71:37 B2B

Beautiful, perfect crisp blue sky running day today. The sun was shining, there wasn't a cloud in sight and everything had that golden sheen on it as the sun came up. I love the way that sunrises have two very distinct colours - the liquid silver of first light on water, then a honey gold as the sun comes up over the landscape.

Woke up at 4.15am and forced myself out of bed, got dressed and headed to the shuttle bus pick up point at the RBH. Hopped onto the bus and scored one of the last seats. Was greatly amused to hear the couple standing in the aisle beside me start complaining mightily to each other about the pool the husband worked at, oblivious to the fact that the woman sitting infront of me was actually wearing a shirt with the pool name emblazoned across the back, who on hearing the conversation, turned around and stared very pointedly at the two of them. They still didn't see her and progressed to poking fun at other staff members. The look on the woman's face was classic and I think the guy will have an interesting day at work tomorrow!

Arrived at the start line and had to jog through thousands of people to get my bad in the luggage truck before it left. Thankfully, opting for the sub 70 category paid off because there weren't quite as many people to squeeze past and I started seeing a few familiar faces - luckily I managed to squish through right next to where Sam was lined up which was good because we were running together!

Before long we were off and I was amazed at the view from the top of the gateway bridge - it's so high up and when you drive over it, you just don't get to spend any time looking out at the scenery. It was gorgeous. The 1.1km incline seemed to pass by quite quickly and looked a whole lot scarier to run than it actually was. I know I'm going to take complete satisfaction in driving past it from now on and thinking about having run over it - it looks so huge!

Soon enough we were on the downwards side and off to the relative flatness of the rest of the race. Which is where things started to get interesting for me. I got to about the 5km mark and found myself having to walk for 30 seconds. Then, off we went again and then the same thing happened. I can't work out if it's the fact I'm not doing long runs on a wednesday night at the moment, having had a couple of weeks off with my foot or if it was just purely psychological because a month ago I did 14k at the West End without really stopping. Poor old Sam was very patient with me and I felt bad about the stop-starting. I felt really frustrated, then I got a stitch through my shoulder which I know is a result of running with tense shoulders but was trying to relax them. Once we got to about 7km, I started to get into a bit more of a rhythym and didn't need to stop as much but I felt about three times as tired as I did after running the Gold Coast Half. I started thinking about what Noosa is going to be like if I'm struggling with 12km now and then (sooky girl that I am!) I nearly started crying. Or at least, I would've if I'd had enough oxygen to spare. *L*

My foot held up well, although I started getting a mild cramp along the underneath of my toes in the second half of the run. All will be revealed tomorrow morning I suspect, as to whether my PF really is fixed or not. I have that follow up with the Podiatrist tomorrow as well! *guilty look* so I could well get sprung for running against advice!

Anyway, I really thought I'd just trashed my whole run with the stop starting this morning, but we came in at 1:11:37, only 1:37 over the cut off for the category that I was aiming for. So now I have to wait and see if the chip time might just push me into 70:something. I ran the 14km a month ago at 5:51 pace, and I did the 12km this morning works out as 5:58 pace. The thing I'm still trying to work out though is that I didn't really walk during the 14km. So does that mean my pace this morning (sans walking parts) might actually have generally been quicker and that's why it felt harder?

As we crossed the finish line, I had a brief moment of dizziness and then I thought I might throw up but somehow managed not to ;) Had the usual scuffle for water and sample bags. Caught up with a few people post-race and chatted. Great to see everyone and although I don't know what'll happen at Noosa, I think the only thing I can do is just aim to do it in however long it takes me and just enjoy it. If I'm doing an average of 5:something pace (which is quite good for me) then perhaps whether I have to take occasional walk breaks is irrelevant. I know it probably doesnt make me a 'proper' runner but at the same time, it's my overall times I'm looking at.

I guess my goal for the next few weeks is to sort out a better training schedule for myself and really stick to it. Number one priority I think is to find a long run to do. Sam was saying the running buddies hardly stop, so I might check out the wednesday morning run with InTraining first... I think that the pressure of knowing people are waiting for me to catch up is probably a bad thing for me at the moment. I also think that I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself at the moment - it's so dangerous to compare myself to the other runners I know, but I have to try and remember they've been running for years and I've been running for months. I've got years to improve and hopefully improve my times.

Anyway, bit of a mammoth race report, so I'll finish it here. It was a nice day though and it was lovely to be out running again!