K2D 2006

Week - 25k
Month - 58.5k
YTD - 1133k

***Warning, quite a long one***

My Kurrawa weekend didn't go exactly to plan and it started to fall to pieces before when even headed down the coast.

On the Friday the day before we were mean't to leave we had a message on our phone saying that the accommodation that we had placed a reservation on was not available over that weekend. The only thing that was available was something that was way too expensive as it was really only to save us from getting up early and driving to the coast from Brisbane on the Sunday.

So Saturday arrived and because we were expecting to be on the coast for the day we had no plans. Basically we hung around the house and veged out. No training took place, as I wanted to feel fresh for the next day.

For some reason we didn't get to bed early at all on Saturday night. There was fire works somewhere close by that were scaring the dogs and Sam was a little grumpy. At around midnight the dogs decided that they would scratch at the door, for what reason I had no idea but I wasn't impressed. I went back to sleep after telling the hounds to shut up (polite version)and within the hour Sam decided he wanted to wake up. When Sam doesn't want to sleep he thinks no-one does either. Cass and I settled him back down and finally got back to bed somewhere around 1-130am. Not too bad really until you know that your alarm is set for 245am

Waking up was a struggle and lucky for me Cass woke up because I didn't even hear the alarm go off. She said she even woke me up twice and I had answered her but I don't even remember that. Anyway 310am I crawled out of bed got dressed and realised that I was going to be pushing it to get to the Gold Coast before the race start.

Lucky for me I was running the second leg and that my partner was more prepared than I. We in fact got there at 450am and when we pulled up there was still a huge number of people registering. In saying that the race was delayed by 35 minutes.

Once the race had started I really had no idea of the course and basically just followed the stream of runners stopping every few k's and helping my partner out with drinks and food. For a person who has never run anywhere near this distance before he was going great. He made the turn around in around 2 hrs 2 to 2 hrs 5mins unsure of the offficial time.

I then set out from Duranbah at approx 7.40am. The run was going great and I was consistantly clocking between 4.30 - 4.50/k. The weather was warm however I really never felt like it was really bothering me that much. I made sure that I was taking enough water and powerade along with my gu and other food.

I passed the 13k mark spot on an hour, I continued to maintain the same pace until about the 16k mark. It was a steady hill that went beside the national park, fairly shady and should have not really been that difficult. This was were the wheels really fell off. I just lost all energy in my legs, I could feel all the liquid and food that I had consumed over the past 1hr 20 or so swishing about in my stomach.

I began to get stomach cramps and was reduced to a walk for a short time. I reached the point a couple of k's before Miami Hill where we had to run up another hill and get our number checked off. By this stage I was hurting pretty bad, my wife and running partner had met me there and gave me another drink and my last bite to eat. I felt better after a short break and began running again. I came good around the 18k mark clocking again around 4.45/k before having another bad episode.

The next 4k saw my splits increase dramatically with two in the high fives and two around 6.30, which included Miami Hill and the stairs. I had told Cass whilst my partner was running that at the bottom of the stairs I would take Sam for the remainder of the race in his pram.

Although I had nothing in the tank, I still took the pram with Sam and ploddered along, I had multiple walk breaks and some uplanned breaks when Sam lost his hat. It was pretty tough, I wanted to go quicker so Sam wasn't in the sun for to long but I just couldn't. He didn't really seem to care though and went to sleep about 5 minutes into the run.

I came up to a marking on the footpath that said 1km, I was hoping that this was for the race I was doing. I continued to follow the path and saw the finish line way up ahead. I then realised that I was not going to get there following the path so it was off the beaten track we went. It was a little on the bumpy side for Sam over the grass however he didn't really wake up until the finish line when those who had finished were cheering everyone in.

I am again unsure of the official time however the Garmin showed 25.2km in 2.06.57 with rest breaks of over two minutes bringing it up to 2.09.05.

Although I was not really interested in what time I did, I was fairly disappointed with how I ran the last 8k. I guess I can't blame anything other than my lack of training which has got me thinking about my plans for next year. I will share this at a later stage.

After the race I felt fairly sick in the stomach, I didn't enjoy the nice food on offer at the BBQ which was a shame. Cass was tired, she had very little to eat as she was helping both myself and my partner out on the course along with looking after Sam who was being a grump, he was starting to get the flu. In saying that we left not long after and headed home, it was unfortunate that we had to but we all felt pretty ordinary by the end of it.

Congrats to everyone out there yesterday, I had a tough one but hopefully everyone else came through it with great results.