Although I thought that I had nothing much planned in the next few weeks, I found that I did have a few work meetings/courses down in Sydney and so managed to catch up with friends for a few social runs whilst down there, which brought some enjoyment back into my running. As the fun side was coming back to the fore, I agreed to join a cross country relay team (for Mingara) when asked.
We were a "masters" team with a total mismash of ages (I think our team average was something like 52) and so I admit that I did think it was going to be a small social "Mickey Mouse" event. I had to work (just for a change......not!!!) on the Saturday morning, but met up with my friend Marg and her husband Greg in order to travel down to Ryde in Northern Sydney for the event. When we got there I was shocked at the scale of the event....as it turned out to be the State Champs!!!
As Marg and I walked over to meet our other team mates, I felt like a total fraud being there, as the junior races were in progress, and there looked to be some top level young runners really going for it. The team "manager" had wanted me to go off first in order to "have a race" but I had no desire for this and so luckily Tara agreed to lead us off (as that also suited her for childcare). It was a 2 lap course so I managed to get a bit of a warmup in and then make it back in time to cheer her through the start/finish line and on to her second lap.
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| Team Mingara (30-39!!!!) |
She gave it her all, handed over to Marg for the second leg, caught her breath and then briefed me a bit on the course as the second lap seemed to take it out of a lot of people, especially with two hills early on in the lap. The course was set out almost entirely within a park, snaking up and down all the hills that there were, which meant I could run around the inside and catch Marg at various points to cheer her on - ensuring I didn't stiffen up yet was in place for my handover at the right time.
As expected, we were a long way down the field by this point, being lapped by many other teams, but this meant I could just run without feeling under pressure (well, except for the pressure that racing always makes you put on yourself, especially if you're part of a team!). I felt OK heading off....well, for the first 50m or so until I hit the start of the first climb anyway.....but from then on it felt like I was having to work a lot harder than I wanted do. It was quite a hot day and the course was not exactly what I'd expect for a XC race.
I have only ever run XC races in the UK - usually in the middle of winter so it's freezing, and the ground is usually churned up mud, grass and puddles. This was a warm, sunny, humid Australian afternoon of generally smooth grassy running (I think I managed one footstep in mud on each lap!) so there wasn't quite the breakup of pace and effort that you'd expect.
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| "Cross-country".....many ran in racing flats!! |
I still ran as hard as I could and made up about 14 places over the 2 laps, though it was gutting to think you were chasing someone down as you closed out the lap, only to see them heading to the changeover pen whilst you headed back out on your second lap (and then their fresh runner would sprint past you on eager fresh legs). I still find it amazing how different something can feel from how it actually is, as (exactly as Tara had described) the second lap appeared much tougher than the first one, but when I looked at my splits afterwards, my pace was pretty close to being identical!!
After I handed over to Sally for the "glory leg", a marshal called me over - and although he let me catch my breath back first, I was then given a stern talking to! I had been wearing my number when I jogged across to several points inside the course to cheer Marg on, and so one of the other teams had taken it upon themselves to report me for "pacing her" and they wished to discuss a possible DQ with me. I told them exactly what I'd done and offered to show them my watch trace to prove I had not been pacing, though agreed with the marshal that he was only doing his job and following up on someone else's complaint.
Although I'd made up several places, I couldn't see why anyone would even bother with such a complaint (eve if it had been accurate) as we weren't exactly a competitive team at the sharp end of the field, but I apologised to my team mates for any stress caused (in fact, they hadn't known anything about it, except for seeing me called away, as they knew I hadn't been pacing Marg). We cheered Sally in, thanked everyone for the run, wished the mens' teams "Good Luck" as they were about to start, and then Marg, Greg and I headed off for some food and drinks.
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| Sally & Tara with our Bronze medals :-) |
Whilst eating we got an excited call from Tara and Sally.......it turned out that we'd won bronze medals in the 30-39yr old category (we had to race in this category as Tara was 39) despite being an average of at least 10 years older than all the other teams and so they were picking up our medals....an amazing bonus to a fun team day out - I do love the camaraderie of team/relay events :-)
