Race for Life 2006
Well, it's over. This year, the Race for Life was moved from the flat course at Willen lake to the very hilly course full of bottlenecks at Campbell Park. This was the toughest of these I have ever done and my time showed that fact. The pictures show me about to cross the line and a few minutes later.
Having started far back in the field (mistake #1), it took me several minutes to cross the start line when I could at last start running. Then 100m from the start line, we hit our first bottleneck and had to slow down to a walk. Having passed that point, we started on a steep downhill... on a gravel path. The path remained narrow throughout and there were several more occasions when we had to slow down due to congestion. Towards the end there was the flip side of our steep downhill at the start, as we made our way back up to the helipad. It was the most gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky, and the chosen route was very scenic. However, I think if they're going to stick with this route next year, they're going to have to have more races with smaller numbers of entrants in each. There were occasions today when it was positively dangerous, particularly for inexperienced runners.
I finally managed to cross the finish line in 35:19 minutes. Not good. My time last year was 29:31 and I was hoping to equal that. Some of the people who sponsored me did so on a tiered basis - x amount for finishing y amount for finishing in under 30 minutes. Rats. Ah well, I did my bit and I'm aching in all sorts of unexpected places (now, now, none of that - I mean the arch of my right foot, and the ball of my left foot, for example).
Having started far back in the field (mistake #1), it took me several minutes to cross the start line when I could at last start running. Then 100m from the start line, we hit our first bottleneck and had to slow down to a walk. Having passed that point, we started on a steep downhill... on a gravel path. The path remained narrow throughout and there were several more occasions when we had to slow down due to congestion. Towards the end there was the flip side of our steep downhill at the start, as we made our way back up to the helipad. It was the most gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky, and the chosen route was very scenic. However, I think if they're going to stick with this route next year, they're going to have to have more races with smaller numbers of entrants in each. There were occasions today when it was positively dangerous, particularly for inexperienced runners.
I finally managed to cross the finish line in 35:19 minutes. Not good. My time last year was 29:31 and I was hoping to equal that. Some of the people who sponsored me did so on a tiered basis - x amount for finishing y amount for finishing in under 30 minutes. Rats. Ah well, I did my bit and I'm aching in all sorts of unexpected places (now, now, none of that - I mean the arch of my right foot, and the ball of my left foot, for example).
posted by karynr at 3:52 pm
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