Run Auckland Race 5 Western Springs

The weather forecast for today was for thunderstorms and lightning.  I’m pleased to announce that they were wrong.  As usual!  Instead it rained and it was one of those days that when it rains it pours!

My darling daughter was rather unsettled last night so I was awake, off and on, from about 2am onwards.  Every time I woke up it seemed like the rain had gotten heavier so I was feeling a bit nervous about the race itself.  However, I’ve been looking forward to this race for a while as it’s my last 5K (I’m switching to 10Ks) for a while and have been training quite hard for it.  So when the time to get up and get dressed came around I was up and at ‘em!

The weather didn’t seem too bad at first when I was driving to the event.  Having said that, about 2 km away from Western Springs the heavens opened and I had to slow right down on the motorway as I couldn’t really see the road ahead.  At this point I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to turn around and go home.  That cannot happen I said to myself and pushed on.

I got there a little bit too early (as usual) and so sat in my car reading my book for a while.  My mate Richard and his flatmate had sent me a text message saying that only crazy people would be running in this weather so he was still at home in bed.  About 30 minutes before the event was due to start I went out looking for Marshmallow who had picked this event to do her first 5K in.  Truth be told I was wondering if she would turn up but I was fairly convinced that she would as she is a nut.  Well she was there and all psyched up and good to go.

We had a bit of a chat and a chuckle at the nuttiness of everybody and wondered if we would be allowed to run with umbrellas.

The race organisers decided that because it was so wet we would all start together.  Normally the 5kers start 5 to 10 minutes behind the 10kers so that we don’t get in their way.  The crowd was significantly smaller today so that was never going to be a problem.

The race itself was great.  I felt really good right from the get go.  There was a reasonably long hill climb right in the beginning and I overtook a lot of people on that.  I think all my hill training has paid off.  What goes up must go down and there was a very steep downhill about 3 km in to the race and I think I went a lot slower on the downhill than I did going uphill as the road was very slippery and there were rivulets of water making the footing rather treacherous.

There was a shortish sharp climb after the sharp descent and once more I passed heaps of people going up the hill.  I didn’t have any inclination to walk and just kept powering up it.  Unfortunately my shoelace came undone and I lost a bit of time trying to redo it.  My fingers were too cold and it too me a good twenty seconds to actually tie them.

I’d been using a fastish looking girl as my pace bunny and had decided to pass her going up that second hill but she repassed me while I was fumbling with my laces.

So in the last kilometer I made it my task to chase her down again.   I got to within 5 meters of her with about 100 meters to go and decided I had to pass her so I did my first sprint finish of the series.  I was amazed how much gas I actually had at the end and I finished quite a bit ahead of her so that was a nice mini victory.

My final time was 27:27 which is nowhere close to a PR but it was a very satisfying run nonetheless.  I felt like a winner just getting out on the course today!

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