Race 6 – Anzac Run Melbourne

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Well race 6 has come and gone, these runs are coming thick and fast at me now and I was thinking maybe all these runs would not be helping my performance overall and in fact it might be nice if I actually aimed for one distance and stuck at it.

This race I kind of threw in at the last moment, a friend told me they were doing it so I thought, I haven’t got a race that weekend and being only 10k I didn’t think it would be too different from a normal training run.

It was a nice run to do, the Anzac Run here in Melbourne around the tan, starting at Cobbers Statue and finishing just behind Sydney Myer Music Bowl. It was a bit of an early start, meaning I had to get up at 6.30 am but I suppose if you went to the dawn service on Anzac Day you’d be getting up a fair bit earlier.

There were as to be expected quite a few servicemen about both, milling around and entered in the run itself. I did quite enjoy the size of the run, I’m used to big fields and with Run for the Kids the week before, a run of just over 300 people seemed a nice acceptable size. The registration point was at the finish line, so to get us to the start line we had a 15 minute walk down to Cobbers Statue on St Kilda road, led by a bagpiper and servicemen. It was nice to do something like that for a change.

Once we got there, there was a speech by the organiser talking about the Anzac spirit, The Ode was read by a solider, and Ted Ballieu the former Victorian premier got us going. The run deviated slightly down St Kilda Road and then onto the familiar tan track.

I do always feel a bit of a problem running on the tan track, that being that I constantly feel that i’m slipping as the gravel comes out underfoot. I much prefer the tan tracks I run (Princes Park and The Tan) if there has been a little rain and the gravel has soaked down a bit. I always think it effects my time as well because I feel when I’m running I run cautiously so I don’t slip over. Saying that, interestingly, I have had some of my fastest time on tan tracks.

The run felt pretty good, and although I felt too many people were going past me in the early stages, I felt like a went past and overtook the people I should have in the final lap and on my second time up Anderson Road, I put a fair distance between myself and the chasing pack. In fact the first time I noticed anyone chasing me was on the 100 metre stretch up to the line. Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me and I saw a white t-shirt out of the corner of my right eye as this guy was starting to overtake me. Lucky I’ve always got a bit left in the tank at this distance and he didn’t realise how big a kick i’ve got in the finally straight. If it was a horse race, i’d have beaten him by a head, but it was a good finish and I savour a bit of competition going into the sprint to the line.

In all I wasn’t sure of my time, I’ve been pretty good lately being able to predict my time to a minute or so and I would have guessed a solid 45 to 47 minutes for this one. However, I was quite surprised when the official result came through that I’d completed it in 43:30 running at a pace of 4.21 min per kilometre so was really happy with that.

Initially the site was telling me I finished 20th but looked again later and was 26th out of 378 competitors.

Good strong run for this part of the year. Geelong half marathon next!

22/04/2014

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