The start was gorgeous. A sunny day, fabulous organisation and good friends to while away the time with while waiting for the start. I met some new people and chatted to old friends.
It was warm enough to run in a singlet and shorts right from the start and I wore my VFF flows again, as they have served me well lately. My trusty handheld waterbottle, with a gel and couple of lollies, and I was good to go. Trotted along nicely for about 1km before my first mishap....
I managed to drop my gel. Right in the centre of the road. I considered leaving it, but I know that this course has only water for competitors and I don't go well for 3 odd hours on water only.
Waiting for the entire field to run by before I could go to collect it was frustrating, but thankfully, no one stepped on it.
I had to put in a decent downhill 'sprint' to catch up to where I was previously and ran for quite a while with Carmen, who was looking strong. Carmen ran ahead at one point, and I didn't see her again, she was good on the hills.Today seemed to be the day for kicking my toes. Normally I don't do this often, as I've learned to be more careful when only wearing a thin piece of rubber on my feet. Today I was hopeless! I must have kicked rocks twice every km! This is extremely painful and means I'm not paying attention. Hindsight tells me I was just too tired for those shoes on that course on that day.
However, I began chatting with a local who was doing her first trail run and we were talking kids, work and running when suddenly a large rock jumped up out of the trail and bit me hard. I stumbled, hoping to right myself, but alas.... I went down hard.
My left knee smashed into the rocks, as did my right hand. It hurt enough to shock me and I couldn't get up. The lady I was running eventually ran on, after I assured her I'd be ok with a little sit down. I sat for a while, inspected the damage and let out a little whimper when I thought of the Gold Coast marathon in a weeks time. Not to mention the rip in my favourite tights!
Another runner stopped shortly after and offered to help me up, for which I was grateful. I started walking, realising that the notion of negative split, even in this downhill race, was out of the question.
I walked to the next aid station, where I put a bit of water on my hand and cleaned up a little and resumed jogging. I managed to catch up to quite a few people for a few km, but then the stiffness set in and I went back to walk/jog for the last 5-6km.
Crossing the line at the end was disappointing. Last year I ran 2.55 and this year though I could do about 2.45. My finish time was 3.10. I went to the first aid tent and got my knee and hand seen to before hobbling out to get a coffee.
The end of the day was lovely, sharing lunch with a good friend and some new faces, before heading home to the kids.Not a great day for running, but a great day to just tough it out and finish what I started.
