I am not sure if I have a reputation for not wanting to let people down, for being a glutton for punishment, or just for being an idiot....but whatever it is, when someone pulled out of the NSW Club Championships last minute (ie less than 2 days pre-event), guess who was asked to step in??!!!
It's not as if I had nothing on that day, but as usual, I ended up agreeing as I didn't want there to be an incomplete team at the event...and I had secretly hoped that they would let me compete in the Masters' Race rather than the Open one. Although I have now run three track races (a 5000m, an hour event and the 24 hour event), this one was even more out of my comfort zone as it was the 1500m race (which is a shorter distance than I would usually run as a warm-up!!). As I was only entered in the Saturday race on the Thursday night I didn't really have too much time to dwell on it - and although I was assured that it "didn't matter how I did as long as I had fun and enjoyed it", I can't help the fact that I get nervous before any timed run, even a parkrun!
As it was, my Saturday was rather busy - starting with a Trotters Saturday morning run, then coffee with the girls before going back to Marg's house for a shower and brunch (it was nice to catchup after her 3000m run on the Tuesday night). After that I had to go back to Terrigal for a GP education day of lectures about diabetes and asthma/COPD, both of which I felt I needed to know more about as they are chronic disease with nurse-led management in the UK, but here in Australia everything is GP-led so an update in my knowledge was definitely overdue! The morning lectures ran over by a long way...partly due to long presentations, and partly due to people asking questions which had effectively already been answered, but they'd lost concentration due to hunger or something. This meant that lunch was late and I was overhungry and so went back for thirds before being chased back into the lecture hall. I came to regret this later when on the train (well 3 trains actually) down to Sydney as I felt rather nauseated and unwell ......though with hindsight, I think it was probably more due to nerves than overeating :-)
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| If you're going to run on a track, make sure it's a good one! |
I wasn't going to be allowed to run with the Masters but had to take part in the Open race....with girls young enough to be my daughters! There were 18 entrants so we were all going off together no matter what our predicted times were, and I was so worried that I was either going to fall flat on my face or be lapped. If you're going to make a daft track debut, then it's worth doing it somewhere memorable....so despite my secret hopes or transport disruption, I managed to make all the right connections and found myself outside Sydney's Olympic Park station looking for the track. I made it (the loudspeaker in the stadium did help to guide me there), sourced a club vest (Go Mingara!!), attached numbers front and back and went off for a warm up jog outside with my friend Simone (another distance runner out of her comfort zone - as she had competed in the Masters' 100m race earlier). Then I headed round to the registration area and watched longingly as the Masters men and women set off for their 1500m event.
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| Go Mingara! |
I felt like I was surrounded by university students in crop tops and running knickers, wearing spikes and doing strange warm ups, drills and run-throughs....and must have looked so out of place in my vest, shorts and trainers! In order to stop myself stressing any more than was absolutely necessary I left them all to their weird leg swings and jogged round the outside of the track, making it back just in time to be handed my race numbers. This showed my track naivety even more, as I had thought that wearing a number on my front and back would have been enough, but we also had to attach further numbers to each hip (just quietly, the 16 safety pins we were each now wearing might have doubled the weight of some of the other girls :-) )!
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| Chasing young girls in crop tops!! |
All too soon, we had to line up (luckily, as number 14, I was near to the outside of the track so knew I wouldn't get trampled) and were off. Thankfully my knees didn't completely seize up, but I was still plum last by the time we got to the 50m mark, as there is no way I could keep up with the blistering pace everyone else set off at, even for a few metres. I like to "ease into it", ie I'm a slow starter, but by the time we'd reached the 100m I had caught back up and even slipped by one or two runners. From then on in, it was a case of keeping going as fast as I could (admittedly not that fast) and trying to reel in a few other ladies that had started too fast and couldn't maintain their pace (or so I hoped). I admit that I cannot remember much of the race itself, so there was no longer any time for thoughts of nervousness. As the race was 3.75 laps, the clock at the finish line meant nothing to me whenever I passed it, but I could hear the commentator giving lap splits for the leading pack and it sounded like an amazing pace. I was vaguely aware of the Mingara ladies who'd run in the Masters race cheering me on when I passed them but I tried to simply focus on the runners in front of me. This tactic seemed to work as I passed a couple of ladies on every lap, and although I'm sure the leading ladies were approaching the finish line whilst I still had a good 200m to run, it was as if we weren't really in the same event!
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| Chasing down the home straight... |
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| Caught her...on the line!! |
I ended up finishing in 9th place in a time of 5:00.7 which is much faster than I thought I'd do, considering my poor preparation, and the uni girl that finished one position ahead of me almost made my day by saying to me "You're really 35? WOW!" - I didn't have the heart to say that I was almost 10 years older than that! I was even less worried about having finished half way down the field when our "team manager" described my finishing position as having "2xWorld Championship representatives ahead of her, 1xJunior World Championship X-Country representative, with the other 5 a minimum of 20years younger"! Not bad for an old distance runner!!
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| With Simone post-relay! |
My next event wasn't quite as dramatic as it was more of a comedy show. One of the ladies in the Masters' 4x100m relay team wasn't feeling well, so before cooling down, I subbed into her place. Another first for me - a track relay race, never mind a track 100m run, albeit on a bend! I was on leg 3 and was told that our leg 2 runner was a sprinter so I was rather stressed about the speed that she might be coming into the box to hand over to me (Simone had given me some brief coaching about which side of the lane I should be on and which hand to hold out for the baton). I thought I'd judged it well enough, giving myself longer to get up to pace than the girls in the neighbouring lanes as they were "proper" relay runners, but just as I got going my Leg 2 runner shouted at me to stop running. Her ankle felt like it was seizing up and she couldn't pick up the pace for the last few metres. It became a "ministry of silly handovers" but at least I didn't do the British 100m relay error of dropping the baton. I then had to try to pick up some pace and get round the corner to hand on to Simone - and although she powered away down the home straight, we weren't exactly going to make the podium! Still, it was a fun evening and great to experience it with a good friend and even make some new ones along the way! A great novel experience but I really do think that I should stick to distance running in the future though!!
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| Some of the Mingara "girls" :-) |
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