17 May 2008

Gary Donnellan

Corporate Challenge St. Lucia 10KM 1st & 1st 34m15

I should savour the 'thrill' or experience of actually winning a race as the opportunities will surely start to diminish as I get older. That thought was somewhat inspired by Dr Jamie Harrison's quest to Win 300 Open Road Races - The King of the Road. He is currently on about 288. This mornings race started on the track at UQ. They combined the 5K & 10K races. I went straight into the lead and quickly fell into a fair pace. Lofty had wound me up beforehand by telling me about some young gun from Victory Sports competing but there was no sign of any competition from the off (and that included the 5K one lap runners!). I went through the first lap in 17m00. I'm hoping that this is a slow course as though its a flat course it is run on the cinder path beside the river which always causes minor slippage underfoot. Also I had another job trying to find a clear pathway and was constantly have to dodge to one side or other , weaving around the runners coming upstream on this out and back loop lap. Tried to concentrate on staying relaxed running through the legs and not tensing up through the neck. Cruised home in 34m15. I was very pleased to only drop 15 secs on the first lap time. As I said before I appear to have pretty good endurance as I'm sure in youth I'd never have got so close to two even splits.
I would always go out faster than I'd come back.
Though running 34mins makes me wonder have I still got the capacity to run 1 or 2 mins quicker?
The time was quicker than my two previous years, so maybe I am still moving forward!
I won the 10K by over 3mins (and noted that on the first lap I was about 300m in front of the first 5K finisher).
I literally finished the race grabbed a cup of water , found the Queensland Government team manager and asked him to collect my medal and was jumping in the car within 5 mins of finishing to get back home for Max's football match which was a 9;30am kick off.
Got home with plenty to spare and watched Max and the boys (North Lakes Mustangs U8's Blue) play fantastically for a completely unexpected draw against the standout team in the comp - also another North Lakes Mustangs team (3 - 3 ).
It's another Blue Sky hot sunny day today but the forecast is for a cool change to hit tomorrow which will be nice for the Sunshine Coast CC 12K and 3K !!!!!!!!!

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