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發表於 2009-7-7 15:36:41
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Review: Gold Coast Half (05/07/09)
This is just a review of my weekend stay in Gold Coast for running my 8th half marathon in my life. The half marathon was on Sunday so I decided to stay there for 3 night from Friday to Sunday.
Gold Coast wasn't the strange place for me as I traveled there during Christmas week last year. It is not a nice place for the one who don't like water, but I still enjoyed running along the beach under the sunshine with seabreeze. This time I didn't plan any day tour so I decided to spend most of my budget on accomodation. I settled at a neat appartment called Breakers Nth which is located between Surfing Paradise and Broadbeach. It is a desirable location to get something to eat. Also it is not so far away from the race kit collection place (convention and exhibition centre). Once again I tried to run along the beach on Friday evening as my last run before the race. However, my calf was still pretty tight so I only had 20mins run and walked back with bare feet.
I do agree I had luxurious life over the whole weekend, particularly the spending on food... averaging $20 per meal excluding the XXXX Gold I drank each of them. But that's fine for a guy who don't have much chance to spoil himself that much. The room has a big TV so I enjoy watching Wimbledon particularly the marathon showdown between Federer and Roddick.
On the race day I got up at 3:45am and took the shuttle bus scheduled at 4:40am. It was the cold morning but it wasn't as chilly as Run Melbourne last Sunday. There were many people around when I reached there. I bought a cup of chocolate to stay warm. After doing some warm up I left my luggage (which is a 'real' luggage as it is my sole container of this journey) and jogged to the start line. At that time the sun rose from the other side of the bay which is so beautiful.
I didn't stand on the front pack but lined up after the wave who aimed for 1:40-1:50 finishing time. It was pretty crowdy over the narrow line up. Thus there were 2mins delay of my run once the race had started.
I still haven't figured out why I ran that slow for the 1km (5:15). Perhaps I had too much wondering or day dreaming, but I knew it was going to be an uphill battle to fight the deficit if I want to finish under 5:00m/km. My calfs were tight for the first 5km before I started to get used to it the rest of the race. The course is flat and fast overall despite some small inclined did cause me trouble to mitigate the deficit. I started to increase my pace since 8km mark when my calfs were fine and I was quite happy to run my 10K split just under 50min. I saw Big Kev running at the other side with his bright yellow singlet. He seemed chasing the 1:30 balloon and I reckoned he was going to run another PB.
I am not sure my half split time (10.5K) but I am pretty sure I ran faster in the 2nd half. At least I pasted number of people especially 12-15K. I heard one guy said something like "to see whether we can beat this Chinese guy..." when I just ran past them. I have no idea if they could beat me finally. At least my 2nd push did draw someone attention, which is rare as I often run slower in the 2nd half.
My brain started to lose focus at the final 3km which is an usual case for my previous half marathon run. But I still tried my best to hold the pace till the end as I knew my body were able to tolerate this hardship. It is all about the mental strength. I crossed the finish line with 1:46:0x gun time, 1:43:4x net time. A minute faster than last week in term of the net time. The positive side is that I ran my first negative split HM and I was happy to finish strong comparing with previous HM I ran. It was nice to meet Kirstin and we had some chats. I felt happy to know she ran her PB by 5 mins which was so impressive.
I had trouble to find my luggage back as I got lost after the race. It was crowdy everywhere and I spent an hour to get my luggage back and spent another half an hour to cross the bridge and left. I had a lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant, watching people running along the road. It was a nice Sunday in Gold Coast although my legs were pretty sore afterwards.
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