Stryka’s BodyBlog

This morning was the running of the Kingston Fun Run. Preparation for the race was hardly ideal as I have been fighting off a cold for the past week. I also pull up very sore from last weeks race but this morning I felt pretty good.

Conditions were ideal with very little breeze and about 15 degrees celsius.

The start was chaotic. I tripped on someone but managed to regain my feet. The start was very tight out of my gym carpark and there was no separation of walkers and runners. Honestly you would think the walkers would at least show some common sense and move towards the back but no just off to my right was a lady carrying a large handbag.

We get away and after the first 500metres the road turns very much downhill, I knew that I would need to make the most of this first third of the run and push hard down the hill.

I hit the flat and by the half way point I had clocked just over 11 minutes. The next section is where I need to work on, I seem to have difficulty picking up a good quick consistant pace. We turn off the main road and with about a km and a half to go I know that I don’t have much to run but the next km seems to take forever eventually I turn onto the beach and as soon as I hit the harder sand I push into a sprint for the line.

My finishing time was 23:50 about 3 and a half minutes faster than last year and right into my target time.

The City to Casino fun run is as flat as runs get in Hobart, which I discovered today was not necessarily that flat. I haven’t run since my last triathlon back in march so as far as my preparation goes at least I know I tapered off well and didn’t over exert myself in the lead up

Having said that as uncomfortable as some of the uphill climbs were there were actually more downhills than uphill so I felt that my target time of 50 minutes should be achievable for the 11kms. The weather was ideal, sunny about 10-12 degrees celsius and with a small tail wind, you really couldn’t have asked for much more.

I somehow found myself right at the front at the start which took off a lot faster than my preffered pace and whilst I adjusted pretty quickly I couldn’t get myself into a comfortable rhythym.

Halfway through I realised that whilst I wasn’t comfortable my pace was ok and with what I estimated was plenty of time to finish around 50mins.

I persisted at the same pace and before I knew it there was only 2.7kms to go and I had been running for about 36 minutes. Here is where I feel I let myself down a little. I had wanted to push as hard as I could through the last couple of kms but I just couldn’t get enough oxygen until with about 400metres I realise how close I was and all of a sudden I found a sprint with ease. I flew through to the end with a finish time of 50:06 for the eleven kilometres.

If I had pushed harder from the 9km mark I think I could have easily found another 2 minutes, but having said that, I didn’t train for the race and really was having an off day. I have a massive blister in the arch of my foot so to pretty much achieve the goal time I can’t complain too much.

Next weekend the is a short 6km race which involves a lot of downhill. I did next weeks race last year as my first fun run since I was in the army. At the time I was pretty stoked with my 27 odd minute time but now I feel that on this course a blisteringly fast (for me anyway) 23-24 minutes is achievable considering the first three kms is downhill then flat to the finish.