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Sunday 15 January 2017

Resolution Run 2017

My first running race.  Well, my first running race since school where they were mandatory and I did everything I could to get out of it.  Some things change - I was here voluntarily and was annoyingly perky with it - and some things don't - scrabbling around for safety pins.

This seemed a great way to start the year - a nice flat 6km run in Rother Valley Country Park and the promise of cake or fruit (cake, obviously) at the finish line.  Kelly was off on the long course, 12km up the sides of the hills around the park, whereas Liz and I were on the loop around the lakes - or so we thought.


Come the start of the race I set off ar too fast as I still hadn't learnt the art of pacing, running at sub 5:00/km, looked back to see where Liz was as my plan had been to run with her, when we see a sign pointing right.  Straight up a slippery muddy bank I passed people who were basically going backwards as they were in the wrong shoes, and just kept driving up the hill.  We then hit a long downhill, looped around some twisty bits near the railway, then hit the track around the lakes.  I was running under 5:40/km here and feeling good, picked up a couple on the same pace as me and called out the distance to them as we went as they were running free.  Approaching the line I was nearly beat and waved them past before sprinting for the finish when I saw it, overtaking someone who had passed me on the way down the hill, and nearly planting my face in the mud as the grass was surprisingly slippery.


And that was it, first race finished in 33:29 (Official Results:  33:27.4, 5th out of 34).  I cheered Liz over the line then we stretched out while waiting for Kelly and saw him over the line too, at which point we went for our cake before heading to Depot for breakfast (post race lard is half the reason I do this). Of course, talk turned to what comes next...