Race 4 – Colour Run Moonee Valley

1902875_371046903036129_1975517025_n 1514238_371046916369461_1075510985_n

Well today was the day of my 4th race of the year and a bit of a first for me. A colour run. These seem strangely popular in Australia at the moment, I’m not entirely sure why. I guess its a bit of a fad, but one I’m happy to take part in at least once in my life. For those of you that aren’t aware what a colour run is, its where you do a normal fun run but at some stage in the precedings people throw coloured powder at you, so by the time you finish, your white running shirt is all multi coloured. As well as your legs and face.

Today’s race was at Aberfeldie Park and was run by Moonee Valley city council. A localish run without the scale of the larger runs I’d been doing lately. The organisation was certainly not as slick as the bigger events. I realised this when I went to pick my number up and found out, the numbers were spread all over the table not in any order. The race was in fact delayed because of the amount of people who had still not got their number at race start time. Added to that a water station wasn’t set up on the first lap and then at the second water station, the attendant stepped in front of me as I reached for a cup this certainly wasn’t what I’ve been used to. But I’ve been spoilt.

I found today’s run quite hard I must admit. The first two kilometres as I was running, I thought I sounded like all those guys I pass and think, you shouldn’t be breathing that deeply at this point in the race. I know my mind plays tricks and at about the 3 kilometre point I was ready to pack it all in. Or was I? I have a 100% record of never stopping in any race I’ve ever entered so if you look at it practically its very hard to believe I would have stopped today as well. After the first lap of the 10k race, I started to feel a bit more comfortable and in my head. I always count the kilometres to go, knowing I’ll get to 3km out and think this is nothing.

Even today my thoughts turn back to marathon where 8 kilometres out they turned away from the finish line back out of Melbourne, and I think if I managed those last 8 kilometres running on complete empty with my mind screaming at me to stop, I could manage a 10k run where I felt slightly out of breath. I have though been carrying a virus this week I reckon. Its hard to tell nowadays since I started running regularly, I rarely suffer colds in the normal sense of sneezing and coughs, its more subtle hints I get like a gland swelling up a feeling of fatigue, both of which I’ve encountered in the week just gone.

The race today was mainly along the Maribyrnong river, however at the end it winded you up a pretty steepish hill and then back down again. My heart sunk as I ran back onto the athletics track at Aberfeldie Park only to see the marshall signalling me up a hill behind the track. It was certainly a test and I was ultra conscious as I went up the hill that I was beginning to flag and the woman behind me was starting to catch me.

However the last kilometre of any race is more mind over body, and you’d be surprised what you can push your body to do once you know the finish line is in sight. I managed to push up the hill, and as I turned round to come back down I saw the chaser was probably 100 metres behind, so on the downhill I pulled out the stops a bit to put a decent distance between us when I entered the track and pushed on towards the line.

Having thought that was a particularly bad run for me, I actually found out I’d completed the 10k in 44:29 which is a pretty decent time. I’d have been happy with anything under 50 minutes so was pretty elated with that. My thinking around the first few kilometres was I went off too fast and once I’d found my pace, I actually started to feel more comfortable.

A bonus as well,my first race this year, I finished 7th. I can’t really crow about it too much there were only 35 runners in the event.

16/03/2014

1972427_371046933036126_972049325_n 1796594_371016129705873_882059634_n

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *