Noosa 5k - The race of my life.....so far!!

Noosa 5k 16:36 - 7th of 692

At about 8:51am this morning, I lunged across the finish line to just pip a rival in a desperate battle for 7th place and looked at my watch like a stunned mullet to see 16:36 staring up at me. A massive 69 second PB - how the hell did I manage that??

The training for my first serious race in nine months has been outstanding but my preparation in the final 24 hours wasn't too flash. I drove up to Noosa with MJ after a long day at work on Saturday and realised that I had forgotten my contacts and sunnies, meaning that I would have to race in my 3rd option, wearing my specs. As both MJ and I were late booking accomodation for Noosa, we ended up at the Tewantin Caravan Park in a cabin. As I drifted of to sleep amidst a coughing fit in the dusty cabin, I suggested to MJ that we would have been better of emulating Coach Pat who in his younger days, had been known to pitch a tent in the Noosa National Park the night before a race.

Race morning dawned and I felt good. Did a 2k warmup and watched the Half Marathon from various vantage points as part of my duties in reporting the race for Run For Your Life magazine, for whom I am compiling race reports. I also cheered on MJ and my team mates and really got fired up when team mate Jodie scored a stunning surprise win in the Half. If Jodie could push it to the brink for 21.1 k's then I would have no excuses for not doing likewise over 5k.

I took a position on the front row of the grid for the race and shortly prior to the horn, locked eyes with Coach Pat who was MC'ing the events and as we nodded to each other, Pat's instructions rang through my brain one more time "Treat Sunday more like a race than a Time Trial. Once the fields settles, your aim from this point is to either stick with the pack or pass them. Run aggressive and try and work you way through the field."

The horn sounded and I immediately took a prominent position near the head of the field and after two minutes, I was in a pack of five who were jostling for third with two leaders 20 metres further in front. With my legs feeling light and fresh and turning over quickly, the first k passed in 3:17, which was ten seconds faster than the plan and I eased off the gas just a touch, to avoid blowing up. The field began to string out in the second k and I was in ninth position, drafting behind two blokes running side by side. The second k went by in 3:34 and at this point the race really began. Cheered on by team mate Peter H at the turnaround, I surged into 8th position, but the pace was too hot to hold and I dropped back to 9th shortly after. With no three and four k signs for the 5k race contestants, I only had a rough idea of my pace at this point of the race, but I was more concerned with keeping in touch with 7th and 8th, bowling along five metres in front of me. The pain really started to set in 12 minutes into the race when I looked at my watch and thought "five minutes to go". The weak side of my brain tried to intervene at this point saying "You've done really well so far. You can slow down a little and almost certainly still get a PB. Take a look over your shoulder and see where 10th and 11th position are. If they are a long way back, you can slow down just a bit and still get a PB and top ten finish." The strong side of my brain shut down those thoughts - I honestly can't remember how though, as things became a bit blurry at this point as I fought to remain in touch with 7th and 8th, still five metres in front of me.

With about a kilometre to go, the fog in my brain cleared and my thought process became analytical and calculating - 7th place was the 17yo #3 runner for the GPS winning Nudgee College Cross Country Team - "He's faster than me, but I'm a Marathoner and I can go harder, longer and I'll get him". 8th place had a Domino's logo on the back of his singlet and was running well but with a loping stride - "Hang onto him - with that stride of his, you'll be able to outkick him at the end." I plumbed the depths of my stamina and tried to increase the pace just a little more. As we approached the bridge about 400m out from the finish line, the Nudgee runner faded a little from 7th and was passed by Domino's. I increased my speed even more, caught up to the Nudgee runner, dropped him straight away and approached a flat out sprint as cheering crowds and the finish chute loomed in sight. Domino's glanced over his shoulder and managed to increase his speed as I loomed two metres behind. I found one more gear (surely I didn't have any left?) and remained two metres behind Domino's as we rounded the bend of the finish chute, 50 metres from the line. Domino's didn't slow down and I didn't have another gear to overtake him but I said to myself "keep the foot down in case something happens". Almost as soon as I said that Domino glanced over his shoulder again, saw me still there, had a brain explosion and headed left for the 10k race finish line whilst I veered inside him to the correct finish line. Domino's realised his error and veered to the right, back inside but it was too late and I flashed across the line in 7th place with a sprinters finishing lunge. You bloody bewdy!!!!!

It took me ages to recover after the race and I was still wandering around in a bit of a daze, with weak legs for five minutes afterward. My team mates were as stunned as I was with my 16:36 time and the magnitude of the achievement began to sink in everytime a team mate congratulated me but I kept a lid on my excitement convinced that the time was too good to be true and something had gone wrong such as accidentally stopping my watch too early. However, there was no mistake with the time and the USM results confirmed it when released later in the afternoon. Still, until I run that time again or go over the course and measure it myself, a small part of me will keep saying "the course must have been short"' because a 69 second PB from a pretty fair 17:45 previous PB isn't supposed to happen.

This was the greatest run of my career to date because its the first time I believe that I've run a race to my potential and the effort has confirmed that my career goal of a national Marathon ranking and sub 2:43-45 marathon is not a pipe dream. A huge thanks to all my team mates, I can't possibly thank the many of you individually, but I'd like to offer a special thanks to Coach Pat for his guidance - you're an inspiration, Mate! Thanks to Aaron and Slash for pushing me in training the last two months. Thanks to my fellow shin splints sufferer, Jodie, for inspiring me with your Half Marathon win! Thanks to Tesso, Clairie and Chelle for the never ending encouragement. Thanks to MJ for the support and being there for me. And finally, a big thanks to Langy for his belief in my ability and for telling me several times over the last year "You're going to be a great runner one day, Mate".

As Jeff Fenech says, "I love you'se all."