Hardcore!!!

Last week was an easy week for us.  That meant that I ran 8km   with the running group on Wednesday night, and that was it until Sunday.  I was going to go for a run at Friday lunch time, but instead I did a bit of a stair workout (well that is a bit of a stretch, I actually went up the stairs at work from level 20-30 selling raffle tickets). 

Sunday was a step back… meaning we only had to run a half marathon.  And it lined up nicely with the VRR Princess Park Half.  This run was really good for us – it wasn’t too far to travel, it started at 8am and only cost $20, compared to the Sandy Point Half which started at 7am, cost $70 and was way on the other side of the city.

Saturday night I started to get worried when I saw the weather forecast… 60km/hr wind with gusts up to 110km/hr.

The thing that kept me going was the thought that:
a) everybody will be running in the same conditions;
b) even if we weren’t running the race, we would still be running, and would still get the wind; and
c) it is good training in case the marathon day is windy!

The first part of the race was good, no wind to slow us down… but as soon as we turned the corner we got hit with that strong wind.  We kept pace with a really nice old man named Phil who let us draft behind him.  He had a bright fluoro yellow top on, so he was easy to spot when he got away from us at the first drink stop… but we made sure to catch up with him in time to draft behind him again on the 2nd big lap.

On the third lap, right when we were running into the wind… when we thought it couldn’t get any worse… it started raining!

We couldn’t see where we were going! The rain was really sharp too, it almost felt like hail!  And it made my sunscreen run into my eyes.  We actually stopped for a little bit during the rain for a stretch, because it was just ridiculous!  I just had to laugh and wonder what else could happen!  Hail? Snow?

The rain stopped for our final lap and we caught up to Phil again.  We passed the finish line with a time of 2:04:34.  We were really happy with that, considering the conditions, and the fact that we were just using this as a training run. 

Phil came up after the race and thanked us for keeping him going… funny, coz he is what kept us going strong!

Next week is a big milestone… we break the 30km mark!