Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Regent's Park 10km race

Yay! Just ran my first properly timed 10k race this Saturday and I'm well pleased with the results! After having a fairly bumpy ride this year with injuries and a bit of illness topped off with 3 weeks of no running at all due to sciatica I managed to pull a sub 50 min result out of the hat! :D

I'm going to hit that 45 min mark this year!

Race report: Regent's Park 10k Summer Series

I made sure I got an early night the night before, and that I had plenty of carbs and all the good, healthy stuff the night before (including a bit of ice cream to make sure I was comfortable, hehe). It was drizzling outside as I had my bran flakes / banana breakfast, and I wasn't sure my chosen outfit of a t-shirt was really a good idea.. I decided to go with it and left the house, only to get fairly wet by the rain on my way to the bus stop.. was this going to work out?!

I arrived at Regent's Park at 8.45, 15 mins to go till the start - hurry up! Power walked to the Hub, got changed, left my bag, power walked to the start.. It's still drizzling heavily.. Off goes the start! Oh no, my ipod's not on, fumbling with it.. man! I'm running too fast.. Get caught up by the moment - all these people running faster than me! After 1.5k I settle into a stable pace, although still faster than normal.. This is going fine, the drizzle's ok too. There's a woman running around my pace, I'll stick to her.. First lap of three in 16.30, this is fine.. Lap two was nice and easy, still a bit wet, but nothing much to worry about, I keep my pace. There's people taking photos - this is fun! I like racing! The last lap is here - I feel my legs getting a bit tired, but halfway through I can see the end - and decide to up my pace a bit to see how many people I can pass. I pass a guy with a t-shirt saying "Only a fool believes there's no God - don't be silly" thinking well, agnostics apparently run faster, I'll take the sillyness any day... The last two corners - I'm running faster - I'm going to catch this guy - no, he sees me, looks and takes off - he's gone like an antilope that's being chased. The last stretch - I push myself, gotta beat that girl, check - beat that one, check! Finish! Ahh.... this was fun!

Walk to the Hub again, grab a banana and some water and think to myself that I really need to race more.

Just went over the final results, and saw that I came better than 25 out of 228 on the women's side and better than 140 out of the 443 total - wow! That rocks!

4 comments:

nurulazreenazlan said...

That's really great you crazy sportswoman! Hehe!

mlj said...

Thanks :.D I'm really pleased!

moif said...

Excellent news! Well done!!

\o/

mlj said...

Thanks moif - it was a blast! Can't wait to run another!