It’s Getting Close Now

Equaliser Trail Race 

Taper Week 2: Sunday February 27, 2011

This race always signals the beginning of Six Foot Training taper and increasing nervousness about the fast approaching race day. I was not going to run this event as I was scheduled to run 2hrs easy. But since Hammer was running it I thought I would do about 20 minutes before and then just set out with the race and take it easy around the track. The plan sort of worked out. Ran a 15 minute warm up and then as the race started, set off at a leisurely chatty pace with the back of the pack runners. About 3ks into the run I found that I was increasing the pace and as we got to the hill climb out to Acron Oval I started overtaking a few people and then I decided that maybe I should try to go a bit harder.  So maybe race after all? Well that lasted till we ducked back onto the trail at about 5k where I decided that I was not going to race after all and runners came by me overtaking on the downhill section. At the last creek crossing before the final 2k climb I had lost focus, I just wanted the run to be over. I picked up pace and was soon overtaking the runners that streamed past me on the preceding downhill to the creek.  So now it was race again. Finished in an OK time of 1hr 23min, not sure if I was pleased, relieved or disappointed. In the end it was a mixture of all three and it was only after talking to a friend later in the day that it made sense. He said something like ‘that if you race- you do it to the best of your ability at the time – otherwise what’s the point. I have run sections of this course at least 20 times over the past 3 months and I realise that I had plenty of opportunities for the social training runs and I was disappointed that I did not give it my best shot at race time or else had run my training run elsewhere. Leave the social runs with others for training runs and when you race, you focus on the race. A lesson learnt - have a plan with what you want to achieve with each run and then stick to it.

The second week of the taper I ran a total of 51k including a hill session (15*150m at 80%) and a 2*2k interval session (8.53 & 8.42). The pain in my chest from the broken rib is slowly getting better and the hand is almost fully healed. Saw the most amazing sunrise at Manly Beach on my was to run the intervals through the week. It was so beautiful I wanted to drown in it.