The Champ cars do it faster
... but I don't care.
I got to run on part
of the Gold Coast Indy track today, and had a ball!
The Gold Coast Indy is 300km,
and takes roughly 120 mins ... so my 10km in 70 mins and 17 seconds was not in the same order of magnitude
... but I don't care.
Given that the target I set myself was 75 minutes, I reckon my time is a
gold-medal performance - at least to me!
And the organizers seemed to agree ... 'cause they gave me a gold medal.
Well, it's actually a sort-of gold-coloured
medallion, but hey ... I'll take the kudos where I can 
The 10K race today was part of the Gold Coast Marathon ... and
there were more than 4,000 in the event, 185 of them 45-49 year old blokes like
me. I came in 158th ... but that's in my category. Of the men, I was number
1724 in a field of 2052, and overall 3,334 of 4352 ....
Hmmm, that means I beat almost a thousand runners home! Woot!
(sounds so much better than "there were more than
3,000 runners faster than me )
It was staged on a picture-perfect Sunday morning ... crisp (for
south-east-Queensland), clear, blue skies, and even the blustery winds of the
past week seemed to have eased.
My daughter Lini, who was on holidays from
We set up near a Japanese support crew, and soon were having a blast cheering
on all comers (but with a special cheer reserved for those wearing the
blue-and-yellow livery of Cool Runners).
After a couple of hours, those of us who were taking part in the 10K event
headed down to the start, and lined up with the 4500 others.
Large crowds of runners are
such fun sometimes! It took us 3 minutes just to get through the starting chute
... and then probably a kilometer more before the crowd thinned out enough to
run without trading elbow-knocks with other runners.
I was running with Sarah V, a fellow Cool Running member who is also a regular
at the Australian Calorie King
weight-control website where we are both members. She was a bit worried about
the race - given that she hasn't been able to get in the training she would
have liked, due to recent illness ... but she was doing OK until she got hit
with a couple of early stitches.
By the time we got to the 4K mark, she wanted to drop back to a walk for a minute
or two, to recover ... and urged me to keep going. I felt like a cad ... but
ran on ahead, confident that she wouldn't be far behind. She wasn't.
As I made my way past the turn-around and started heading back up Main Beach
Parade, I got a couple of comments about my T-shirt - which bore Mountainlake’s mantra: DFL>DNF>DNS ... Dead Flamin' Last is better than Did Not Finish, is better than
Did Not Start ... which helped pep me up
I have to admit, I dropped back to a walk for about 20 seconds just past the 7K
mark ... which I later regretted, as that 20 seconds would have seen me get
home in under 70 mins ... but hey, given that I've
hardly run at all in recent weeks because of some niggling injuries, I'm not gonna beat myself up
Then, it was time to go over the Southport bridge, and once again, go running
straight past the starting chute ... with a kilometer still to go.
But unlike my last 10K race, this time that last km wasn't too bad ... and as I
came up to the gate, to see my daughter applauding me, I felt pretty damned
good!
I jogged a bit past the line, to prevent the rapid build-up of lactic acid that
led to throwing up at my last 2 races, and then headed off to grab a drink and
some fruit, and my finisher's T-shirt and medal.
Did I mention the medal?
Shiny! :-)
So - the short version? I did 10km in a shade over 70 mins. That's 30 seconds better than my 'official' time for
the Brisbane Marathon 10K, and I'm pretty pleased with myself!
Next up - an 8K
for the Royal Brisbane Hospital, and then the longest race I've ever
entered ... in fact, the longest distance I've ever run: the 12K Bridge to Brisbane.
Gonna be a busy few weeks