April 25, 2010 and the snow had just about melted. Getting ahead of myself, I decided to shoot for 1 hour 30 minutes.
It was another one of those can't-decide-what-to-wear races. The hat wasn't needed long.
Just in case any MRC students were still asleep, it started with a police car leading the way, lights and siren. One of A-Chang's family friends studies here, and she said hi as I passed her after starting. It took only a couple of km to realize that this course was up and down, far more than just the notorious Glenmore landing hill which comes at 2/3 distance.
I had printed a list of target times for each km, but it got sweatier each time I looked at it. An amusing distraction from the realization I wasn't going to get my 90 minutes this time were the improvised pitstops a few were taking in the trees - men taking advantage of being men.
To the hill then. First of all there was a tricky downhill section with some sharp corners, flat for a few km, then uphill to the
unwelcome sound of bagpipes at the top. Thanks to the trainer halfway up who was telling people to swing their arms more to get up the hill more easily - it works.
After this is what I was told was a false flat. I was slowing down despite my best efforts, and feeling a little breathless. An estimated finish time of now 1.31 quickly became 1.32, then 1.33. 2km from the end and then came then burning quads and the feeling that only momentum was keeping me going. I wasn't even able to find a couple of seconds to avoid a 1.34.
A-Chang and pal were late getting back to the finish from the college dorms behind, so this is me a couple of hundred metres before. 1.34:02 was still a PB by 4 minutes, so no complaints overall especially with 86th place out of 1,829.
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