Yes, I did manage to drag myself out of bed at 5.00am on Sunday to run in the 29th Gold Coast Half Marathon. It's not easy to summarise such a big weekend in a few paragraphs. My mood was a little subdued after hearing from Norma on Friday that her flight out of Sydney had been cancelled and she'd decided to return to Mittagong.On Sunday morning I walked from Main Beach to the start with Chris from Calwell who was hoping to run 75 minutes (he had a bad patch in the middle of the race and eventually ran 77:08 to place 55th). I made a bit of a tactical blunder by not lining up until 10 minutes before the start. The best I could do was to squeeze in close to the 2 hour pacer, near Ellie and Uncle Dave, well behind the green balloons which indicated the 1 hour 40 minute group.
Needless to say, the start was a bit frustrating. It was a 3 minute walk until we reached the timing mats. Thank goodness for chip times! After that, forward progress required quite a bit of dodging and occasional taking to the footpath in order to get a clear run. The green balloons had totally disappeared, so I worked on gradually catching the red balloons of the 1 hour 50 minute pacers. I managed this at 7k, then moved ahead.
The rest of the race went surprisingly well. I tried to maintain a heart-rate of around 150, which early on equated to kilometres in the mid-4:50s. These slipped out to 5:00 and slower in the second half. From 16k to the finish I was still feeling calm but there was nothing I could do about my slowing pace. I tried to keep a few people in sight – triathlete man, green jumper girl (running with a jumper tied around her waist) and Japanese neat long pants lady.
With about 500 metres to run, the famous CR Cheer Squad came into view. What a lift. Thanks Coolrunners – you were brilliant! Around the corner and down the long finish chute I raced, seeing the clock tick over to 1:48:10, which resulted in a chip time of 1:45:11! I think I'll take the latter for my 50+ PB. I was very pleased to finish feeling happy and well, four minutes quicker than the SMH Half and with an average km rate of 4:59.1!Later that afternoon, I walked down to the Southport Surf Life Saving Club for the CR 'after event drinks'. It was a very pleasant afternoon hearing how people had enjoyed the day, over a few quiet ales, while soaking up that superb view of the Pacific Ocean. I also managed to pass on a few 'CR gut punches' from absent friends.
[5k splits: 24:16, 24:39, 24:49, 25:29 + 1.1k in 5:58]
23 comments:
You're doing so well because of or in spite of your laid back approach. What's "the next big thing?"
Glad to hear you manage to salvage the weekend, I was thinking you may have been shattered at the news about LL and not been able to enjoy the weekend at all.
Congratulations on a 50+ pb and sub 5 min pace. Big events and starts, they're always awkward.
Glad to hear you had a successful race, despite the dodgy start to the weekend and the dodgy start to the race. Congrats on the 50+ PB.
Nice run mate, That PB aint to shabby for a 50+ er I imaginge :)
Good run Ewen. Wake up earlier. No hope at C2S lining up 10mins early. Be early for breakfast.
It was good catching up with you on the weekend and chatting about running.
Over 50 Pbs, you got to love them.
Congratulations Ewen. Good to slip that average pace under the 5:00/km mark. Just imagine how good it would be if you did some aerobic training ;-)
That was terrible about Norma. She had really set her goals on that race. She seems to have bounced back. Tough trooper. I hope she gets revenge in Melbourne.
Well done, it was such a gorgeous day too. They put on a fantastic event up there.
I can't see that 50+ PB lasting too long :-) Good on yers
Gnome
Congratulations on a good race, especially with the starting troubles.
I am sorry I missed you. Congratulations on a great run.
Well Done Ewen.
And a flight of other Canberra Runners were there, and phoned some results back home at 10 O'clock that morning.
Your Half Marathon time is about what I do for West Basin. :-))
why did i think you were doing the full mary? that's why i spectid to sees ya. by the time i got to the end of the marathon, most of the zippy halfsies were long gone.
congrats on a fiddy plus peebie. sorry to have missed you.
Great run Ewen!! Glad you decided to take the chip time for this one ;)
Nice to catch up with you again Ewen!
Well done Ewen, age PB, :-) and of course you had to use the chip time!
Wonderful to see you again Ewen. Looking forward to seeing you in a much colder place in a few weeks!
Good solid run.
"....triathlete man, green jumper girl (running with a jumper tied around her waist) and Japanese neat long pants lady..." looks like I'm not the only one who assigns names to others in the race.
It was great to catch up with you Ewen except my knuckles are still sore from punching you in the belly ;-)
Well done on the great run. I can see that 50+ PB won't last too long at all. When's the next one?
1:45 is really traveling! Congratulations.
Nice run Ewen, shame about starting so far back. Its hard to get a good rythem going from back there.
Hope your boys have a good game against SA tonight. Warriors going for four from four tonight against Cowboys. Go the Warriors.
Lovely run, Ewen and that was very unfortunate news about Lucky Legs. Perhaps you needed one of those Gold Coast "Metre Maids" (are they still around?) to have gotten you to the start a little earlier. Very nice post as always from you.
Great run Ewen. Congratulations on the 50+ PB. You are smoking at the moment and going from strength to strength. I'll see you in Sydney in the next month or two.
Post a Comment