Thursday, November 18, 2010

Rollercoaster week and race report

Last week was really  too full of upsets... and end up with a much better then expected result...

Mon: I felt legs really sore from the race, so I did not feel like running
Tue (late evening): a good 15k at good pace, legs felt better
Wed: could not run
Thu: I woke up very early in Dongguan and went for a long run in the forest. It was a "chilly" morning and the air was very crispy, so it felt very easy. I went left, right, north and south for 1h30', and I was ready to run back home....      .....I was less than 3 meters from the end of the forest trail, when I stepped poorly on a root and felt the ankle twisting...  ... in a flash I saw myself in crutches for the next 2 month, but by a split second later I was already aware that it was a twisted ankle, but not a serious one...
Now the issue was that I was alone in a forest in China, 6km away from home, with a mild twisted ankle...
.... as a matter of fact, the only solution that I found was to run back home as fast as I could (3'45" pace...) before the ankle get cold and become swollen.
Once home, I started aggressive icing, because I really did not want to skip Sunday's race
All counted... I run 26km (in 1h56', including many trail section) and I was feeling really good.

Fri: not run, icing all day, I could not walk well
Sat: same as above

Sun: icing plus a couple of pills of Voltaren did the miracle and with Saturday's evening self assessment I gave myself the green light to race.

Mid november... is the day of the "10K HK championship": a massive event with 6000 runners at the start.
I like this race because everybody in town is there, there is a huge atmosphere and the course is quite fast (even if not flat)...
In my last attempt (2007.. time flies), I scored a 8th place overall with 34'00" time, but I am nowhere near to that levels...
I would have been happy to close below 35' and win the Master category.
I was also the debut of our gorgeous uniform (more on separate post), so I felt compelled to to well !

The start was as expected a crazy fast affair, especially if there are 6000 runners starting on top of a flyover....
I clocked the 1st Km in 3'05", which was barely the minimum to stay in the bunch...

just to give an idea of the crowd

So I settled into my own pace (around 3'25"-3'30") and especially took notice if anybody was wearing the bib for Masters....Compared to last week, It was a completely different story. I did not feel sharp, but at least with a good amount of energies and quite in control of my stride.
KMs passed by relatively quick and by 7K I was wondering if I still have forces to increase the speed a bit and catch the large group slightly ahead or just keep going and content myself with the win of the Master category...
Maybe the body still had something left, but my mind was refusing to suffer more to gain some unuseful positions... especially in the last 500m, when everybody else was charging for the uphill sprint to go back to the top of the flyover, I was really shutting down my "fatigue receptors" and cruising to the end...

So I closed 1st Master, 19th overall in 34'53"...
The ankle was not 100% but I did not felt it too much...

For our "Team Italia" : congratulation to my buddy Stefano for arriving 2nd Overall and to Colin for an outstanding 7th overall.

Even today, 1000HK$+Asics shoes as price, so I did not end up empty handed...

Here some nice pics of the day
in action

Stefano on his way to 2nd place

Another "Team Italia" strong showing...

Kenyans wins everywhere... even in  HK...


more modestly....I get the prize for 1st old guy



1 comment:

RICK'S RUNNING said...

Sub 35 is very good, I hope to get back under 35 one day!