Five Kilometres to Hell and Back

Krista looking as fresh as a daisy after the Longest Day 5K.

Disgusting, isn't it?

I finished a few foot steps in front of her and was coughing up pieces of lung for the next few hours. My allergies and asthma kicked up and I really struggled between kilometres one and two. Five minutes in I almost dropped out, and at twelve minutes in I could sort of breath again. But in the intervening minutes the field streamed by me, including most of my age bracket...



Between kilometre one and three, Justin - who is getting faster by the week it seems, while I get fatter (hhmmmnnn, is there a correlation there?) - had put almost four hundred metres between us. I have lost my heart rate monitor chest strap so I am without a tachometer these days. I have no idea what my heart rate was. High! But at 3K I gave full chase. Afterwards, I thought I was going to stroke out. Justin hit 196 beats per minute at the end of the race, and I could get no closer than 12 seconds - probably a 80 or so yards. I finished in 21:47, a time for a 5K that was pretty disappointing, but given my training program of lots of mileage and not much speed work, maybe not so surprising...

Between fighting off his cold and my late rush, at least it looks in the above photo that we gave young Mr. Justin a run for his money...



The only thing that made the race bearable was the BBQ afterwards and the beer tent. Let's all hear it for the beer tent. The Thunderbird Track Club really put on a great event.

The amazing Mr. Hugh did a 20:36. Way to go Hugh. He then went cycling the next morning at 7:00AM. He invited me, but I chose to stay in bed...

Mr. Patrick, who tooks these photos, did an 18 something. There is a reason I won't show his face here...

Bastard.