Tigy’s Blog

Had Race 2 of the Run Auckland series in the weekend. My god it was cold!

The course was mainly on walking tracks which was great as I was feeling a bit sore in the legs and my new shoes hadn’t arrived yet (any day now!!). Took on the course a bit more aggressively this time and really wanted to break the 50:00 barrier, was pretty much on track I think but lost heart at the 7.5km mark when I thought I had gone a touch too slow, tried to push hard for the finish but ran out of steam.

The lesson here is trust your training, keep steady and don’t give up! Turns out I was on track, with a couple of hundred meters to go I realised I could get there under the magic 50 minute mark and sprinted in for the finish. My stop watch measured the time as 49:59 but the official time was 50:31, probably due to the squeeze at the start line. Anyway it was still a 4:58/km pace which is easily my best.

I’m convinced if I’d just stuck at my pace rather than trying to push hard at the 7.5k mark I would have been able to cruise in under 50min. Basically my mistake was I pushed hard too early, ran out of puff and tired sooner than I needed to. A slightly slower but steadier pace would have been better. Never mind, lesson learned and we’ll see how I go next time!