Round the Bays 3

Well, what a gorgeous day was turned on for the run! Overcast at first (which keeps the heat down), with the lightest breeze. By the time we had been going 20 minutes the clouds cleared, but I had the sun behind me at that stage, so, perfect. I really appreciated the water station at the 3.5k mark, and several people were spraying their hoses across the road to cool people down, which was also really good. (A fire engine was doing the same thing at one point.) One of the houses along the way has a patio over a street-front garage, and a small live band was up there singing and playing over loud speakers.

It was quite exciting being is such a large crowd (about 11,000 people). Bern was ahead (he ran the first 1/2 of the course before his first walking break), and Sophie and her friend Jerusha were behind me after the first 1k or so. I found a good strategy was to choose a person and let them set the pace, and if I needed to have a walk, I would just choose someone else when I was ready to run again. There was one guy who carried two plain blue flags the whole race. I guess he was with a group, but he was very useful to me as he was going at about the right pace, and was very visable. Sometimes I would be behind him, and just keep up; sometimes I would be ahead for a while, and he would pass me while I had a walk. I think I finished the course just ahead of him.

At the end we were given water and bananas. The girls came in a bit later, and we missed them in the crowd, so we spent over 1/2 an hour looking for them. Lots of entertainment, food stalls, etc at the park at the end. It would be really good to be with a big group, and there were lots of corporate groups. We saw a few people we knew. We queued for the free sausages and then queued for the free bus back to the start point (where we'd left the car).

And my time? I was aiming to make the 7km in 60 minutes. The times will be confirmed in tomorrow's paper, but on arrival I was told I'd done about 46 minutes. I was stoked! (This might vary depending on how long it took for me to reach the start line after the hooter.)