200th 10km Race!

This goes back to 16 July 1988 while I was still at school, I can remember it vaguely: The Speedo 10km race out in Bellville. My 6th road race and my first 10km... I crossed the line in 38:24 I don't know my position or anything else, but that was one down!!! It would take 2 years before my next 10km race, but then...

In the early to mid 90's I would line up at the odd 10km race with the aim of running a PR, putting my body on the line and seeing how the weeks / months of training had paid off. Back then I felt if I wasn't hurting by 3km I wasn't running hard enough...

In August 1991 I followed one of the top Ladies (she had a great pair of legs) and dipped under 35min for the first time... At the same race in '93 I was flying and ran a PR of 32:10 a time that would last for 3 years.

June '96 I followed Steve Hollier, the top 40+ back then, in a quest to break 32, and failed by less than a second!!! Looking at my splits taken from the km boards back then I would bet the race was long, but Mr. Garmin was not around, so we will never know. In Jan 1997 I would run the Nando's 10km with Margy, she was coming back from injury, and our time of 46:41 would be my slowest. I've only been over 40min 21 times and most of them I've run with Dawn, both before we got married and since.

I was now racing marathons and on track so the need for speed, pure raw speed was gone... but I never stopped running 10km races... In November 2001 I would run my 100th, and together with 2002 I would run 17 10km races that year.

Now this last weekend I was up early on Saturday to go for a long run with a friend, then I ended up at the Cross Country by accident, and ran the 8km 40+ race. So with the rain falling and the wind blowing I don't know why I got out of bed on Sunday morning!!!

But it's a good thing I did... it was to be my 200th 10km race, The wind stopped and the rain stayed at bay!

I lined up with my friend Roger and the 2 of us ran a solid race:

3:39  3:39  3:42  3:38  3:35  18:16 (18:23 as per the race boards) this was a 2 lap race, so lap 2 went:
3:38  3:41  3:40  3:36  3:27  0:07 Garmin calls it a bit long... 36:24 (placing me 29th and 2nd 40+)

The missing stat... My average time for my 10km: 36:18