Preliminary GSV Cross Country

This afternoon we had school cross country - the preliminary carnival against 7 other Girls Sport Victoria schools. There's 3 carnivals, all at Yarra Bend park and 8 schools compete in each to separate the schools into division 1, 2 and 3 for the championship carnival. Last year we came fourth in division 2. Unfortunately, our school was in carnival C, which means we were competing in the afternoon (better than in the morning I guess). Although it did mean I missed double Maths Methods. We were against Genazzano, Sacre Coeur, OLMC, Lowther Hall, Firbank, Star of the Sea and Tintern.

The Junior (years 7 and 8) race was first and they did 3km. We had a girls come 2nd, 3rd and 9th which was great! PLC came 3rd in the junior division. Intermediates (years 9 and 10) were next and they did 4km. We had Penny who is awesome come first (in 15.10), Grace 2nd and Mandy 4th. We also had another come 9th. The intermediates won their division and got a trophy which is almost unprecidented for PLC.

Our race didn't get started till 2:50pm and none of us Seniors (year 11 and 12) could be bothered! We were so short for people we had to get a couple of my friends who really aren't runners. I was the only year 11 who wanted to do it. I started off really slowly as I was trying to make sure I started my watch. I was stuck behind lots of people. I didn't mind too much though because I always like a slow start. There's only one hill in the course and it's in the first 100m. It's very short but very steep. The rest of the course was completely flat. I spent the whole race overtaking people because of my slow start. I really enjoy racing that way. In the last kilometre I started getting closer to Nicole (Laura was way ahead). I almost overtook her and was about 5 metres behind her for the last 500m. I didn't really sprint much at the end but I'm so glad no one overtook me. Unfortunately, at the finish I accidently pressed stop on my watch twice which deleted my time! Luckily one of our teachers was taking down times - he said my time was 17.38. I came 15th out of about 80 girls. It's very competitive because it's the best girls from each school. So I was very happy with my result. I've taken almost a minute off my 4km PB from last year and I achieved a goal of getting under 18 minutes. In the senior division, Laura came 4th and PLC came 5th which isn't too bad. Overall, we came THIRD out of the 8 schools we were competing against. We'll possibly be in division 1, but I'm hoping we're in division 2 as we may have a chance of winning it.

The thing I found really hard was running on grass. I'm getting used to running on the footpath and racing for roads. The track was mostly on gravel and only some on grass. I was really unco on the grass and I was hanging out for the gravel track!

It started raining just after we'd finished. We didn't end up leaving till 3.45pm and I didn't get home till almost 5pm!

The Championship Carnival is on the 25th May, unfortunately the day before Sandown. As I don't race 4km very often, I really want to get under 17.30 then.