These were the final words from my good friend Andrew Tyack that convinced me to make the trip up to Geraldton this weekend gone for their annual Half Marathon and Marathon race.
Andrew, Big T, T-unit, T-dizzle, Andy pants or the big A as he is affectionately known and I made our way up to G-town on Saturday around midday. After about an hour of driving and awkward conversation (I mean seriously, how many times can you comment on the weather? (note: Andrew and I are actually like brothers so that last sentance was my poor attempt at a "joke")) we both decided it would be a FANTASTIC idea to start making a short series of quick videos to document the weekends happenings. These will be put together and shown in the next blog.
Anywho we reached Geraldton after about 5 hours of driving. We drove straight to out accomodation at the Best Western that Lucky had booked about 12 hours earlier. Good news. We had hit the jackpot with the honeymoon suite.
Ok so this may or may not actually be a photo of the "suite", also, we may or may not have actually booked the honeymoon but I had every intention of making it as awkward as possible for my mate Andy. A quick trip into town for some dinner and we were back in the room to watch the remainder of the tour. The race started at 8 so we were ready for a late start by triathlete standards! A quick video update and we were off to bed.
After a solid sleep we were up and after the usual pre race breakfast we were heading down to the start line. In the rain. And wind. Oh god it was windy. After watching the marathoners start Andy and I had a quick discussion about pacing and the race. We both had no idea what-so-ever what kind of pace we should go out at as we have both been running complete base mile pace only for the last couple of months.
As we lined up we had a laugh and waited for the start. Boom the gun went and I quickly found my self leading from the front. About 300 meters in I heard someone yell out from the back "I don't think this pace is sustainable Mark!" It was Andy, I laughed and heeded his advice, slowing right up and popping in behind someone for a couple of k.
After a couple it seemed things were going a little slow so I went to the front to push the pace. To my delight Andy came with me and two other competitors. I settled back down and myself and "that guy in the red shirt" put a little gap on Andy and "that team runner".
As we hit the 7ish k mark (two 10.5k loops) we hit a fairlllyyyy strong head wind. Immediately my red shirted friend jumped in behind me. To be honest I straight away thought "bugger this I am not going to let this guy sit behind as I work into the head wind" so I dropped the pace pretty substancially (or as the cool kids say "I dropped some *insert pace here* bombs". (up until this point I had been running approx 3.50's). I'd love to say it was 3 minute per k pace, but it was closer to 3.20's - 3.30's for about 1 - 2 minutes.
Thankfully I managed to gap my friend, I was happy now at least he was working into the headwind like I had too. To be honest after this effort I thought I would really struggle, but I felt really excellent and settled into the previous pace. I continued on a fairly uneventful course, and really enjoyed the scenery with the occasional look behind.
When I reached the final turn around and started running for home I was stoked to see Andy had moved into 2nd place. I crossed the line with a 1.19 in the end according the Garmin, which I was really happy with. I ran a really controlled, smart race and put the effort in when I needed to. More importantly I honestly felt excellent duing the whole run. I was really happy. Andy crossed the line about 3 minutes later also with a PB. A Freo tri club, Total Triathlon, Honeymoon suite sharer one two.
After the race we headed back showered and hit the town to re load on the carbs. Man i love coffee
We headed back to the surf club for presentations. As I arrived I remembered that there was $300 for first place in the half! Wow I thought to myself, I'm going to be a millionare!! We hung around to cheer the last people over and I was eventally called up with Andy to accept a trophy and the cash. As you can see by the photo I was pretty stoked (rocking the Total Triathlon polo)
My On racers were beautiful to run in, my Ryders sunnies were kept on for the entirety of the run and I could hear the boys from Total cheering all the way from home ;) Thanks all for your continued support.
It was back into the car for some shared driving home. On the way I had some time to reflect on the prep for Vegas so far. Sure I've had some set backs with the (fake) broken wrist and a serious bought of the man flu, but things are really good considering. I am happy and for someone working full time and managing full time work and training am giving it my all.
I think it's important in this sport to not only not get too obsessed but, especially for us more competitive age groupers, get some perspective. I'm under no illusion that I'm some world class athlete (yet) but I'm doing my best I can do now, as an age grouper who works full time, while trying to stay grounded and make some people laugh on the way. I think we'd all enjoy the sport a little more if we took it a little easier. I've seen too many people lately get way to involved and worked up about training and racing. Enjoy it! :)
For now, it's back to training I'll check in soon. I'm off for a run
Also if I find some actual run pictures from the race I'll post some.
