Sunday the 30 March 2008 will go down as the day Gav, Stu and Paul ran for the kids. 12 weeks of intense training and it had all come down to this. A 14.14km race around the city and over a bridge with 27,495 other people.
We got in early to get into the spirit and get our minds on the big task ahead as none of us had run this distance during our 12 week lead up. (we were too slack during the 2 weeks that we were told to run 15k) Our pre race photo shows our high level of concentration.
All pumped up Paul left us to move into the Yellow (I think I am a faster runner than you) zone. With just me and Gav remaining in the red zone we moved into a Zen like state as others around us did some stretches.
So then it was on the race had started it was a crazy start as you were just trying to avoid the people who were less interested in a fast time and more content with just finishing. 5k into the race and me and Gav were looking the goods when all of a sudden Paul comes running past with a very confused look on his face wondering how we managed to get a lead on him for the first 5k when he was supposed to start ahead of us?
As we could see Paul running off into the distance we powered on and all of a sudden we had hit the half way mark just as we got to the top of the bolte bridge. The second half was hard but not as bad as we had expected and we managed to keep up the good speeds that we had been doing.
With only 1k to go we passed our official photo lady and showed that we still somehow had some energy and managed to have this photo taken as we ran passed.
The final part was great as you had people watching and cheering you on so I put myself into top gear and had my own little sprint home against myself and when I got over the line put my hands in the air like I had actually won the race. Well needless to say we were all very happy, me and Gav did it in a great time of 1 hour and 28min with Paul doing it in around 1 hour 15 a better time then us and well deserved. It was a great day and I recommend it to anyone who needs some motivation to get out and do some activity.
Above is our after race photo, we do look ok however if you really want to see the pain Paul was in check out Gav’s Flickr to see a nice pic of Paul’s foot.
Well that is it we have done it for the kids and we will now sit back and wait for a thank you.
Good job guys! It looks like you had a lot of fun despite all the hard work and pain. That picture of Paul’s blister on flikr looks nasty.
Pic 1: Paul, are you asian or is it just really early in the morning?
Pic 2: Cold or just excited?
Pic 4: Great photo!
Well done lads!
Nice post there Stu, good effort.
Trendy, pic 1 was taken at some ungodly hour on a sunday morning that i didn’t know existed. Looks weird, hey? Ha! Shit.
I’m still waiting for my fuckin’ thank you.