This weekend I completed my first longer distance race where I ran at a racing and competitive speed. I went into the race knowing how I wanted to structure it and with rough race paces set to my watch, I didn’t know what to expect with the other competitors and just went out with just a personal achievement as the goal.
I got to the front of the start just a couple lines from the first row, when the race started it wasn’t as fast as I was expecting but still fast, I sat at the pace I knew I wanted to be at and let the other competitors do the same, very quickly into the race I already found myself overtaking some of the racers who sprinted their way out which made me feel better about staying to my paces and conserving my energy for the rest of the race.
I kept myself comfortable and was feeling great and very strong. When I lead up to the harbour bridge I was expecting a harder incline but was met with a low long constant gradient, the hill sprints I’ve done have definitely helped with my legs but just keeping consistent helped it not effect my other end of the race.
I continued to up my efforts to the end and kept over taking other runners in my race as they started to hit the wall, seeing this keep my confidence high.
Crossing the finish line with a time I was very happy with was a great feeling and had an idea that I would have placed well, all the running is with the free banana at the end, getting through the thick supporters crowd was definitely tough on the way back to the car.
After checking the result on the website I was taken by surprise on how well I placed, in my age group of 15-19 year olds, I placed 3rd and for females overall 6th, as well as for overall for all runners 26th which had 1,800 overall competitors.
With only the goal of a personal race this made it much more of an achievement and made me so grateful for the work I have been putting into my training and for it to be paying off this well, it has definitely given me more excitement for future trainings and races. This also showed me a side of longer racing which I have come to love and would definitely enter more in the future.
– Jessica Bray