Oxford Half Marathon

So here we are just 5 weeks later and doing another half marathon, the things we do if they turn up in our training program eh! Twas a little different this time in that I had to ride my bike for an hour first and given how I was feeling after yesterday I wasn't even sure that I would want to get out of bed this morning! After a bollocks nights sleep (why do boys have to play with their bikes at 2 in the morning?? Grr!) I was feeling about as well as could be expected this morning, so a little better than yesterday but not stellar! Puddled around getting sorted, it took me forever to eat my breakfast and for some reason I couldn't even finish it! Thats not a good start! Finally got sorted and left on time at just after 7.30, Geoff reckoned it would take about an hour to get to Oxford, lucky I asked cos I was going to allow half an hour! Whoops! Ended up out there and on my bike bang on time at 8.30 so that was good. I decided that I would just cycle the run course so I could scope it out and see what I was in for, and then just cycled up the road and back to make it up to an hour. I'm pleased I cycled that course as their were a few undulations along the course and it was nice to know where they were and how big they were. Race kick-off was at 10 so I had enough time to register, no race numbers etc, just write your number on your hand, very relaxed and casual which is nice, get changed and have a chat. There were heaps of people there that I knew so that was kinda cool to catch up with some of the tri people before the tri season kicks off. Start was very casual, bit of a de-brief then 'on your way' and we were off. No starting hooter, start line or finish line! hehee. I started of really well which was good, I was running along at a pace that I felt I could maintain for quite some time and I had made a deliberate decision to not look at my HR and just run how I felt which seemed to be working well, kms seemed to be marked in 5km. I say seem to be cos there were also some random markers on some of the corners and let's just say that it was a blimmin' long 800m from the 14.2km mark to the 15km mark!! That was a very long 5km!! Esp cos some chick on a bike went past and said that's 15km well done and it was prob not quite 14km, methinks her bike speedo tells fibs! First 5km was a steady pace, not too fast, was a little slower than my 5km TT so that was good, hit the 10km mark in a new PB time but the 5km was about the same as the previous 5km so that was all ok. About another km and it all started to fall apart! I really really needed to go to the loo and didn't want to do a Paula Radcliffe! The thing is we were in the middle of the countryside so its not as if there is a public loo or porta-loo along the course, I seriously thought about jumping a fence or ditch and just going but there always seemed to be quite a few people around and nowhere that seemed to offer enough shelter to hide behind! Prob would have been easier than some of the funny hops I did while holding my tummy!! haha. So the last 10kms was a mixture of walk/run/hop! Oh dear, well at least I made it to the end where I could dash to the loo! Ohh they had OJ at the last drink station, why did I take that instead of the water? It made things worse!! Apart from the headwind running up Oxford Rd it was quite a nice course through the country side and running into Oxford you were looking up at the snow covered mountains and they looked beautiful! So cranked out another 2.09 so thats ok, I am happy with that given the events of the last 2 days as well as having to cycle beforehand. I feel that there is a 2 hour half marathon in my legs if I can get it all right on the day! Maybe next year in Sydney with the girls!

Quote for the Day:

Reality is an illusion caused by a shortage of alcohol.

- Tollieman