King of the Hill........Well Almost!

Month - 18k
YTD - 603.5k


Yesterday was the annual King of the Hill race at work. We have the pleasure of having a rather large and nasty hill on the barracks called Mount Enoggera that many sadistic trainers conduct physical training up.

There was not much hype or build up for the race as many are being deployed overseas but when our unit arrived at the start there were at least 200 people all keen to run. Well that's a lie but the numbers aren't.

I have been fairly consistant with my training since arriving home from Victoria but still 5 weeks of training is not much to bank a good result on.

I had my doubts as to how I was going to go, and with the signs of the flu coming on I knew it was going to be tough.

The race began and I got a good position and set off with the early leaders, the pace was nothing to begin with but slowly increased which was still comfortable. The distance was 4.1k which was about 1-1.5 k of undulating terrain followed by the ascent of Mt Enoggera.

By the time we reach the begining of the climb there was 4 of us which then quickly turned to 3. The leader of the small pack slowly made his move early it wasn't anything major but something I wasn't keen on countering this early.

I slowly but surely made my way up the first but steepest section to be now in 2nd position. There was still a long way to go and I didn't want to burn out too early. I tried keeping the gap to the leader below 50m which also started putting more distance between myslef and the 3rd placed runner.

About 3/4 into the climb it really gets tough not as steep as the first section but by this stage it sure feels alot tougher. I wasn't running real quick but the leader wasn't going that good either. I decided to have a breather and started walking, or rather power walking. This was still hard going but I was able to catch my breath a little. It wouldn't have been anymore than 30 secs but the 3rd placed runner caught back up to me.

At this stage I knew what we had left and the fact that the guy that was next to me had to run all the way so far just to stay in touch left me feeling pretty good. I came to the conclusion that first place was not going to happen today but I certainly wanted 2nd place. As soon as he reached me and overtook me that was my que to begin running again. The rest done wonders and I had a second wind, I overtook him and settled into a quicker pace than what I had been doing.

I could now see the tower that is at the top of the hill along with the wiches hats and marshalls lining the finishing shute. It was about 500m to go and I stepped up the pace. My legs were burning and my lungs were screaming for me to stop. I dug deep and was putting quite a big gap between myslef and 3rd place. I must of broken his spirit and he had slowed considerably. I gained quite abit of time on the last section on the leader aswell but he had established the winning margin earlier in the race.

I crossed the line in 2nd place in a time of 20.03 with first place posting 19.50. I am unsure of the 3rd place time as I was having trouble standing and breathing at that stage.

I am pretty pleased with how I ran considering the lack of training and to further add to my confidence the winner is the current Australian Defence Force 1/2 marathon champion and runner up for the Marathon posting a time at last years GC Marathon of 2.44.

Admitedly he has been injured and is just strating to get back into training but I am still pretty chuffed to be close to his level at my current fitness level aswell.