And we're back for the fourth attempt at Run 4 The Kids - with a third different race distance.
My preparation was pretty average as most of my training sessions had been showing no signs of improvement, which had been quite frustrating. That wasn't helped after a visit to the dentist on Friday afternoon - I tried to start eating before the anaesthetic had worn off (three hours later) and did some damage to my lip and gum, so I missed out on Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast...I don't think the race booklet recommends this.
With all that forgotten about it was race day, Dave turned up to my house in the eastern suburbs (not an apartment in the city) and we were off to the train station in the cold - by some coincidence we all had nearly matching black clothes and gray shoes. The train turned up almost on time and we managed to all get a seat, which definitely beats standing for half an hour before a run...the race booklet should recommend this.
We arrived at a crowded Flinders Street with runners coming in from all lines, almost getting killed on the escalators because people were getting on quicker at the bottom than there was room to get off at the top.
Dave was signed up for the later 9:00am start and had to find a friend so we parted ways at the station and went in search of the starting line for the 8:30am group. After some confusion where all the runners moved up to the starting mats a good fifteen minutes too soon I found myself about ten rows from the front - good enough to not get held up too much I figured.
For some reason we had to wait a few minutes after the elite athletes were sent off - which is pretty pointless because we aren't going to catch them - then it was our turn to go. I managed to dodge through the slow idiots, who always line up in the front rows, by the time we reached the tunnel. Jason started closer to the front so I also caught up to him during the downhill tunnel section as well.
Out of the tunnel the road seems to go on forever, some of it uphill as well, and I started to lose time to Jason on the way to the 6km drinks station at the bottom of the Bolte Bridge, but still comfortably under 4:00 per kilometre. My cut lip was stinging a bit, not helped as dehydration increased, but not causing as much annoyance or distraction as I thought.
There wasn't much wind on the bridge this time but I still failed to match last year's time (according to Strava which compares race segments), about ten seconds slower to get up and down the other side. After the bridge I had a good stretch of the race, and managed a few more overtakes as we passed through Docklands and around Etihad Stadium.
Immediately after stopping in at the 11km drink stop I felt some pain in my stomach all of a sudden which was weird. Maybe because of this I really struggled up the Collins Street hill near Southern Cross Station, barely making it to the top. The rest of the run was pretty flat, through Southbank and back on to St. Kilda Road but my best efforts were behind me and I even had a couple of runners come back past me, which was annoying.
The finish line finally came, and I just managed to sneak in under one hour in a time of 59:16 and 116th overall - I was hoping to break in to the top 100 this year. At the finish I found out I had picked up a nose bleed somewhere along the course - which is quite rare and usually only happens when I'm running too hard.
There was some free water, sports drinks and apples at the end - so nothing particularly exciting - and that was the end, a jog back to Richmond just in time for the train and the race was over for another year. Now to do some more hill training before the next one...
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