Portsea Twilight Fun Run

The Saturday just gone was time for our 2nd annual trip down to Portsea for the Portsea Twilight Fun Run.  For those of you who don't know, Portsea is a place to avoid at this time of year.  There's only really one way in and out, and it's "The Place" to be seen, and a day trip from Melbourne, so it's absolutely nuts!!

Event preparation had gone well for myself, i trained hard early in the week, with an easy swim and ride in the days leading up to the race - i wanted to go in relatively fresh while still training for the Sandy Tri in 4 weeks time.  Claire, who was lining up for her first fun run "run", had a mixed lead up with the past month including getting over a knee injury, a back injury and a case of the miscellaneous childcare disease from Em.

So we arrived in time for the famous Portsea Undie Run, a 100m dash for those who are willing to strip and sprint for the chance to win some new running shoes. This was followed by the warm up aerobics - which generally means we walk the other way.  As luck would have it, the start was about a kilometre from the number pick up / finish line, so off we went.

Claire was doing the 3.75k, which started 30 mins before the 7.75k event, so off to the start we went.  The 3.75k event started on the same course as the 7.75, but turned at about the 1.5k mark and headed back.  

Claire had a fantastic event and ran / walked her way to her Portsea PB!!

The course, as shown below on the plan and profile, is relatively flat for the first 1.5k and last 2.5k...but the bit in between is a kin to some sort of living hell for those of us then live in the flat lands...

I slowed on the hills and got damaged a bit, consequently i didn't quite have the legs to go as hard as wanted over the last 2k. Having said that, i was quite happy with the race i ran.  I bettered last years time even though they added a kilometre to the distance :)

Edit: i forgot to say i ran 38 min 21 seconds for either the 7.69km or 7.75km course, depending upon whether you believe the garmin or the race organiser, which equates to 4:59 min/k or 4:57 min/k... Either way, i beat the 5 min/k i was aiming for :)

Here i am finishing, being the *serious athlete* that i am, i was more concerned with stopping the Garmin than holding form over the finish ;)

So, now it's time to get serious about Sandy and hammer some distance out... :)
and then it's back to the hills for Puffing Billy Great Train Race and 13.2k of hillish hell!!