2012

The year started slowly with an easy 5km around the block, but that was plenty after 2hours on the mountain on the 31st. (not to mention the 8km in the evening with Dawn)

The 2nd was a holiday, so I was still running on my own, and with Dawn cycling swimming and walking the dogs, I have a bit of time!!! 90min later I was back at home, with 20km logged.

Tuesday I was back at the club and work, so things turned to normal, with a little session of tempo 1000's. Wanting a bit of a base before we set off with the years training I logged 18km on Wednesday. Hills on Thursday and even a short run on Friday and Saturday.

That brings us to Sunday and Bay to Bay 30km race having only missed this race three times in the last 20 years I knew what lay ahead...

30km is a nice distance to run as a race, only nice to race if you are marathon fit, which I'm not!!! So my plan was to take it easy and run with a couple of friends.

No

I like to win money!!! now since I'm 40+ I often have a chance at age-group money, so I like to keep my chances open and start out hard and easy up (Ya right!!!). At the start line I had a look around and all the 40+ guys were there, so I would need Dawn to run a couple of them over in-order steal a podium place!!!

I still set of too hard going through 1km in 3:31!!! and 5km in 18:43. I had been running with a couple of guys, but at 5km we started to climb, and I kept the hammer down... I set my sights on Jimmy up ahead, his brother (Cliffy) was on the side of the road, supporting. I past him before the top of the hill and started to build up a lead. The down was lovely and I was flying 3:26  3:28. 3:45 3:52, the road had flattened, 3:52 to half way, Jimmy had caught me and past me with a sprint. He was running the relay with his brother!!! (his twin brother) Lucky for me the change over was off our route and I got in front again. I past half way in 57:26, but still had to make it back and that is with the little climb of Suikerbossie!!!! 2km is a long hill and I just put my head down and set about running the guys in front of me down!!! I'm really fat at the moment (all of 1.5kg heavier than I want to be) and carrying that weight up the hill wasn't easy, but I crested the top in one piece, 10km to go and I still had about a minute in the bag. So 4min/km was needed to take me home.

With 5km of down hill I was flying, and I wasn't alone, as I had caught one athletes. So down we went...3:50  3:43  3:37!!! Why so fast, well Jimmy was in the car, and Cliffy with his fresh legs was catching... 3:35  3:43. The down hill was over and so was I!!! Cliffy pulled away 3:53 3:59 Nelson (my athlete) pulled away 4:06, Dawn who was also following the race pulled up next to me and told me to hang in there and not let Nelson get to far ahead.

Now we quickly need to go back to the first couple of km when I was telling Marko we were running to fast, he say wait till 28km... It wasn't going to come back to haunt me I had to pull myself together... 3:43 4:04 up the hill to the finish, 1:29 Mr. Garmin called it 400m long.

1h57:57, the race was finish, the weeks training was finished, I was finished!

Easy week ahead, next post pictures...