KJ's Don's Farm Relay

What can I say other than I am a little disappointed with my performance today. After my session on Thursday I was confident that I would go close to the 30 min mark and ended up at 33.xx (forgot to press stop) for the 6.2 km (I got 6.3km on my garmin). I turned up to the farm at Dapto at 7.30 am and it was already starting to get warm by then. Our team handicap was 25 min off scratch, wowee, I definately have never been that far back in the field before. The 3 guys on my team ran really well and were able to catch a fair few people, actually I dont thing any of them were overtaken at all. I had the last leg and by the time I was off and running it was 10.15 and the temerature would have definately been at 33 degrees by then. I was going OK at first overtaking 3 people out on the course which put us into first place. I managed to hold first place until the 4km mark when I was overtaken by one of the teams. I was really struggling with the race. My head felt like it was going to explode and my feet felt like they were on fire and my calves were seizing up even on the smallest hills. To add to all the heat I also had the strong warm winds blowing into my face as well. I was struggling not to get really disheartened, I really just wanted to pull the plug. So, I used a technique that Sean used with me in training when I wanted to give up he said "its only 10 min of your life" so I just had to keep reminding myself that no matter how painful it was, it really only was 6.2 km. Two more people ended up overtaking me in the last 700m. One of them I would have no way of catching but the other was a guy that I had overtaken. Near the end I knew there was no more hills so I decided to just give it all I had and strode out and ended up catching him, but as soon as he realised I was on him he flew off and I was stuffed.

So, we ended up coming 4th. I felt really bad for the guys as we put in so much work to get ourselves into first place. But, I suppose thats what handicaped races are all about they are designed so that everyone is on a level playing field and so that people are coming in at around the same time.

I had to keep being reminded that it was a really really hot day and everyone was feeling it. I also had to keep being reminded that it was meant to be a fun day that isnt taken too seriously.

I have to admit it was fun catching up with a lot of the KJ's that I havent seen in a while. Everyone seems to be running so well, I really miss that club atmosphere......