Mizuno 11k

(Photos courtesy of Tey, Chuah & Jason Lee - thanks guys)

A race that I didn't intend to race but did anyway. Last year I was almost 2 months into my Ironman build up and getting very fit. I ended up 5th Junior Vet and actually got placed and prizes for the first time ever in a run race.

This year was a different story, I suspect I've been suffering from a mild dose of Chronic Fatigue thingy and have only had one week of proper training under my belt (6 days actually). I was 5kg (11 lbs) heavier than last year and I even ran to the race this year so I wasn't expecting much.





The plan was to run there, 4k, then 2k around the track, 11k (steady pace) race then a 4k run home = 21k. Normal Sunday training distance at this time of year. I rode 114k the day before and then got knocked off my bike by a truck (another story another post) a 4.4k brick run (I did the same last year (without the truck part) but the brick run was 8.8k).

The 4k run to the race was awful, I had NOTHING and I mean NOTHING. I can't say I arrived very happy or optimistic and it reinforced my plan to just use the day as a distance training day. I met up with my business partner, Ian and a friend from Country Heights, Sue, who were both running too. The ladies race went first so Ian and I did some laps around the track.










After that I felt much better and thought, ahhh, what the hell, I'll push and see what happens. I started a couple of rows back from the front while Ian was on the first row of the grid. It took me a good 300m to catch him up.

I was hurting from the get go but it's a race so that's the way it should be, experience has taught me the pace to go at, this is right on the red line, go into the red for more than a few seconds and the race will end before the finish line and turn into a painful disappointing jog. I felt the red line breached a few times as I started to go anaerobic so eased off a little. I knew I wasn't going anywhere near as fast as last year but I expected not to be more than a couple of minutes down.

The race wound on and I was pretty pleased with the way it unfolded although I was losing a little to similar paced runners on the up hills and gaining it back downhill - this never happens and is a reflection of my current fitness, strength and extra weight I'd imagine.

A Western guy was stalking me and I thought I'd long since dropped him when I had to re-tie my shoelace (rooky mistake - I still make em! What an ijut!), he was right on my heels and went past.

At some point I ran past Sue, she was looking good (a little red but good), then Juliana Ali shortly afterwards, she was running in a sarong and had Ngae's name on the back of her shirt and was dedicating this run to him. AWESOME. Big respect Julie. We miss you Ngae.


The beauty (read: sting in the tail) of this course is the hill at the finish. There's one just before it and you start thinking to yourself, "Is this the last hill? I remember it being harder than this last year" and then bang you realise that it's not the one and the big one hits you. As it turned out it felt infinitely harder than last year. I'd long since retaken the Western stalker but knew he would be on my heels. Sure enough he came by as did a few others.

At this point you'll see from the photo I was in a world of hurt.

I thought, good on him, he's run the perfect race, disciplined and intelligent, take me up the last hill and even if I came back he'd surely out sprint me with his giraffe legs.

Never have I ever wanted to walk so much so close to the end of a race - my body and mind were screaming, begging even negotiating surrender. Fortunately I had a great negotiator on my side, my EGO. He just wouldn't let go. His tiny and distant voice could just be heard over the internals screams, "Just try and stay in touch with the stalker, take him back on the down hill and see what happens on the sprint". Having a big ego hurts makes me hurt sometimes but he has his uses.


As it turns out the sprint never happened, I'd taken back so much on the downhill that I was miles a head by the finish and well pleased with my effort. No top 5 finish today but knew that before the race. Hopefully top ten but now having checked my time from last year I was a whole 4 minutes slower so I'm not holding out too much hope on that now.

A little footnote here - I'd like to apologise to the young guy (not in my age-group) who I shouted abuse at as we ran round the track to the finish - BUT I WON'T. I called you a cheating b*****d and a cheating b******d you are.

He ran 5 or 6 metres inside the line on the track and was sprinting against a couple of other guys in his category. Buddy we can all win races if we cut the corners. Not only were you cheating the people you were racing against but you were cheating yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself.

It was only a small shortcut but it was at a critical time in the race and anyway (as everyone who trains with me will know) a shortcut is a shortcut however small.

On a happier note - Sue finished in about 1hr 1min. We were chatting at the end and she said she's like to cheer Ian in. Me too I said but he won't be along for a while yet, he wasn't going that fast. AND HOW WRONG WAS I. "Here he comes she said" - amazing stuff, Ian knocked more than 4 minutes off his time last year and finished pretty much on the 1 hour mark.

Sue and Ian have been consistently training together around Country Heights and its clearly been paying off.

Apologies for doubting you Ian, great job I'm well impressed.

RESULTS: -
Just checked and the results have been posted. I am stoked to see that I was in 7th place out of 359 in the men's junior vets category in 48mins 40secs (38th/2911 overall).

Ian was 42nd place out of 183 in the men's senior vets category in 1hr 40secs (424/2911 overall)

Sue was 10th place out of 82 in the women's senior vets category in 1hr 1min 1sec (437/2911 overall)