10 km QRWC Club Championships Open/Masters

Usually this race is run in a very different fashion.....up until today it has had the following rule :- Trophies will be awarded to the first three placings in each age group (male & female) and medals in the Masters age group. For Masters athletes please note that the first three finishers in Open races will be the Open placegetters and the next three Masters Age competitors to finish after that will be eligible for Masters medals.

So the Masters Womens Record was always going to be out of my reach.  I had made it a secret goal of mine to try hard to gain a club or state record for masters in this winter season.  So today when we arrived to race and discovered that it was only Denise and myself racing in the Masters and were also the only ones that could also enter the Open ... I decided to question the above rule as it just made no sense to me.  To my surprise they decided that we could choose which grade we wanted at the end of the race.

We all lined up and the race got underway.  By the 2km mark my right piroformus was causing me alot of pain.  I had sadly pulled this again last week due to poor form during the last race and still being sick this week I have had little training.  I kept at it and had already decided that if it was hurting too much by 5km that I would pull out.  I noticed that my times were remaining steady...and my glute was not getting worse.

I hit the 5km mark in 28:32 ... so I knew if I could keep going at this pace I was on for a good time....perhaps a sub 58:00  

My breathing got a little messed up today and I found I was shallow breathing....while I was keeping my shoulders low and my stride nice and long, my breathing was holding me back.  One of the older walkers John mentioned this me as I passed him and he reminded me to slow and control my breathing...get some deep breaths in.  This helped immensely, and I did concentrate on this for the last 3 km.  I did how ever get myself in a mental state by miscalculating my laps.  I set up my watch quickly today and decided to use the Lap Time, Lap Pace and Lap Distance....but I didnt realise that I should have had total laps in their too.... for some reason at 7km I thought I only had 2 laps to go and so decided to try and push then....so got all in a fuddle when I was told I had two more to go when I thought I only had one.  Such a simple thing...but it can really throw you.

I crossed the finish line in 57:22 ( meaning my second 5km was 28:50 so not that much slower than my first 5km) 

Once Denise had crossed the line....they asked us to have a think about what grade we wanted.  Well that was a pretty quick and simple desion................Give the Open QLD Champ trophy to Denise and I will take the Masters 10km medal and the Masters record which was 59:55 ... so a win win all round. 

10km club champs Kallinga Park