September 22, 2009

• Race day

  You might remember that a little over a month ago, I wrote that I had entered the Sydney Running Festival, which was to involve a 9km Bridge Run from the Northern side of Sydney Harbour at Milsons Point to the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House via the Sydney CBD and Woolloomooloo. The good news is that I competed in that event on Sunday morning and fared better than I expected considering my right knee had started to act up on me during my last training run at the gym on Friday morning and seemed to be getting worse.

  My training regime for this event was haphazard at best, comprising mostly of running on the treadmill at the gym rather than outside on the local streets - in hindsight, running on the street would probably have proved to be more of an encouragement to do better since, after a while, the inside of the gym becomes boring.

  Since this was the first time I had ever voluntarily entered any kind of athletic event, I wasn't really sure what to expect when I arrived at the marshaling point at Bradfield Park under the Northern approach to the Harbour Bridge. The little booklet I got when I picked up my race kit (which comprised my bib number, timing tag for my shoe and a plastic bag to put my clothes in) gave me some useful information about the day, but it was vague at best.

  Looking around at all the various competitors made me feel a bit self conscious. It appeared to me that every fitness fanatic who could pull on a singlet was out in force to make me look well and truly out of place so I was extremely happy when I started seeing people who looked like they would be more at home on a building site than an athletic event. I must have looked a bit lost and overwhelmed by it all because this lovely young girl started talking to me and giving me encouragement as the start time got closer.

  When I registered online to be in the race, I was asked to estimate what my average speed would be and to my surprise, I found myself in the "A" group of runners which made me feel a bit nervous. Once at the starting zone, I found myself in the midst of all those young fit runners I had seen when I arrived and then started worrying about what I had gotten myself into. By now it was too late to back out. At the sound of the starters gun, right on 8:30am, the crowd slowly started moving forward and, roughly a little over a minute later, I crossed over the timing mat, hit the stopwatch and started jogging at a nice steady pace up hill.

  As I have said, I have never done anything like this so I was quite unprepared for the sound that hundreds of pairs of sneakers make as they slap the road. It's something to experience and was almost soothing at times. Once on the approach to the bridge, the crowd started to thin out as everyone started settling into their own particular pace. I was overtaken almost immediately by people (which really didn't surprise me) and I started to overtake people (which really did surprise me). For about 1.5km, I kept up with the girl from the park, but she was experienced in these kinds of events and started pulling away from me on the first downhill section.

  I formulated some kind of plan as I ran - steady on the uphill bits, sprint on the downhill bits and a faster pace on the flat. By the 3km marker, I was starting to get my second wind and my knee had begun to stop throbbing. By this stage, we were rounding the corner off the Cahill Expressway onto Macquarie Street and the first water station. That seems to be another quirk of these races - as you approach the water station, you can hear the runners ahead of you crushing plastic cups on the ground.

  During the week, while training on the treadmill, I had decided that I would walk for about 50 - 100 meters at the two water stations along the course to get my heart rate back down and to cool off a little for the next 3km or so before the next water stop but since I was carrying a water bottle anyway and I was doing so well at this point (according to my stopwatch) that I decided to give the water and walk a miss and continued on up Macquarie Street towards the Art Gallery and the downhill run to Woolloomooloo.

  This was where I took the opportunity to start overtaking a few people who were starting to slow down a little but once the course rounded the bend and began to head back up towards the art gallery, it got steeper and I started to find it a little harder to maintain my steady pace. That hill seemed to go on forever and I was really pleased to finally get past the 7km marker because I knew that at least the last 1.5km was all downhill to the finish line.

  That was where it became a little amusing because I was overtaken by this kid who must have been about 10 but he would get about 20 meters in front of me, then start walking and I would overtake him. A few seconds later, he would sprint past me again for about 20 meters, then start his walk again until I passed him. This went on for the last 500 meters of flat road before the downhill run when I saw in the distance an inflatable archway that I thought was the finish line and started my own sprint. If I had been able to, I would have kicked myself when I realised that the actual finish line was about 200 meters past the archway but I kept up my sprint until I crossed the line, sweaty but happy.

  According to my stopwatch, I completed the race in 51 min 58 sec but that was a little out on the official statistics. In reality, this is how it turned out:

  • Race time from starters gun - 53m 21s
  • My actual time - 52m 06s at an average pace of 5.47
  • Out of 13,071 race finishers, I was 4,456
  • Out of 5,332 male finishers, I was 2,827
  • Out of 905 40yo - 49yo male finishers, I was 459

  The brother of one of the Push And Power guys also did the same run and he did it in about 37 minutes but he's a healthy 15 year old. I also ran into an ex Push And Power member who did the same distance in his wheelchair in a little over 47 minutes.

  For my efforts, I got a nice medallion and a downloadable certificate of achievement and, if I am feeling narcissistic enough, I can buy photos and video of myself finishing the race - I am thinking that I might be a tiny little bit of a narcissist.

  All in all, I had a great time and, now that I know that I could do it, it was good practice for next years City To Surf event. Of course, my legs and ankles are a bit stiff and sore but I expect that all to be done with by the time I get to my gym classes on Wednesday.

  Later days.

  Trivial fact number 201:- The Great Pyramid of Giza consists of 2,300,000 blocks each weighing 2.5 tons - imagine paying a brickie to lay them nowdays.

  • 6:09 am
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