Central Coast 10km run

After some very wet and stormy spring days, we woke on Sunday 24/11 to some gorgeous weather.

Just the weather wanted for the NSW Central Coast Half Marathon and 10km run.  It was an early 5am start to arrive at our destination.

My SSS buddy Molly was running her first half marathon, so lots of excitement for her :)

They set off at 7am and we were to head off at 7.45.

Just after the half marathoners headed off, we were informed by the race director that there was a mother and daughter who were running the half today - TWICE!!!  Sharon and Kristen De Souza were on a mission to run 7 marathons on 7 continents.  They arrived back at the start line at approx. 7.15, had a banana, a drink and a pep talk, then they were off again.

I was feeling good for the 10km's - my head is feeling more positive!!!

Off we headed along a flat, narrow, windy course.  As always, the pace is quite fast for me at the beginning but I seem to cope alright with it.  We did get a warning that there were a few elite athletes running the half and sure enough at about our 2km mark the were heading back!!!!  Very impressive to see these runners making it all look so easy.

All was going well until about 8.5km when I started to feel really hot and my head was saying that it was too hard, time to walk.  But NO!!! I was not going to walk, not too much farther to go.  I trudged on, with the finish line almost in sight.  As we came around to the start/finish line, my heart dropped - the finish line wasn't there.  We had to run about another 500m to get to the finish line!!!!  I'm very much a numbers and visual person and was not impressed to see  had to run that little bit more.

I finished, tried hard for the last bit, was determined to better my previous time of 1.05.38!!!  I use runkeeper to keep me on track with my pace, but sometimes it stuffs up and it always takes me a little bit to turn it off after crossing the finish line so I never know just how close my time was.

But I'm a happy chappy, I did it, knocked time off my previous run ............... 1.04.27!!!

The best part of the day ............. the run, the watching my friend Molly cross the line completing her half, the brunch, the catching up with old friends.  The whole day was great!!!