Wellington Road Championships (Read 530 times)

Today was the Wellington Road Championships at Trentham, a major highlight in the local road racing calendar. The championships cater for all age groups, with various distances for different categories. Senior men, Vet (over 35) men and Senior women race over 10k. Vet women race over 5k and the juniors do varying distances from 2k for up to 9 years olds through to 5k for up to 19 year olds. The 10k was on last but I went up a bit early to watch the Vet women. The race was won overall by Bernie Portenski, a Scottish Harriers clubmate and age group world record holder at 3k, 5k and 10k. She ran about 18.30. 40 minutes later she lined up and raced under 40.00 for the senior 10k. She's only 58 years old.... So I cheered all the many Scottish finishers in the 5k and then watched in a mix of awe and amusement as the seemingly thousands of tiny kids in the 9 and 11 categories hurtled round the 2k course. Ok so there was probably only about 100 of them but they seemed to be everywhere - and some of them are really very fast indeed. Finally it was my turn. We lined up at the start, about 150 men and maybe 20 women. I looked around and couldn't see any of the women I normally run with. Not good news. The chance of being last in the womens race was looking quite high. I put that thought straight out of my head. I was trying to get under 50mins, not worry about what place I finished. Time to concentrate on the things I could do something about. I went off nice and slowly. The course is 5 laps of 2km - great for pacing and motivation (a big cheer from the Scottish contingent every time I went past the finish!) Not so good however for getting lapped by fast people - the first one went past me at about 3.5k and then there was a steady stream of overtakers for the next 4.5k. The first lady (from Wellington Harriers) managed a friendly "well done" as she shot past - well in the lead of the womens race. I settled into a rhythm well. I'd been right about being the last woman but there was plenty of company from the Vet men so I happily ran with them. The first couple of laps didn't seem too bad. Lap 3 was noticeably starting to get harder but I was pretty sure I was still on target to go under 50 minutes. Lap 4 I really had to dig in, but astonishingly when I did so there was still some extra energy there. Lap 5 was a bit strange as all of a sudden it got very quiet - all the people that had been lapping us had gone into the finish and as we ran past suddenly there's was only a few of us left! It was good to be almost done though and I was pretty certain now that I could get round the last lap in under 10 minutes. And I did. I even had a bit of a sprint finish with a guy from Hutt Valley Harriers who had overtaken me with about 500m to go. I went past him with only about 20m to go and caught him by surprise I think. He tried to catch me but momentum was on my side and I just squeezed in ahead of him. 49.38 - a PR by almost 2 minutes and my first sub 50 minute 10k

Nice job on the PR, Mandy! I can't wait until I can run sub-50 for 10k!

Great job! Breaking a 50 min 10K is certainly a milestone

49.38 - a PR by almost 2 minutes and my first sub 50 minute 10k

WTG, Mandy!!! Nice report