The Great Australian Run - Melbourne 2008

Sunday November 30, 2008 - 8:30am Albert Park

A bonza (don't see that word very often!) day, almost a little warm in the end, particularly after they predicted "clearing showers".

The first time I have done an "even paced" run, my usual "strategy" is to go hard (as fast as I can almost) at the start, holding that pace for some time (say half way) and then try to hang on as best I can until the end. I figure that if I start slow then I will only slow down more as I get tired, so I had just as well gain some time up front. Not necessarily a great strategy, but it has kinda worked for me (except in the Marathon), and seems to be an almost reasonable approach for a shorter race.

15km - close to 10 miles that have been run else where, is an interesting distance. I really enjoyed it and it can be broken up into 3 x 5km sections, my even pacing gave approx times of 21:30, 22:30 and 22:00 for a total of 66:24, which is not bad for me. My goal was between 65 (ideal) and 70 mins (no so ideal).

Some comments I should feedback to the organisers:

• parking - not great, and it took ages to get out through St Kilda and back onto Dandenong road.
• Bag storage - I know they say not to have valueables etc, but even a spare running shirt can have some value, and just having places for us to leave and collect the bags, is not really good enough. Anyone in the area could access any of the bags, take what they want, put it in their bag, and take it out!
• being a HBA member it would have been great to get the $15 entry discount when registering online (only seemed to be available very very early entry on paper).
• Introducing the celebs and elites is OK, but with everyone lined up at the start, no-one could see them. It would have been better to have some sorta stage that they could walk up onto/across (the start gantry?).
• the warmup at the start was also pretty useless, sure most people wouldn't follow it anyway, but there was no room to move on the "starting grid" and again no-one could see the leader.

Gatorade Sprint Race 1 - St Kilda 23/11/2008

No swim - too much rain the day before (water "quality" concerns I think), so it becomes a duathlon, good for me; the swim is my worst leg.

As it turned out this race was probably my worst overall result (position wise), but I am still fairly happy!

I had a flat tire; I detected it not far into the second lap, even riding with a strong cross wind I noticed I was very "bouncy". It is difficult to see a rear flat so I asked a guy as I passed him if I had a flat, and he confirmed it looked pretty flat. Turned out it was dead flat, he had a pump but it didn't fit my valve :( so I tried riding on it for a little while, but it looked like the tyre would come off the rim.

An official on a motor bike asked if I needed help, I said I had a flat and needed a pump, but they couldn't help, but they confirmed I could go back into transition. And so I ran... about 2.5 km back to transition into the wind (which was slow riding anyway) in my bike cleats. I tried to pump the tyre, it had that magic sealant goo in it but it wasn't working, and the thread stripped on my pump fitting.

So I changed the tube for a spare (I happened to have one in my bag), borrowed a pump from someone else (people were coming into transition by now), refitted the wheel and chain. I could only get about 30psi in the tire with the mini-pump, I normally run 130psi! And then did the remaining 6km of the ride, and hit 45km/h with the wind, with a not so inflated rear tyre! Estimated time lost about 20-24mins.

Why did I bother? I had to ride the bike back to the car anyway, and I still wanted to do the run, and not get disqualified.

Nobody passed me on the second run (I was back with the first timers), and my time was in the top third of the entire field for that leg.

I wasn't last in my age group as I expected, someone was disqualified, and I was only 1 minute behind the next guy!

Need to go sort out what happened to that tube, and remember to be prepared, with a real pump, and having it (and a spare tube) on the bike woulda saved a heap of time.