Half Marathon PB!

Early this morning I headed to Williamstown for a the Sri Chinmoy Half Marathon race. It was spookily eery with a very low fog and reduced visibility, but I liked it especially hearing the horn of the tug boat and then seeing it slowly come into view.

At the start line I caught up with a couple of running friends and worked out that we shared a racing strategy - running at 5minutes per kilometre - for as long as I could. We started of a little slowly whilst we dodged runners around us but by about 3km we settled into a nice running pace. We then slowly started ticking off the kilometers we were a bit fast for the first few kilometers and then we ended up running just over 5 minutes per kilometer. I was quite happy with that it would still bring me under 1h48min - my previous half marathon PB. We finally completed the first lap, went past the finish line to start our next loop. This section was a little tight and a couple of little hills to make us work for it. At this point a friend walking her dog shouted out encouragement and I was pleased to be able to tell her that I was still feeling good. It was also around this point that I started coming close to some runners ahead of me. As anyone who knows me realises I am a little bit competitive and so I was spurred on to up the pace a little an overtake these people. Unfortunately this meant I dropped my two running buddies (umm sorry about that) and kept on going. I was now at 16km which only meant 5km left to run - the same distance as my regular Gunn Run! I tried to keep the pace and still managed to overtake some runners in the last few kilometers. I got to the last kilometer and gave it all I had crossing the line in 1hour45min30sec which works out to be exactly 5 minutes per kilometer - I couldn't have paced it any better if I had tried.

Although I am sitting here now feeling tired and stiff I am elated to have improved my half marathon time. My first Half Marathon was in 2001, 8 years ago and I finished in 1hr58min30 sec, that means today I was full 13 minutes faster - that makes me a very happy girl :).

Little old lady

It has been a while since I last wrote, I think I needed some down time after a really big couple of months running and then of course I have been sick - and no it wasn't the swine flu, just a simple cold. Over the last of couple of weeks I have continued my running training with long runs of 90-105 min. I was looking forward to Sunday's run because I was going to run with a friend that I had not seen in a while and also have a yummy breakfast afterwards. Unfortunately she was feeling sick and couldn't make it so no yummy breakfast and yeap that's right another solo run for me and lots of thinking time.

It was actually a really lovely day to be out running, quite balmy in fact so I was enjoying the run. In fact it was really great to see lots of other people out there enjoying the weather as well, cyclists, runners and walkers. On my run I also saw this little old lady, I have seen her before on the beach trails she is quite tiny, about 5 foot nothing and in her 80s and I admire her. This little lady may not be winning any land speed records in fact in a race between her the tortoise I suspect the tortoise would win. However, she is out there every weekend walking the beach trail with a lovely smile on her face. It reinforced to me that we all should be out there being active whatever our ability.

My mum once said to me 'Well I'm not like you Sharyn I can't run a marathon'. Well she's right we can't all run marathons , or perhaps that should be we all aren't crazy enough to want to run a marathon. But you know maybe you can't run a marathon but you can run 10km or if you can't run maybe you can ride your bike or you can be like that little old lady and walk along the beach for 30 minutes.