Run Geelong 2013

Larry

Barefooters
Sep 13, 2012
591
1,796
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Run Geelong is a 12km fun run that runs around the centre of Geelong, a small city 70km or so down the road from Melbourne. It's a big race by our standards, with nearly 2000 people doing the 12km and plenty more doing the 6km run or 'family walk'. Proceeds from the run go to the local hospital special care nursery, so it's well supported and I was keen to run after the hospital looked after my little girl really well when she had hip problems as a baby.

It was my first time, the longest fun run I've done in over 20 years, and my first attempt at a barefoot fun run. Having missed the last two with injuries, I was super careful in the lead-up to the race. I made sure I could cover the distance properly, practiced on the dreaded asphalt more than usual, and even ran parts of the course in advance to get an idea of where the hard bits were going to be. I thought I had it in the bag, but then I came down with a nasty flu on the Monday before the race. I wasn't able to run at all for the week leading in and thought that bailing was on the cards, but by Sunday I was over the worst of it.

I decided to run dressed as a barefoot hippie, so I spent the week before the run tie-dying a pair of shorts that I found in the local op shop, and making a big peace sign medallion out of cardboard and aluminium foil. I found a colourful dashiki top and a blue scarf with flowers in another op shop, and bought a novelty pair of yellow John Lennon specs. My little girl painted my toenails in rainbow colours to complete the outfit, and I was ready to go.

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The race pack said the start was at 7:20, so I was up early to get ready, and as is my habit, I was running a little bit late. Fortunately, they must know my type quite well, because the actual start time was 7:40. I couldn't find my work colleagues in the crowd at the start, but I did run into a few mates from my running club who I didn't expect to see again once the race started. We packed into the chute and the siren went off to start the fast people. A short walk later and we managed to break into a run just after the line.

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The first 2km was very crowded and the road was a little rougher than I had expected, so I had a bit of trouble settling into a steady pace and I felt like my form was all over the place. One thing that really threw me early on was hearing the constant 'slappa-slappa-slappa' of hundreds of feet, all running with a slower cadence than what I was trying to do. I had to concentrate on making sure I didn't automatically adjust to the prevailing tempo, which everybody seems to do.

We turned into some residential streets and I ran some of it on the concrete footpath (sidewalk) rather than the rougher road, and then we turned into the Pakington St shopping strip and I enjoyed some nice smooth bitumen. I was starting to settle by this stage, and I tried to run well within myself and crack a few jokes with the runners around me and the crowd. I heard plenty of "Did you see that?"s, but not many people actually said much to me early on.

We turned back towards the city centre and straight into the sun, which was bright and, well, sunny. This was a problem for me because my yellow novelty Lennon specs already made everything too bright and I had trouble seeing the road, but I stuck with them anyway. The things you do in the name of fancy dress.

The middle 4km was great, smooth roads, lots of spectators, and a big pack of runners dragging me along. I high fived a guy who called out "Peace Man!" from the sidelines and waved to lots of kids. I felt like I was cruising along easily, but I was maintaining a steady 4:30 km pace which is fast for me. I went through the half way photo point at the top of the Moorabool St hill feeling very good about myself, but mistimed my attempt to show the peace sign for the cameras. Something to work on for next time.

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Once the smooth city streets were done, it was time to run a few km through Eastern Gardens. I was worried about this section because the roads are all sharp bitey chipseal, so I ran it a couple of times in the lead-up and tried to come up with a plan of finding more runnable spots on the edge of the road where I could and taking it a little easier. A young guy bounded past and said I had balls of steel, and I told him "I run like this because I can't run like you". I had to suck it up and tiptoe over the unavoidable rough patches without losing too much speed and found some grass and pine needles to run on when it was too much to handle. I missed the 9ish km photo point because I was off the road and hiding in amongst the trees, and then with about 2.5km to go and I passed a guy who asked me "How long have you been running for?". I said "about three years", but he said "no, I mean today". He was aghast when I told him I was doing the full 12km.

The last bit of the gardens was the worst, but I had worked out previously that the best bet was to run in the bluestone gutter and try to make sure I didn't land on the uneven cracks between cobblestones and twist an ankle. I probably looked a little bit funny hopping along avoiding the cracks like a primary school kid, but it worked and I was soon back on smooth roads with less than a km to go to the finish. I picked up the pace a little going down the final hill, and then a guy passed me with 400m to go and challenged me to a sprint to the line. I had a good crack at it and we passed a few people, but he had too much speed for me and I finished on his heels with a (scorchingly fast, by my standards) time of 57:00.

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I'm just going to pretend I can't see a horrible looking heel strike in that photo - I guess I must have been shutting down my sprint and giving up at that stage.

I finished the run feeling fine, and didn't have any problems with my feet to speak of. A couple of guys came up to me for a chat at the end which was cool, and then I headed off to a workmate's house for post race bacon and egg rolls which were truly awesome.

In the aftermath I found myself feeling really sore for a whole week, but nothing too serious. I'm already keen to do it again next year if I can stay fit. It was great fun.

Peace, man!
 
Congrats and well done.
 
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Deserves a spot on the home page. Will be there in a couple of days. Love the Lennon specks! And nice representing.
 
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Thanks everybody!

Hi Larry,
Great run and under 1 hour for 12km that is some speedy running. I would think you would be up in to top 30% of the field or better with a time like that.
It just goes to show that you don't need shoes to do a good time.
It looks like I need to sharpen my pace in case I ever come up against you in a race ;)

Neil

Cheers Neil. I was pleasantly surprised with the time, and I don't think I would have been any faster in shoes, which I guess is the main thing.

The results say 399 out of 1835, which I was really happy with. Mind you, I was more than 25 minutes behind the winner, and there were plenty of people who beat me who didn't look like real runners. :)
It looks a little less impressive when I say 117 out of 286 for my age group, although being a 39 year old in the 30-39 year division puts me at a disadvantage against all those spring chickens. Not that I'll be any more competitive in the 40-49 group next year - some of those guys get quicker as they get older.
 
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On the home now. Thanks for sharing!