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Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Mother's Day Classic

It's been a weeks of ups and downs.  I leave the downs to my own surmising, but apparently saying goodbye to things in your life means you start running the best you ever have!

So Friday night I had the best run ever, I totally hit a zone it was after work (interestingly enough I was only going to walk and decided to run at the last minute) the sun was setting, my ipod was loud, I didn't have to stop at any of the lights, or crossings everything was green for me to go, I ran all three hills in this route and even looped around at the end to keep going because I didn't want to stop.  It felt great!  

Then Saturday morning I had my monthly jogging club run, I decided to take it a little easy because I had the Mother's Day Classic to run still I only came in about 25 secs slower than last months run, so I'm confident if I'd actually pushed I would have beat my time.  


Then this morning the time came for my 8km Mother's Day Classic, I got up early 5am bacause I wanted to have something to eat, I had a wholemeal muffin with peanut butter and banana.  Then while I was eating I was reading the pamphlet and realised the 4km run went off at 7.30am and the 8km left at 8am.  So I went back to bed for half an hour, then got up pinned everything to my shirt, got dressed and headed out.  Still way to early but I think it was a good time to get there because parking would have been a nightmare in another half an a hour.  I got my timing chip and just wandered around waiting to use the loo and checking in my jacket (it was chilly) before lining up to go.  So our course was 2 laps of Parramatta Park, because the park is actually 3.2km they had created an indent along one of the fields.  So my lesson of the day don't start so close to the front it's demoralising when the majority of the field overtake you! 

But I managed to run the whole first loop including the hill which saw many people grind to a walk.  After that I made the mistake of slowing to a walk at a drinks station and finished the second loop in a walk/jog pattern, I tried not to make the walk's too long, just focused on markers and saying OK, walk to there then run or run to that and then walk for a sec.  I still half ran the hill the second time around and once I reached the top the rest of the way was down hill so I finished that off running.  Right before the finish line a bunch of people decided that it was an opportune moment to walk across it and ignore the runners coming in, which was pretty annoying but hey that's life!  Anyway my official time was 56:09, which I was stoked about I wanted under an hour and definitely got it.  My 8km on Australia Day was 68:24 (which was more than respectable for a first attempt) however it's great to see how I've improved since January and how much further I'm able to run.

Got a little teary at the tribute wall when I pinned up my mum's tribute, which was kinda sad in itself with no one there to greet me at the finish line, and I did feel a little bit alone.  But having said that I can be proud that I still did this by myself, I didn't use any excuse for not having anyone with me to not do it.  I took a photo of the tribute wall and a couple before I left, but having no one there meant no photos of me running.  Of course my fingers will be crossed that one of the many photographers around the race might have captured me, we will see.

So the run is another item marked off my to-do list.  I hope all the mum's had a Happy Mother's Day, and all the other people who ran did as well as they hoped.  Have a great week!

2 comments:

  1. Tia, I am so proud of you.
    You did AMAZING.
    Your mum was looking down and beaming with pride.

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