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Sunday 30 January 2011

Not Perhaps the Best Preparation

So I have a few running goals this year, and one of them is to run a PB at 10k. I've never actually managed that 'standard' of running my age in minutes, over the 10k distance. That said I'm getting older which helps and amazingly I'm actually getting faster. The proof was to be the Rokko Island 10k. An absolutely pancake flat 10k around the outskirts of the island. But this week was also my birthday so Thursday's B&B meant a little more eating and drinking than usual.


 The Izakaya was good. It's managed by an ex musician who spoke great English and who is now going to rearrange his schedule so that he gets some Thursday evenings free to come join us.


It all counts as cabo - loading right?

Then Bob discovered the 5 6 7 8's were playing in Osaka the night before the Rokko race, so we went. They were playing in the soon to be renamed Rock Rider club, a basement underneath a Golf store in Namba.
It was not exactly a big venue and I think the three of us were perhaps the only non smokers in the place. 4 hours in a smoke filled basement and a late night, not ideal preparation for an attempt at a PB. Damned good fun though.

 Apparently The 5 6 7 8's featured in Kill Bill.

5678's @ Rock Rider

Registration and kids race warm up as seen from our apartment
So to the day of the race, up bright and early, breakfasted, registered, strapped foot, changed running clothes at least twice, and with all the other, entirely necessary, race morning preparations taken care of, I toed the line (well in fact I stood and shivered about 50 metres from the line engulfed in a crowd of people) and waited for the gun. A mix up over the settings on my Garmin watch meant that it did not start counting the run until 250m in. I always forget that this race, though chipped, has no start mat. The time starts on the gun and finishes when you cross the finish mat. The up shot of all this is that I have a selection of times to choose from for my run, which went pretty well all things considered.

Times - the official time for me was 48:03. My watch said 46:16 for 9.73km but had a 4:45/km average pace throughout which would equate to 47:30. The watch also registered 1:05 biking prior to the run (I forgot to change the settings until just after the start) making a 47:21 as a total.
Regardless of which time you choose (I'm going with the official 48:03) it's a PB, the first time ever I've managed to run quicker than my age in minutes and nearly 30 sec/km quicker than last year.
I have now set PB's in my last 2 races. (Is it cheating to count a race where I've never run the distance before and it is never likely to be repeated?)
Lets hope all those other goals prove to be as achievable. Most of them just involve finishing inside cut off times.

1 comment:

  1. Here's another non-smoker who was in town for that show. The day after wasn't quite so physical for me though.

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