Regatta - Mt Coot-tha loop

Week - 19.5k
Month - 19.5k
YTD - 1094k

Still had a bit of the guilts today so this afternoon I rang my Kurrawa partner and asked if he would be interested in doing the loop starting from the regatta. It is close to 15k and a fairly tough run with plenty of hills......obviously.

We arrived at the regatta about 4.45pm and after a quick stretch we headed off. A fairly sedate pace to begin with. My partner has never ran more than 12k so I thought it was a good idea for him to be acquainted with a longer distance especially when he will be required to run 25k in a weeks time.

We were chatting most part of the first section however I did warn him that the conversation will stop once we hit the hills. We encoutered the first hill near the Botanic gardens and got through this pretty well, we had a quick break at the next water tap before tackling the main hill. This winds up for about 2.2k and is fairly constant, at times the hill eases up but the last section is probably the worst.

My mate was going really well for a virgin Mt Coot-thanite he remained close to me until the last 500m or so when he said his legs had a turn for the worst and he needed to walk.

We arrived at the picnic area just after the climb, I was feeling great I had never down that climb that easy before and while I was waiting for my partner the weather took a turn for the worst. Large lightning bolts, heavy range and heaps of thunder saw both of us stuck under a shed for the next 1/2 hour. Im not keen running when there is heaps of lightning especially when there are huge Tv antenna's around.

The rain never really cleared but the lightning eased up so we headed off. It was quite cold to begin with and the wind was strong. Visibility was down to about 50m due to the low level cloud so we had to be mindful of the traffic coming up the mountian.

Due to the delay we automatically increased the pace, we were keen to get home now, we were drenched and the legs felt a little drained. We had a quick drink at the lookout before the downhill section back to the regatta.

I was pretty impressed with how my mate went, considering he hasn't done that sort of distance before he seemed to cope well. Overall the distance was 14.59k and we completed the loop in 1.14.44 (5.07/k), obviously this doesn't include our break.

This will probably be my last long-ish run before the big day, I was pretty happy with how I went today, I seemed to run that pretty easy which is a great confidence booster. I will do another couple of shorter ones, not the greatest lead up to a big race but I rather be under cooked than over trained risking injuries.

Hopefully next post I will have some pics and the story of the Go kart race. All I can say is that is didn't go quite as planned :-)

Happy Training!!!!