I flew to Canberra on Saturday night. It was freezing when I landed and I really had come away unprepared for the cold. Annette, Lucy and David came and collected me from the airport. We get back to the house and gathered everyone together (Jim and Liz) and headed out for dinner. It was so nice to meet Sarah and Cassie and in the racewalk family style.....we all got talking shop!
The alarm goes off at 6am and I gingerly step my feet out of my nice warm bed. BRRRRR its really cold! 0 degs - with nervous chatter we all go about our routines in getting ready for a race and head to the race start. When we arrived the first thing I spotted was the group of Kangaroo's that were all just casually lounging under the trees watching us with amusement.
This is a huge meet with many age grades and distances. The most prominent event was the 20 and 10 mile. These two races started at 8am. It was a great feeling lining up on the start line beside Olympian Jared Tallent and top Australian walkers like Chris, Tanya, Bek and lauren. Not very often I get the chance to even see them walk let alone say I walked with them (even if only a couple of steps)
Look at all those walkers! It took a full 500m for us to pull away and settle to our own spots. I settled into a pace I felt happy with. Sarah came up along side me and walked with me for about 1km but then she slowly pulled away and I slowed to my pace that I would hold at for most of the race. While I am relatively fit, 16km is a big ask when you have only been doing 8km and the odd 10km. I was starting to really feel the ups and downs on the course and it was only 5km. My back was pulling and just not freeing up at all. I had expected that and just figured to hang in there and keep one foot infront of the other.
I was pleased to see my form was not as bad as I felt I looked.......I was just lacking power! My main goal in coming down to this event was to finish and to finish under 1:40 ........ for a while there I was looking at a good 1:38 but the last 3km were to be the undoing of me. I had taken a gel at 8km but no water to help wash it down as I had no idea where the drink stations were and twice I nearly went the wrong way. At 12km I suddenly felt very sick...I really thought I was going to throw and started dry retching as I was walking. My stomach went into knots and I got a hit of gastro distress. This was not good. My pace dropped dramatically and where I was on target for a 1:38 - I was now looking like I was not going to hit my goal either. About 800m from the finish we had to walk 300m over grass..........this part was AWFUL, its was long, lumpy and full of pot holes. It was the toughest part of the whole race!!!
You have NO idea how good this felt. I was amazed my body had held together. My finish time was 1:39:46 ...... I just scrapped under my goal by the skin of my teeth.
It was great to watch all the other races and cheer on the qld walkers. It was a great weekend all round. That night we went out to the presentations where I got a Silver and Liz got a Bronze. I must say I was surprised at how well my body felt after the race (and the following day too)
16km data
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