Weight of The World: Queen of the Lake 10km Fun Run

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Queen of the Lake 10km Fun Run

Woke up with plenty of time to get organised. I probably used the time to get Hubby and Daughter organised more so than me. Hubby was going to drop me off at Albert Park and go on to Altona as he had something he needed to pick up. Needless to say I was about 15 minutes later than I'd planned to be there....but at least I got there before the race started, so that was a plus!! I think Eat Em and Michelle were getting a little concerned that I wasn't going to show. Smiles all round when they found me! As it was a Women's only run, Eat Em had kindly volunteered to pace Michelle and I so that we could try and do a sub 55 min 10km. Both Michelle & I normally run at about a 6.00 pace so we would have been happy with anything under 60 minutes! Eat Em had other ideas! As usual it was cold....and this time it was also windy, so not great weather to run around Albert Park Lake. Eat Em encouraged me to take off my jacket before the race started but I was having none of that. I even had my gloves on until about 1/2 way around the first lap. Eat Em suggested that we just do our normal pace on the first lap and then on the second lap we'd do some "serious" work....uh oh! Now unfortunately both Michelle and I had not really done ourselves any favours with regards to preparing ourselves for a good race, as we'd both eaten heavy food and drunk (too much) alcohol last night, along with Michelle not sleeping well. We tried to get a good spot to start the race, but as usual all the walkers decided that they wanted to be at the front of the start line, even though they would be starting after the runners, so we had to dodge a few people when the whistle blew to start the race. We both got into our stride pretty quickly, and we didn't really have to do much apart from listen to Eat Em as he was doing the majority of the talking....in fact we couldn't get a word in edge ways. It did mean that we could concentrate on our breathing and running though. Doing fine until we passed the 2km mark and then we hit the wind. Even the poor swans were having a hard time trying to stay upright on the lake!! Once we got around to the 4km mark we were back into the sheltered area. Then the sun came out, and it got warm quite quickly. Eat Em even managed to coax me to rid myself of the jacket (thankyou nice man for minding it). Went through the first 5km in 28 minutes, which I thought was fantastic. All of a sudden the pace picked up. Enough for both Michelle and I to have to concentrate hard on our breathing as we were both starting to gasp for breath. And of course then we hit that bloody wind again. I know that I started to struggle, and poor Michelle was having a real hard time of it. I only knew that because she went really quiet on me...most unlike Michelle!! Back out of the wind again and we pass the 8km mark. Eat Em suggests that at 9km we pick up the pace for the last km and run home hard....like we wern't already running hard enough!! We can now see the finish line, but there was still about 400 metres to go and if we pushed too hard now, I know we wouldn't have had anything left on the last stretch, so we both slowed just a little bit. When we hit the home straight, we both found something in us to race across the line. Michelle was about ready to collapse by then, and I wasn't too far behind her. Our unofficial time was 55.47, so we almost managed it. I think with a bit better planning (better food, no alcohol, more sleep) and less of a wind we could probably get a 55 min PB (like there's going to be a next time!!). Anyway I want to say a bit thankyou to Eat Em for coming along and pacing us. It was a first for me to actually have sombody pushing you along and encouring you all the way. Is this what having a personal trainer is like?