It was a refreshing experience being on the other side this year. Standing on stage to sound the horn and flag off the 10K race together with long-time friend Ser Luck was pretty surreal. The sea of green stretched back at least 200m from the start line. Right at the tape I could see my friends raring to go… some serious faces, some relaxed and smiley… and I thought to myself, “So that’s what we look like when we start a race.”
And then having to make a speech on stage and giving away the individual 4th to 10th place prizes for both the 5km and 10km cats was pretty weird. Most of the winners I’ve known for ages in the running scene, many of whom I’ve shared the stage with (as a winning participant). To shake their hands and congratulate them was totally surreal…
As for my own race, I did the 5K and demonstrated what a lack of short course racing can do to you. I led the first K or so and kept thinking to myself, “This is so wrong”. True enough, I soon got passed. Was still in a pretty decent position (5th) till the last 1.5K when the legs started to give way. Was so happy to pass the line, good enough for 10th (not eligible for a prize and rightly so). Pace wise, it was faster than my usual tempo pace (about 4.20/k), so I can’t complain. 5Ks are not my forte anyway. Though I’m pretty sure that if I started just a little slower I’d have done much better. That, and tapered for the race! Haha.
Overall I think it was a well organised race and judging by the feedback on the Shape Facebook page, we made a lot of people happy too. Great job to the Shape team for all their effort.