run to the finish, it was about 800 metres along the front straight, I had my cap on so I kept my head down and pushed though, damn finish line kept moving away from me though! I had checked my watch at 9km so I knew a PB was a certainty unless I fell over so I just concentrated on running strong and didn’t see the time again until I stopped my watch on 45:40!

Finally, 2 years less 11 days since I set my old PB of 48:14 I was able to set a new 10km PB. Since that time I had only run 10km once more, that was an appalling 53 something in October last year off the back of rehab and a bad dose of the flu.

I was so happy when I finished that I had a little cry, someone asked if I was OK, of course I was, it was just relief.

Here are the splits
1km - 4:24
2km - 4:48 (9:12)
3km - 4:34 (13:47)
4km - 4:29 (18:16)
5km - 4:52 (23:09)
6km - 4:35 (27:45)
7km - 4:30 (32:15)
8km - 4:31 (36:46 - 8km PB by almost 2 minutes)
9km - 4:37 (41:24 - was getting pretty excited by this stage)
10km - 4:16 (45:40)

It was so bloody cold out there today, from about 2km onwards I could barely feel my legs, I am not kidding they had gone almost completely numb, I am pretty sure this helped

A very relieved and happy runner this afternoon, my goal time was 47 minutes but by about the 3km mark I was becoming optimistic about going better, with some consistent training behind me I am sure that this PB will not be with me for another 2 years.

One last thing, I only got overtaken by about the first 20 men and Troopy only caught me at around the 5.5km mark.

PS - the OH is doing OK today, the Police told him that the woman he ran into has been charged with something but they won’t say what.