Big Bertha

I felt really nervous about this morning session. It was the first hills session with the group since I hurt my hip and Big Bertha is always a challenge, so I was worried about how badly I would struggle. So when the alaram went off I really thought about just doing my own thing- but decided if I did'nt go back today next week would be almost impossible. As soon as I met up with Deanne I felt better and ready to tackle big bertha. BB is a 10 lap course of hill in centenial park. Sean says 10 laps is 5km..... but gandalf says 4.5km. I was pretty happy with my run this morning- I decided to take the first 5 easier so I did not die too much in the final 5. I was able to maintain a pretty consistant pace... with one or two slower ones. I decided today I would be satisfied with 25mins, but I managed 24:02. I worked really hard on the last lap to get a sub 24.... next time. My last BB was a 22:45, so a bit of work to be done..... but not my worst time. The good thing was that mentally it was not too hard to just keep going... despite all the puffing :-) Mark was again running really well... improving all the time ( I think he lapped me twice!). Louise did really well in her first BB effort... putting in a really good last lap :-)

Splits:
2:20, 2:23, 2:25, 2:26, 2:25, 2:30, 2:20, 2:24, 2:23, 2:16

I think we ran about 8km give or take- including the warm up, cool down and strides. So I am feeling satisfied with ny effort and ready to get the times back down. As I said early- slowly slowly :-)