Running and race directing

The relay on Thursday was great fun, although our team never stood a chance! The ante had obviously been upped for this year with recruiters out in force resulting in a relatively star studded field. I run the first lap and ended up in third about 100m (~4:50 for 1600m) behind Roberto Busi and another who finished a bit ahead of him. We ended up coming fifth I think, the winners being anchored by courtney carter who blew away the guy who started just behind him (Sam McEntee ?) by over 100m! Got a couple of bottles of wine for my troubles.

Friday just did a 6k recovery ; Saturday we started at 6:30 and ran in lovely conditions up in Darlington. We did 27.84km @4:46 HR144 and I had a great time, felt like the long runs of old. I haven't run that far or long since Boston last year and it felt great ; looks like I might be getting the track running out of my system! I don't know what was different this time but Sas had a good run as well ....

That afternoon Kim & I (& Bob F) loaded up and collected the race trailer for the Pt Walter race on Sunday for which Kim & I were co-race directors - later that day we met up with Original Simon to go over the course to check the k markers on the course and to make sure we knew where the water tables would be & how people would get to them. Also checked out the start/finishers area to make sure there was room enough for the racers and that the turnaround worked. It would have been nice to be able to put the k-markers out then and there but apparently they usually get nicked or end up in the river if we do that.....

On Sunday we got to the race at 5:15 to start setting up ; because we couldn't really do anything the night before it makes for a high-pressure period to set things up before the race start @ 7. Fortunately we had a great bunch of quality helpers in Original Simon (who essentially co-directed as well, huge thanks!), Epi, Jo, Sas, Damien, Trish etc. so all things went smoothly.

The racing was good with some high-quality runners in both races, the winning time for the 5 (Ian Thomson being chased home by Mark Lee again) being 16:13 and the 16 was 57:37. Sandgroper had a good run to finish 6th in and excellent 17:57 (and left nothing on the course, embracing the inner wombat, as Ray Boyd would put it!) and Biscuitman and Clown both clocked big PB's but looked like they had a bit up their sleeves too.

Much help with the cleanup as well so we had the trailer back at the club by 10:30 and the results off to the West Australian by 11. Much earlier than expected. Had a long nap in the afternoon !

Monday did a nice 10k in KP @ 4:40 HR140 ; very warm along Mounts Bay road, but the air quality improved and the temperature dropped up the western perimeter path which made things much more pleasant.