Saturday, July 08, 2006
Still one out there...
It was sometime in 1992. I was living in Templestowe and running regularly around Westerfolds Park, a great place with gorgeous views but with some particularly brutal hills. One week I noticed a sign strung across the gates advertising a 10K fun run at the park in a couple of weeks and I decided to enter. From memory it was my first fun run where I was running by myself - I had done my other races with a girlfriend from school.
It was a dreadful race for me. I wasn't really training very much by any stretch of the imagination, but that wasn't the only problem. The elastic went on my sports bra half way round, so it kept unhooking itself during the race. I finally stopped, and not caring who might see me, hoiked my top up and TIED the two straps of my bra together in a firm knot. Comfort wasn't fantastic, fit wasn't elegant, but at least my boobs weren't flopping around. I slowed over the latter stages of the race and everyone I had been in front of hauled me in without too many difficulties.
I arrived at the finish line to find it already being packed up. "Oh", said the nice lady, "I wondered whether there was still one out there". I was last in the field with a time of sixty something minutes, around 10 minutes slower than my 10K pb. I was standing there with my bra tied in a knot and the race organisers had not bothered to wait for me.
Today I ran even slower around Westerfolds Park than that day back in 1992. I had to go and visit my folks' place to pick up some fruit trees (as one does) so I decided to do my "long" run around the park, just to see how I would go. It is a lot hillier than where I normally run, so I took the biggest hill out of the equation by doing a warm up walk to the top of the Westerfolds Manor hill, and starting the run on the downhill.
At 4.8K around the park, I did about 4.6K after deducting the warm up, which is the longest run I have done so far. Apart from a couple of stops for a drink or to stretch one of my calves, I managed to keep the legs turning over (albeit slowly) for the whole way around the park. I tried to keep concentrating on different things so that I would stop thinking about stopping. Like the kilometre or so round the back of the park where I was concentrating on trying to reel in this eighty year old up ahead of me (who was walking). Amusingly, I didn't manage it as he turned off onto the main yarra trail just as I was finally coming up behind him.
So 4.6K in about 38min which I am pretty darn happy with at this stage of things. And I didn't even have to jury rig my bra.
It was a dreadful race for me. I wasn't really training very much by any stretch of the imagination, but that wasn't the only problem. The elastic went on my sports bra half way round, so it kept unhooking itself during the race. I finally stopped, and not caring who might see me, hoiked my top up and TIED the two straps of my bra together in a firm knot. Comfort wasn't fantastic, fit wasn't elegant, but at least my boobs weren't flopping around. I slowed over the latter stages of the race and everyone I had been in front of hauled me in without too many difficulties.
I arrived at the finish line to find it already being packed up. "Oh", said the nice lady, "I wondered whether there was still one out there". I was last in the field with a time of sixty something minutes, around 10 minutes slower than my 10K pb. I was standing there with my bra tied in a knot and the race organisers had not bothered to wait for me.
Today I ran even slower around Westerfolds Park than that day back in 1992. I had to go and visit my folks' place to pick up some fruit trees (as one does) so I decided to do my "long" run around the park, just to see how I would go. It is a lot hillier than where I normally run, so I took the biggest hill out of the equation by doing a warm up walk to the top of the Westerfolds Manor hill, and starting the run on the downhill.
At 4.8K around the park, I did about 4.6K after deducting the warm up, which is the longest run I have done so far. Apart from a couple of stops for a drink or to stretch one of my calves, I managed to keep the legs turning over (albeit slowly) for the whole way around the park. I tried to keep concentrating on different things so that I would stop thinking about stopping. Like the kilometre or so round the back of the park where I was concentrating on trying to reel in this eighty year old up ahead of me (who was walking). Amusingly, I didn't manage it as he turned off onto the main yarra trail just as I was finally coming up behind him.
So 4.6K in about 38min which I am pretty darn happy with at this stage of things. And I didn't even have to jury rig my bra.
3 Comments:
well done :D
Oh dear, great post :-)
Fancy packing up after only 60 minutes, having a look at the results from any 10Km fun run and there would be plenty on 60 minute+ finishers, that was just plain rude of them.
Fancy packing up after only 60 minutes, having a look at the results from any 10Km fun run and there would be plenty on 60 minute+ finishers, that was just plain rude of them.
Well done on your progress deege. I think you are kicking butt!!