Well what an up and down journey this has been over the last month or so. Last time I wrote I mentioned how sick I had been and had only just gotten back into a jam packed training program to try and make up for lost time. Well this proved to be a silly decision as I ended up with an over training injury in my upper left leg. I was unable to walk properly let alone run on it. I basically had to sit out the last 2 weeks up until today and just rest it as best I could then just go out today and see what I could do with it.
As you might remember I was originally aiming for a sub 70 minute run which means I would have had to run at an average of less than 5 minutes per km over the 14km. Naturally I thought I was kidding myself to even beat 80 minutes with my horrendous preparation and still carrying the injury into the run to a certain degree. My leg was heavily strapped by my physio to give me every chance I could possibly have and it did help a lot.
So what was the final result you ask? Well I still to this moment cannot explain how I actually pulled it off but I came across the finish line in a time of 1:08:49 (68minutes 49 seconds). The leg just held up, although I'm feeling it now, and I ran smart. I conserved, conserved, conserved at the start and then as I felt more and more confident I was able to slowly open the throttle up a bit, especially once I got heart break hill out of the way. I am absolutely ecstatic with my result and can't wait to give this another crack next year. Hopefully with a successful preparation!
