20km Long Distance Walking Champs & 10km NZ Road Champs

This is the event I have been waiting for. It would be my first time entering plus I get to met back up with my good friend David Smyth from Australia as he has come over for it and is rooming with me at the motel. Along the way we also picked up an extra roomy, with Rosie from Dunedin joining us too. We all arrived into Hastings on Saturday afternoon and spent our first night chatting about all things walking and also the next days event. Lights out by 10pm and it didnt take rosie or david long to be happily sound as sleep........ME on the other had lay there wide away like a wee possum until 2am then I fell asleep for about an hour as I woke at 3am and lay there again till 4ish waking again at the alarm at 6am!!! Peachy I thought....I really needed a good nights sleep and was reluctant to take a sleeping pill the night before.....(hindsight is a great thing I now know what I should have done) So we all got up, dressed quietly...each with our own minds on the days events. Taxi arrived and away we went. Rosie was set on winning the 15km Open Womens, David set on getting his first NZ Road Title and also completing the 20km event and Me on winning my first NZ 10km Road Title and also winning the Masters 20km.

We arrived at the location. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind. It was going to be a hot one!!! Just as we arrived we got to watch the start of the 50km Championship walk - all men today. (cripes I would not want to be doing 50km in this heat) We grabbed our race packs and laced up the transponders. With Athletic NZ putting the Road Champs on as well it meant many more walkers entered so I think we had the largest met of walkers seen in a few years. With a 1km loop course it meant you could always see what was going on and you always had someone just in front or just behind you...It was great!!!

So its 8am and we line up. I had been told to settle into my race pace as quickly as I could so when the gun went off thats pretty much what I tried to do. I let all the quick ones head off early as most of them were also only walking 10km so I didnt want to go at their pace. But it wasnt long before I slowly started picking them off one by one....before long I was leader of the 20km walkers, I had Sue Hoskins hot on my heels with her only being 20mt behind me at the 8km mark. At about 8.5km my knee gave out.....I have no idea of what happened but it felt like something had peiced me behind my knee. It hurt to bend or straighten it, I was guttered. I slowed up my pace a little which helped but that also meant Sue got past me. I struggled through the 9km loop and contimplated pulling out at the 10km but as I came through to cross for the 10km my knee was no longer hurting and I was able to carry on. (again I have no idea what happened and it has done this too me during my training walks of late too) So I saw that Sue was about 40mt ahead of me so I picked up the pace and caught her up but then she also picked up the pace so I sat on her heel for a couple of laps as I didnt feel I had it in me to hold that pace for the next 8km....so I pulled back and let her go again....giving her a 15m lead on me. At around 14km I slowly gained on her again as she had slowed down but rather than go then I chose to sit right on her heel and see what she would do. But over the next 3 km she was slowing down so much that I figured it was time to make a break. I had already worked out that I was off my pace so I was now trying to pick a good time to make the break so that I could hold my pace. I picked 17.5k mark.....I stepped to the right of her and just pushed hard. When I crossed the 18km she was a good 40mt behind me and the gap grew to about 100m or so very quickly. So I tried to push hard and pick up my pace. All I wanted to do was finish in a time faster than any of my training times. So when I crossed the line in 2.05 I was thrilled. It was not my fastest time but it was not my slowest time either. Besides it was sooo hot out there. The heat off the tarmac and between the huge storage sheds was so intense. I have no idea of what the temp was but it felt like a good 30degs.

So I won two golds for those races. But sadly due to an admin error they didnt have the medals for the 40 - 44 age group for the Road Champs, so myself and Katie T didnt recieve a medal (they will be posted to us soon)

I will up load my data from my GPS when I am home but the splits were all wrong, by 3 km mark they were off by 50mt and it just got worse, but I do have my " offical " splits.
1 - 5.55
2 - 6.05
3 - 6.06
4 - 6.05
5 - 6.02
6 - 6.08
7 - 6.09
8 - 6.13
9 - 6.25 (this is the lap my knee went)
10- 6.16
11- 6.16
12- 6.11
13- 6.21
14- 6.27
15- 6.31 (sitting on sues heels)
16- 6.25
17- 6.31
18- 6.23
19- 6.18
20- 6.16

So all in all a great day and a great race!!!!

Today (Monday) I am not feeling too bad but my left knee is very sore, so I do think I have tweaked it a little and will go and get it checked out tomorrow.