Brisbane Road Runners - 15Km Race

It seemed the whole of Queensland had decided to give this race a miss - bar a handful of diehards.

Todays race clashed with the Jetty 2 Jetty 10km run which is the 2nd in the series of USM Events (1st being River Run 10km and 3rd being Noosa Half) so most runners were out there no doubt contesting their placings.

That left Tesso, Shane, Jo, Adrian and Karisma to battle out this one for ourselves.

Tesso and I had a plan *groan* to go out at 4:45 min/km and then in the final 5km drop it down to 4:40 min/km to mimic trying to get faster on tired legs like you want to do in a 'real' race.
So out we shot with about 30 other runners and hit the first km in 4:28...hee hee hee did I mention that Tesso and I very rarely run to plan. Not sure what that is about.
We settled down and did 4:42 for the next km. Then Tess screamed at me (yes we both had Ipods on) that her leg was doing something weird (apart from running) and she was pulling back. Well I won't fall for that the next time round!! :) Needless to say Tesso overtook me 5km later looking like she had just started running!!!

So believing Tesso was running a slower than planned race I pulled in front and focussed on a steady pace. The next 3km were 4:39's followed by a 4:52 (WTF??) where I was overtaken by a number of runners - I hadn't even realised I had slowed so much.

At the 8km mark I moved back in front of Jo Sherman and tried to maintain that position running 4:27 before slipping out to finish 14km with some 4:30's. Just before the last km mark I stopped and watched as Tesso and some guys I had worked to overtake just flew past. I was waiting to run Jo in who is making a comeback to running. She is very fast and it must have been tough mentally for her that I went past her earlier.
I know I felt shocking when that happened to me so I assume she was working very hard and not feeling like she was getting any benefit. The other issue was in the second lap of the race I had taken my shirt off and accidently ripped my garmin off my arm and had to find my pin that holds it together. So before long Jo came cruising up and I asked if I could run in with her. We did and it was very rewarding for me knowing that she had done the same for me 12months ago.

Then Tess and I finished with a 2km cooldown the same as our 2km warm up. So all up 19km for the day and I felt great. It was only a training run for Tess and I who wanted to be fit for speed work on Tuesday. But nonetheless we both worked hard and Tess got Third prize for her fabulous efforts.

Unfortunately we had a BRRC committee meeting straight afterwards and I frooze and went stiff sitting around in my wet running gear. But now that I have showered, eaten and coffe'd myself up I feel much better......perhaps time for a nanny nap?