Bribie Beach Bash

Sunday morning I was up just after 4am and on the road by 4.30. Picked up Rent Boy (Nick) city along the way and we arrived at Bribie just in time for the usual - pit stop, numbering, sunscreening, Bodygliding etc before the 6am start. Unfortunately I didn't have time to do the stretches that Adam the physio recommended before the race started :-(

What a glorious morning! It was overcast, not too hot, and no sign of that wind that was howling in Brisbane. Running along the hard sand on the beach in these conditions - it doesn't get much better than this. Adam had said it was okay to run 30k so long as I didn't run fast, so keeping that in mind just went out at a reasonabley cruisey pace. Hoping it was all I needed I'd loaded 3 hours of mixed music on the iPod and set it to shuffle mode. Interestingly in all the time I was out there only one song played twice - 'Music' by The Beautiful Girls. It totally suited the mood of the run so I'm not complaining. My main goal was goal was to finish, but I was hopeful of sub 2:50 as I'd done 2:51 on my last attempt.

There were only guys in front of me, but I wasn't too sure how far back the next girl was. Got to the turnaround in about 1:22 or so and found that Karisma and her training mate Karen were maybe just 300 meters behind. So the competitive spirit kicked in and I upped the pace a bit, though to be honest it wouldn't have bothered me if they passed me.

It wasn't long before a bit of a headwind blew up - I thought my CR cap was gone a couple of times. With about 7k to go the 15k people went past in the other direction. Great to see Lizzle as lead lady, and then running with a few of our regular training buddies Clairie was not far behind in second spot! And third was a fellow Pat Carrollette Sheryl. Woohoo, what a great day for the girls!!!

With loads more CRs including Hannah and Jess (Lady Jove) and other running mates doing the 15k there was lots of high-fiving all the way back, it gave me a much-needed lift. The last few kms were a bit of a struggle, the sun was out breifly, though its always tough at the business end of a race. I was keeping an eye on the watch and hoped to sneak under 2:40 though missed the mark by a handful of seconds. Still, it was about a 3 1/2 minute negative split, can't complain about that. Not to mention an 11 minute PB. Oh, and I picked up a nice shiny trophy for being the first lady.

A very relaxing barby followed as we watched the adventurous ultra runners come in and tell their stories. Next thing I knew Clairie was standing on a table calling everyone to attention. One of her kids walked over to me with a couple of dozen balloons and then Glenno and Lizzle come around the corner with this huge chocolate birthday cake all decorated with names of different races I've run. There were party hats and hooters. And of course there was champange. Man, talk about a surprise! I'd totally forgotten about any sort of celebration, I think the Sydney one wore me out. As my Polish friend Vera would say "how embarrassment". Golly gosh, how great are these guys!

Oh, and to top off a perfect morning, Rent Boy picked up one of the big random prizes - an $80 voucher for the local IGA supermarket. We dropped in on the way home so he could have a little shopping spree, and he insisted I help him spend it so I scored Chocolate Creme Oreos and a dark chocolate Flake amongst other things. Tee hee, lucky nutrition watchdog Lizzle wasn't with us :-)