It has been a while between drinks and by drinks I mean races and by a while I mean 70 days since I have been in any sort of competition with my last event being the Noosa Winter Festival Ocean Swim & Half-Marathon. It is safe to say that my competitive spirit has been pushing hard to escape from the day to day training routine, especially when I've had to sit back and watch some truly outstanding results from my training partners in recent weeks! Without going into too much detail Ryan Fisher has been producing some outstanding results over in Europe and I can't wait to get into a solid block of training with him when he returns home this week and also Luke Farrell, Emily Bevan and Holly Grice have just returning from Japan where Luke produced a solid 14th and both Emily and Holly blew everyone away with a 5th and 7th place respectively. To put this into perspective not only was it Holly's first ever Olympic distance race and Emily's second, it was also their first big international event and with the little running Emily has been able to do she still clocked an impressive 38:39! Inspiring results would be an understatement but I won't go giving you too many more details but if you do want to read about that trip be sure to check out Holly's write-up!
These results have left my dying to get out there myself and yesterday I got the chance to do so at the Redcliffe Jetty 2 Jetty Half-marathon. This event has fond memories for me as I managed to get the win at last year's event. And with all of my training now focusing on the longer distance aspect of triathlon in preparation for my next race which will be the Ironman Yeppoon 70.3 I was really excited to see what I could do and how it would compare.
I took a lot of confidence into this race with the knowledge I gained of the course from last year and also all of my times from training indicating that I could infact better my time from last year. However there is always an element of unknown in any competition and even more so when the race is of any significant distance and in my opinion 21.1km is a significant distance!
As the starting gun went off I went straight to the front but also tried to control myself knowing that the race is never won in the opening 200m uphill stretch. I was trying as hard as I could to listen out for any footsteps around me to see if anyone had come with me but not able to hear anything and not wanting to let the rest of the field know I really wanted to see what the situation was I kept pushing on in as controlled a manor as I could. I was counting off the km's to the far end of the course making sure to stay on top of my fluid and nutrition intake because from last year's experience I knew the hardest part of the course was out and around the jetty into a solid headwind just after the half way turn around. It was at the turn around that I got a good look at where everyone else was and after having a number of spectators cheering me on and saying I had a good lead, the second place runner was a lot closer than I would have liked. Similar to last year I made a distinct effort to increase my pace around the jetty to try and increase this lead. As tough as the next 9km were with the wind picking up as the minutes ticked away it was made a little bit easier with all of the fantastic support out there on the course from not only all of the volunteers and spectators but also all of the other half-marathon and 10km runners that were out on course at the same time. I crossed the finish line in first place in a time of 1:12:52 which was a little bit slower that what I was hoping for but still quicker than last year and with the tough conditions out there I can't complain and walk away very happy.
It does mean that neither myself or any of the girls at Revive Ashgrove won our little bet on what time I would run, me predicting 1:11:00 and them predicting 1:10:00 but it's safe to say that the time could have been a lot different if I didn't have the expertise of such a great team of physios and pilates instructors behind me.
And while I'm not so subtly dropping a few sponsors and supporters names I have to mention Compressport. While it may not seem like such a big deal this is the first time I have walked away from a half-marathon without a single blister on my foot! I won't go into detail about how bad my feet have looked but for anyone out there that has any trouble with blisters I highly recommend giving their socks a try, they are amazing!
And finally, the DAT Racing team; while we may have had a small contingent in the race today the results speak for themselves. Robbie Mullins and Tom Ryan backed up from their leisurely run at the Gold Coast Half-Marathon to record a 1:21:05 and 1:22:37 respectively to finish second and third in their categories and both inside the top 10. Geoff Lemmon also improved on his performance from last year to not only go quicker but to also win his age category and Jamie Hanelt finished off the all male half-marathon contingent or MOD Squad to finish spot on his pre-race predicted time.
In the 10km event Sarah 'dibble' Deuble finished a solid 2nd place behind one of Australia's most well known distance runners and Brayden Tucker cruised what looked to be an easy 10km but upon discussion that smile may have been hiding a world of hurt on the little training he has been doing lately and Brendan Abdy was pushed all the wa to the finish by his wife to record a PB.
In the 5km event we were only represented by Sophie Malowiecki but when she can run a course record 18:23 to blitz the girls field and finish 4th overall what else do we need!
Their support is always greatly appreciated as was the support of Dan, Emily and Holly who while they may not have been competing were still out their riding the course supporting not only me but the entire DAT squad and it was great to swap a few stories with everyone following the event.
Now that I've let that competitive spirit out for a day it is straight back to the day to day training routine for another 35 days in the lead up to Ironman Yeppoon 70.3 :)
