6FT Race Report- Finally

After cruising to victory in SStriders 10k the Sat before, I felt confident that I should run OK in the 6FT. My final hitout prior was a 3kTT on Tues at Mingara. Weather was fine, I ran 8.51 feeling very relaxed. But on the side, I had sustained a slight injury to my plantar fascia after the Striders race on Sat. It was under control, but was of concern.

The Start: Found myself going down the stairs in about 20th spot, was not concerned as I wanted to go easy at the start. Stopped to do a (edit - wee) and tie up my shoe, and lost about 10 spots, but was still not concerned at all.

The Middle: As I tried to up the pace once down the bottom, um, I was concerned as I felt like it was a real effort for me to change pace, which is not a normal thing. From that point on, my 6FT was just a slogging, grinding run. My immediate goal was just to finish, and not to walk at all. Was happy to finish 9th and not 10th (apologies to the 10th person *Webmistress*). After reading the final results, I was very surprised to find that I ran the 2nd fastest time up the hill. I had no strength at all going up that hill, and just ran easy.

Summary: A couple of good things came out of the race - one was seeing my daughter at the finish, and 2) - Still hold the course record for King of the Mountain.

PS. Can I quickly say a big thank you to my support crew, my manager, my coach, my masseur, my medical doctor, my psychiatrist, psychologist and my number one fan (*most of the time*), Di. (*Ohh, thanks*). And of course, thanks to the little garden gnome himself, Kevin Tiller (*and the firies, and all the people who handle all the other stuff that we don't see*).