Nowra State Cross Country

Today: 14km
Week: 56km
Month: 158km
Year: 1379km

What a fantastic day!!! Ray and I met Bernie and Wayne and drove down to Nowra for the state cross country champs. It was a perfect clear blue day and it was nice and cool. The course is a 4km course around a farm in Nowra. It is a hilly tough course, with one particularly difficult hill at the 1.5km and 5.5km point. i had been warned that this was a tough course... so I decided to not worry about time and just run the best I could on the day. Bernie and I did a 3.5km warm up on the course and thank goodness because we had a chance to check out the nasty hill! It just confirmed this would be a tough run. We lined up with a good sized female field and we were off. Now to give you an idea of the quality of the runners we did our first km in 4:39 and we were at the back of the pack. Bernie and I both backed off as there would be no way we could maintain that. I felt pretty good and settled into a rhythm quickly. The course was a 4km loop which we did twice and the scenary was spectacular. I felt really lucky to have the opportunity to do this run ..... well worth the battle with the hill. the second time around I started to reel in a few runners and set my sights on a Randwick Botany girl up ahead. I passed her heading down to the nasty hill and then she passed me back towards the top of the hill.... but she must have used all her energy as I ran past and never saw her again. I had walked the 30m or so at the top of this hill because I had come to almost a standstill and was not able to lengthen my stride as my shoes kept slipping. So I just walked for about 30m and then took off and tried to make up the time on the downhill. Now I just told myself the hard bit was over and to maintain my pace and make use of the down hills. There was a really steep down hill section at about the 7km mark and I just leant into it and ran hard.... it is the first time I have completely let go on a down hill and it was a bit scary. The last km felt like I was running through mud and there was another mean little hill with 400m or so to go. Another lady I had been tossling with passed me at this point and I just thought "you win" I did not feel I had much left. I put in a slight sprint for the last 100m and finished in 42:40. I was so happy with my time. Not my quickest 8kms but I loved the run and felt I ran the best I could have. My best 8km time has been 40mins on a flat road course... so when you add the hills and grass into the equation I was thrilled. Taking time out of it I just loved the run, it was tough and challenging and a really rewarding run. So Bernie and I had big smiles on our faces and walked around feeling really happy with ourselves :-) so it was a great day spent witha great bunch of people. Ohhh how could I forget Eloise Chocolate Brownies!!! Amnanda had given me a heads up that they were not to be missed and she was totally on the mark... YUM!!!!! Ooh all the other muffins and biscuits were great also.
I did a cool down run with Bernie, Naomie and Amanda and cheered the boys on their tough 12km run. There were some great runs out there again today and the Striders boys picked up a gold and a silver... not too shabby! Ray took some great photos and I will put some on the blog tommorow! Finished a perfect day with some yummie vego pizza with Bernie and Wayne.... now off to bed!!!