Central Coast Half Marathon

Ran the Central Coast Half in 88:39, and it kicked the hell out of me. Today’s lesson – don’t push hard when you’re on the back end of an illness.

Hadn’t run sine Saturday week ago. Probably should have gotten out on Friday but couldn’t get out of bed, and just ended up running out of time on Saturday. Plus I probably should have had less to drink on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

Drove up with Mohammed who I thought was definitely on for a fast one. Got there nice and early, got through a bit of a warm up, and lined up with a markedly larger field than last year. Conditions were pretty good, although there was a bit of a headwind in the final stages. A few people commented that they thought it was pretty warm towards the finish - I didn't think it was too bad, but I'll admit I probably wasn't overly focussed on the temperature.

We got on our way, and Mohammed and I were flying. I had the Garmin and was fairly alarm at the Ave Pace sitting below 3:40 for as long as it did. We were through 5k in less than 19:30, and not long after that I let Mohammed go, feeling that the pace felt more like 10km pace than half marathon pace. I was gradually drifting back to over 4 minute per km pace, and was mentally struggling from about 8km. Through 10 in about 39:50, and I really felt like I wanted to go to the toilet, despite going several times in the half hour before the start. I was hoping for a bit of a mental lift at the turnaround point (which seemed a little different to last year’s) which I guess I did a little bit, but the physical issues returned soon enough. Hooked up with another runner who was also battling and he dragged me along for quite a while, but during this period Colin and Blue Dog went past.

The last two small climbs finished me off and I blew up properly with about 2km to go, reduced to a high turnover shuffle. Over the line, check in, collect medal, and straight to the toilet. I thought for a moment I was going to throw up as well.

Caught up with a few people before heading off fairly promptly to the Striders presentation at Homebush.

Pretty down end to what was a pretty disappointing year. I’ll do a year in review posting shortly, but to be brutally frank all I have to show for 2005 is a big 10k PB.

I get results back from my GP today so hopefully that’ll provide some light at the end of what so far has been a four month long tunnel.