No long run on Saturday this weekend because Sunday was Lindfield 10km 'fun run'. Let me set this straight, there's no fun running 10kms of hills. None whatsoever.
Lindfield is a residential suburb, north west of Sydney which is really pretty - due to it's hilly location. Some people who completed the run before had mentioned that there would be a 'few' hills. I blame them for making the hills sound insignificant. If I had been mentally prepared, there might have been some fun involved!!
It started off to a stressful start.....a queue of 20 people outside one toilet with 15 mins to go before the start gun went off. It wasn't a case of not being prepared - Crohns disease doesn't care what time it is! I literally came out of the loo with 1 minute to go. I teamed up with my similar-pace buddies and within 5 minutes I had come to a quick realisation of what was ahead. My attitude to hills has been "what goes up must come down". Works well in general. But when you start of a race with 10 minutes of downhill, that philosophy suddenly backfires on the pysche. Downhill, turn a corner, another downhill, flat, oh look more downhill. There's no way out, you have to go down. I think we ran to the bottom of a valley, almost vertically and the rest of the run involved slowly getting out of that valley. Even worse, this run was two laps. So what I endured the first time around was going to be lying in wait for me the second time around.
There were instances of negative thinking creeping in during the race, but thankfully not too often. Local families came out to cheer us on and in some cases, local kids ran alongside for a while. One family hosed us down with water as we ran past! A couple of uphills were really deceiving (as they wound around corners) and that required loads of mental strength to continue.
Positive things about this run? I only needed to walk the last 50 metres of the gigantic hill near the end (which I had managed to run the first time around). The training we had done around the hills of Cremorne and Mosman (and my Wine Glass Bay effort) had obviously paid off. I also had the experience of running with loads of other people. And I mustered up some energy to pick up my pace for the last km. Apparently that's a good sign! I did almost collapse when I crossed the finish line. There weren't any cheers on my finishing. Most of the crowd had dissipated by the time 1 hour and 11 mins had passed! I couldn't see any drinks table so gasped around in a tizzy before finally finding the Cantoo gathering where I dropped onto the grass and lay on my back for about 10 minutes. Not the most graceful of finishes :)
All I remember after that was saying "I'm never doing that again, I'm never coming here again. Luckily everyone else (even the strong runners) were cursing it. The unity in negative feelings brought us together and eventually there were some smiles!
http://www.cantoo.org.au/Sponsor-a-Participant.html
“There is an uphill for every downhill, and a downhill for every uphill.”
Turkish Proverb
Lindfield is a residential suburb, north west of Sydney which is really pretty - due to it's hilly location. Some people who completed the run before had mentioned that there would be a 'few' hills. I blame them for making the hills sound insignificant. If I had been mentally prepared, there might have been some fun involved!!
It started off to a stressful start.....a queue of 20 people outside one toilet with 15 mins to go before the start gun went off. It wasn't a case of not being prepared - Crohns disease doesn't care what time it is! I literally came out of the loo with 1 minute to go. I teamed up with my similar-pace buddies and within 5 minutes I had come to a quick realisation of what was ahead. My attitude to hills has been "what goes up must come down". Works well in general. But when you start of a race with 10 minutes of downhill, that philosophy suddenly backfires on the pysche. Downhill, turn a corner, another downhill, flat, oh look more downhill. There's no way out, you have to go down. I think we ran to the bottom of a valley, almost vertically and the rest of the run involved slowly getting out of that valley. Even worse, this run was two laps. So what I endured the first time around was going to be lying in wait for me the second time around.
There were instances of negative thinking creeping in during the race, but thankfully not too often. Local families came out to cheer us on and in some cases, local kids ran alongside for a while. One family hosed us down with water as we ran past! A couple of uphills were really deceiving (as they wound around corners) and that required loads of mental strength to continue.
Positive things about this run? I only needed to walk the last 50 metres of the gigantic hill near the end (which I had managed to run the first time around). The training we had done around the hills of Cremorne and Mosman (and my Wine Glass Bay effort) had obviously paid off. I also had the experience of running with loads of other people. And I mustered up some energy to pick up my pace for the last km. Apparently that's a good sign! I did almost collapse when I crossed the finish line. There weren't any cheers on my finishing. Most of the crowd had dissipated by the time 1 hour and 11 mins had passed! I couldn't see any drinks table so gasped around in a tizzy before finally finding the Cantoo gathering where I dropped onto the grass and lay on my back for about 10 minutes. Not the most graceful of finishes :)
All I remember after that was saying "I'm never doing that again, I'm never coming here again. Luckily everyone else (even the strong runners) were cursing it. The unity in negative feelings brought us together and eventually there were some smiles!
http://www.cantoo.org.au/Sponsor-a-Participant.html
“There is an uphill for every downhill, and a downhill for every uphill.”
Turkish Proverb
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