LWF 8km, Brisbane

Big day today, my first race since about October last year, and my first ever race while taking part in a running programme.

I had a timeplan in my head of what I wanted to do, when. I got up at about 6.30am. Had my usual pre-run espresso, chewed a few gummi bears and hoped in the car off to Southbank, bottle of water in hand. Arrived down at Southbank at about 8am, ready to cheer in the early finishers for the half & full. The atmosphere there was pretty good, and although it was threatening to rain, there were plenty of spectators around to keep things lively.

My plan for the run was to make it 5min/k. I'd never ran an 8km before, but this seemed like an achievable target, while still providing a challenge and a hard race. Unfortunately the start was typical of a lot of runs, and bottle-necked to begin with, making the first 500meters or so more of a 'dodge the stroller/walkers' than a run. Once I'd gotten around these and enter the Botanical Gardens I really started to get my pace and feel comfortable. My first split was at 5.15min, but felt things were going well given the slow start. From there on I seemed to creep up a bit faster with each Km. At the 4km mark I was on 19.50 and felt comfortable to meet my 40min target. At 6km I approached the Goodwill Bridge, with previous run's around Brisbane I had always found this really painful, but having been running over it now a couple of times a week for a while, just the once up was easy! At 7km I was starting to hurt, it was now 9.30am, the sun had come out and was shining down hard as we ran back along Southbank. As I exited the tunnel and headed down to the straight, I could see the markers for the 42 and 21km, the finish was just past these - with one of the other CR's yelling at me to 'get my knees up', I put everything I had in to the last 100meters and finished with a time of 39.05!

Spent the rest of the day drinking lots of water and trying to stay awake, amazing how a race of half the distance of my longrun can take so much more out of you. Looking forward to the results being published now, and seeing where I came overall :)