Race Report: Lindfield 10km
I'm not sure what manner of sadist was responsible for labelling this race a "fun run", for that it certainly was not. Two tough hills each run twice made this one of the hardest 10km runs I can ever remember running. And now (the following morning) my screaming quads and nervous anticipation anytime I approach a set of stairs give away my lack of hill training.... but, for all that it was a fantastic race that I ran really well.
Race day was the first day out of daylight saving for us down here, so we all got an extra hours sleep which was nice. The only disadvantage was that the late start time of 8:15 meant it was already quite warm by the time we got underway, and the mist sprays and small kids with water pistols did a brisk trade in cooling us all down along the course.
Nearly 700 runners lined up for the 10km event, a good 200 of them wearing bright orange cancer funding charity vests which was nice to see. The race wound its way through the leafy streets of affluent Roseville and Lindfield, with patient BMW and Mercedes drivers waiting good-naturedly at the many road closures along the course.
Being an early season race there was a large number of serious club runners looking for a good hit out before the larger races kick off in a few weeks time. I therefore took my usual position at the rear of the starting pack and let the hounds race on ahead. As usual, I took off well within myself and ran a very conservative pace ... or so I thought. According to my trusty Garmin the first kilometre
was indeed reasonably sedate, although this was mainly due to congestion on the narrow streets. The second km was much faster, but after that we hit the undulations and I stopped looking at my watch in order to concentrate on surviving the brutish hills. There were two major climbs - the first steep and twisting, then second less steep but unrelentingly long. And we had to do them both twice.
I'm not sure what time I passed through the half way point but I noticed I hit 6km in under 30 minutes, which given the slowness of the course was very surprising. I had figured on the race taking me somewhere between 70 and 75 minutes, but clearly
if the hills didn't defeat me I was going to come in well under that. Time to knuckle down and see what happened...
It was interesting to see how much gear some people carry with them for a mere 10km event. Water belts, camelbaks, full back packs ... all manner of nasty, heavy, chaffing things. I couldn't figure it out but I suppose people have their reasons. Meantime I was beginning to regret wearing my dark RC colours. Attention grabbing as the big old purple foot is, the basic black is really too warm for such a day as we had for this race. Still, with plenty of drink stations and kids with super-soakers it was OK.
I caught up with one older runner wearing a Six Foot Track Marathon 2011 t-shirt (the Six Foot is a scarey looking mountain marathon here held in March) and had a bit of a chat. As we jogged slowly up the steeper of the hills he said "it's not the race that's hard, it's all that bloody training we have to do" ... rather well put I thought. Anyway he unsurprisingly pulled away at about that point and I didn't see him again.
Somewhere up the fourth and final climb I thought I was going to have to give in and walk to the top, as most of the people around me were doing (and I'm afraid to say were nearly as fast as my running), when the top of the climb came into view and I figured I could hardly cave in there so I perservered and pretty soon I was regathering some strength and speed for the final slightly downhill kilometre sprint to the finish.
It now looked as though I could break 60 minutes (despite the hills and the heat!) but I was too done in for a real sprint finish so fell in behind a couple of others running a steady pace and let them drag me to the finish, crossing the line in 59:45 ... seemingly very near the back but according to official results I placed 390th of 664 finishers and I am in fact very pleased with that time.
So that was a really worthwhile little test race. I now have six weeks to prepare for the Sydney half marathon. This has a cut-off time at the 11km mark of 75 minutes, but at least now I can be pretty confident of getting through that and then I can cruise on to the finish. It's a pretty flat course so in terms of training I can just concentrate on endurance and speed for a while more before switching my attention to the hills I so desperately need to run before November. If yesterday's 10km race showed me one thing, it's that I've forgotten how bloody tough hills can be - especially on a warm day.
Anyhow to help celebrate this small race/training milestone I had three Scottish friends for company last night ... you might know some of them. They're all from Islay, surely my favourite Scottish island.
April Cools
