Noosa 1/2

Week - 21.1k
Month - 91k
YTD - 844k


Firstly it was a shame that I missed catching up with people at the C2S, but it is just so damn busy it makes it that much harder to find people. In saying that I spent almost an hour looking for Cass at Bondi after the race before we caught the bus back the city. We when arrived there and went back to the car which was parked in a underground carpark Cass realised that she didn't have the car keys. We searched for them but no luck, to cut a long story short we had to catch a train back to Gosford, get our spare keys sent from Brisbane to my parents then catch a train back to Sydney a few days later to get our car. We finally got it on Tuesday and a $129 later is car parking fees.

Alright back to business, Noosa today, I have never done this race before but it seems to be very popular with some big names turning up. The weather was perfect and the organisation was excellent from what I experienced.

Lining up at the start I briefly saw Tesso and Clairie who seemed to be her jovial self :) I had lined up behind the 90 min pace group and decided to hang on as long as possible. I knew I was a little under done when it comes to anything over 15k so I wasn't expecting too much.

The gun went and we were off, I didn't start my watch until I went under the starting banner which would have been all of 10 secs at the most. From the onset I felt good and had to make up some distance on the pacer who must have got a clear path through the crowd. I eventually caught him and settled into a controlled pace.

Early on the group was crowded and at times felt to cramped but it began to thin out around the 5-7k mark. The course was flat apart from the occassional small bridge and I was thinking that it would make for a fast time if the right prep was done.

The 1/2 way mark came around pretty quickly and we passed the 10k mark in low 42's, I was feeling good still and wasn't struggling at all. By the 14k mark (59.12) I began feeling like I was in a race. The one thing I forgot was my Gu, I always take one for an event longer than 15k because I always seem to loose energy at the 17+ mark.

This event was no different, my legs began to fatigue, my cardio was still good but the legs didn't have much left. I slowed a bit and the pacer began to creep away but I reeled him back, I got a second wind. This lasted for all of 500m when the feeling of nothing came back.

The 18k mark hit and the pacer said we were running a little behind and sped up I did the same but knew I was struggling. I grabbed a drink in desperation that it would help me get to the end. Just over 2k to go, I was telling myself it's only 10 mins it's not far.

The 19k marker was in sight and then I heard the sound which broke me mentally more than anything, the pacers split alarm going off, we still had 75-100m to go. My spirit just shattered I had nothing, I still tried but the pace was well outside what was required. The last little bridge before the finish felt like Heart Break, the crowd was massive lining the streets and it would have been great to run strong through the finish but it wasn't to be.

I saw Cass, Sam and my Mum just before I crossed the line in my watch time of 91.19. Suprisingly I pulled up well, the legs were weary after the race but have recovered great throughout the day.

We hung around to watch the finishers of the 1/2, and first few palce getters of the 10k and 5k before heading off to shower and check out of the accommodation. It would have been good to hang around and catch up but we didn't organise a later check out.

Congrats to everyone who ran today, until next time......