Two weeks into living in Dunedin and already claimed the Senior Women’s 10,000m track championship title. I only decided to enter this race one week prior, when I first met with the athletics club coach where he exclaimed how I should do it, and with Ray’s approval I signed up along with a 3,000m next weekend.
Now these races are not what I have been working towards and I am only currently in the first phase of four for my 10km in Christchurch at Hagley Park in a few months time. With only being in the early phase I’ve mainly been sticking to hills which aren’t hard to find around here with Level II training all with a few common strides.
Obviously, I knew I could run the race as thats not an issue its more how I would complete it, feel in it and the time I would have. By entering myself into races I’m hoping the more I do and the more I can try show my ability I can get my name around here and become more well known like I was at home but with actual runners themselves.
I made sure to prepare myself as well as possible but it can never be perfect especially when its a new space, I collected my top the day prior, so that was ready and at 7am I started my 1.5km walk from my current college hall to the track as I thought it would be nice to have a walk and warm up the legs slowly.
Time went fast before the gun went off, its strange not having a group of people you know racing with you and watching but luckily one of my friends decided to come along so that made it slightly nicer to know someone was there in support. The conditions were more than perfect with half the track shaded and half with sun, one down fall was the sun was directed to your eyes until it rose slightly to cover the whole track. The wind was not to be seen and the temperature actually wasn’t freezing as usual.
Finding a rhythm and a pace at the start was strange especially with being mainly surrounded with men, I didn’t know what pace I wanted to hold but it didn’t take long for that to be decided for me, the coach of Leith Harrier and Athletic Club was keen to let me know to hold onto and pace on the shoulder of one of the other male racers which I did for the next 5km, now I knew the pace I was going was hot but from one person wanting me to pace and me just using it as a training I kept that up and split the first 5km in a Personal Best (PB), of 19:03 and my last best being around a year ago being 19:20 so gives me confidence that I could right now go sub 19 and with training way under too, not that 5km races come up often its nice to update my PB once in a while.
This is where the steamers started to depleted and I could no longer hold the pacer ahead of me so I decided to go solo which was hard and mentally I don’t think I have the same strength as I would if I was through all phases as its hard to believe when I haven’t done much speed to feel comfortable with the uncomfortable, still enough not to stop but push to where I can.
Knowing my split was fast I knew with a slight back off I could still have a time I would be happy with and coming through the 10,000m I finished with a time of 39:20 so slightly slower second half but again that could have been the same time even if I balanced out the pacing more.
I’m stocked to have completed with a sub 4 pace of 3:56 I think per km, and know with some more training my body will go more and my brain will know I can go more. Choosing to wear spikes was a hit or miss decision as I now am going to rock losing my toe nails once again. I have new spikes I was going to purely use for training but may need to convert to both racing too as they are a size up, but without having using them yet I couldn’t break into them at the same time as race, as-well as I didn’t want to wear my carbon plated shoes as I like to save them for the key races I do to fee the support they give in pace and not get used to that in more common settings.
Never the less I’m happy with the race and got many PBs in all ranges of the races, while gaining the Otago Senior Women’s title, can I do it again next weekend in the 3,000m I guess we will see and see what difference in competition I may have 
– Jessica Bray