Sandown

After netball coaching and doing homework, instead of heading off to netball I headed out to Sandown for the big 10km. I arrived just in time to see the juniors finishing which was good. Definitely wish I was that fast! Our race was due to start about half an hour later so I went for a warm up with some of the other Richmond girls and we were pretty much ready to start. I found both in this race and the Latrobe race I wasn't ready to start, there was a whistle out of nowehere. But that doesn't matter in a long race. The women started up a ramp (yay, downhill) while the men started on the main track. I planned just to go quite slowly and leave as much as possible in the tank for the first 6-8km. I got into a rhythm early and found by 2km that I was going at a pretty quick pace. I couldn't really slow down though, I tried to but it didn't work. In the 2nd/5th/8th kilometre there is a 'hill' which looks almost flat until you have to run up it. We had a major headwind and of course it is strongest up the hill. Luckily I wasn't getting dust in my face like yesterday. Just before the 4km mark I got lapped by the wheelies and then at the 6km mark I got lapped by the first runner. Boy was he travelling fast! It killed me that he had almost finished and I still had a lap to go. I've never run a 3 lap race before but it wasn't as bad as I thought. The straight was so long and it was hot with the wind behind. I started to hurt (probably from yesterdays x-country) at the 7km mark and I started to worry I wouldn't get in under 48 minutes. At the 8km mark I started to really want to get in under 47 minutes. That meant running 9 minutes for the last 2 kilometres - something I thought I could achieve. I pushed it and felt comfortable up until the 9km mark and the back straight. I started to get a stitch and felt really uncomfortable. I had to push though and with about 100m to go I could see the clock ticking over to 47 minutes. I kept pushing and managed to get in at 47.12. That's a PB by over 2 minutes. I wasn't really that happy with it but according to McMillan's it pretty much fits in with my other PBs so it was a good run. I guess I enjoyed the race and I hope Richmond did well.

Splits (very approximate).
1km Didn't see marker
2km 8.14
3km Didn't see marker
4km 18.00
5km 23.16
6km 28.00
7km 32.35
8km 38.00
9km 42.54
10km 47.12