Jellyfish and rain

A good weekend of family, a swim and a race.

Took my girls to swim school on Saturday morning. Only one actually swims, she is 4 and the other is still a little young at 20 months, so she just watches proceedings. We than went to cafe for morning tea and then to a market for some shopping. It was a nice morning with them.

After that is when I got some training in, an OWS at Horseshoe Bay. I decided against a ride as the weather forecast was for high winds but in hindsight a ride would have been OK as the winds didn't spring up to around lunchtime. I had planned on 4 swims across the bay and a beach run back to the start but after the 3rd jellyfish sting I decided to get out after having done 3 crossings. It was still an OK workout and at least my legs weren't going to be fatigued.

Sunday was an early start to get into Adelaide for the first of a series of runs in town, the Jogger's World Fun Run Series. I have entered in the 8k event and my aim is to get under 32 mins for the 8kms. It was raining when I left home and an hour later in Adelaide it was still raining and did not stop for the duration of the event. I was glad I got there early as there was a problem with the online entries and most people had to reenter. I was lucky enough that mine had gone through OK. I had a receipt anyway but did not have to wait in line in the rain like so many others.

Rymill Park was the location and it is a nice park right on the edge of the CBD. It was a mix of track and asphalt running surfaces. Because of the steady rain the track was quite slippery and muddy in some spots but overall a good course, slightly undulating but mainly flat. I did a slow lap of the 2km course as a warm up and familiarisation exercise.

My race, the 8km, was the second last to go; the races were started in waves divided into age groups, gender and distance. The female 8km started last. I started right at the front of wave, not with any intention of starting fast, I just got there when the call to line up came and it took a while for the other guys to gather. I might have led for about 1/10th of a second as the horn went but some guys just went for it. I really want to learn to pace myself so set off at a pace that I thought I could sustain for the entire race. I settled in with two other guys, one wearing an Adelaide Harriers tshirt, so a real runner, and a guy wearing Lakers Tri Club shorts. We pretty much stayed together for the first two laps, passing people from previous waves and a couple of the bull at a gate starters from our wave. A couple of fast 4km event runners passed us but we pretty much held our position for the whole race.

At the halfway mark Harrier man pulled away a little and the race caller mentioned our split at 16.10. It was faster than I thought but I had not looked at my HR or time once so far and when I did I was shocked. HR was at 175, pretty much red line for me and I still had two laps to go. I decided I had to slow a little to be able to keep a half decent pace and to try and finish strong. Laker man passed me and my competitive streak got the better of me and I tried to stay with him. He didn't get away from me but I couldn't overtake him. The third lap was definitely my slowest, around 8.45, but I finished strong doing the last lap in around 8.10. All up I finished in 33.17, faster than I thought I could do and a good motivator to train towards a sub 32min by the last race in early September. Laker dude was not far in front and no matter how hard I tried to accelerate in the final 200m he maintained his slight lead over me.

I am still waiting for results on the web (how hard is it? Unless they have had a meltdown and lost all of the results) so have no idea of age classifications. I had to leave before the presentations as I had a family lunch to get to. Mum is off to the UK for 5 weeks and we had a last supper. Finally up, my time 33.05.

It really felt as though my cardiovascular system was the limiter as my legs felt good and do not feel at all sore the day after. I will just keep putting the kms in and building a good base of fitness over the next couple of months. Some strength and speed work thrown into the training regime will probably help.