Winning the Gold Coast Half Marathon on the weekend has solidified my confidence that the training I am doing is heading in the right direction. The major goal this year is to medal at the Commonwealth Games, and I feel I everything I am doing is on track three months out.
I must admit that I really didn’t think the race would come down to a final 400m sprint. I mean, come on, we had 20.7km prior to stake our claims for the win, and who wants to sprint after sixty-two minutes of running anyway. That said, sometimes races just turn out that way. Going into the race, my race tactics were to relax for 18-19km and then push for home hard, but I needed to be flexible and adapt to whatever happened in the race. The most important objective was to finish first.
The race was not as fast as last year and from the start the Japanese runners were leading with clockwork 3:02 splits. We slowed through 10-15km and as soon as we hit 16km, Marty put in a solid surge to get away. I got caught napping and had to make up the 10-20 metres I lost. Once I got on his shoulder, I just relaxed and bided my time.
By 18km, the pace had picked up and we were now running pretty hard. It was down to just three of us (third placer Hironori Arai was there as well). The pace felt pretty good, and as we got closer to the finish my confidence in a win was increasing. I hit the lead with about 1.5km to go but didn’t really push, as I wanted to wait as late as possible and make it decisive. I wanted to leave no chances for anyone to counter-attack.
As we approached about 400m to go, I told myself “when you go, SPRINT!!” So that’s what I did. I immediately opened up a gap and was on my way to victory. I was running as hard as I could into the finish and I could feel my hammies, quads and calves screaming at me to stop, but I had to get to the line first. Only as I reached the last few metres could I afford to ease up, finishing with a relatively comfortable three second win.
I am definitely very happy with the outcome, even though I would have liked to have gone sub-63 again. It was great to win such a big race, and to put on a good show for the spectators. I'm really happy to have started my lead up to Delhi with a win, and hopefully i can continue winning all the way through to the games.
As for the weekend as a whole, from the time Heidi and I arrived until the time we left, the organisers of the GC Marathon and the staff at the Holiday Inn, made us feel very welcome. It makes racing so much easier when everything is well organised. It is definitely a great race to compete in, and a very enjoyable weekend. We had a great time, and look forward to heading back there in the future.
This week i'll take training a little easy and get back into it after I represent RBH in the NSW road relay championships. This year has been a great year so far, lets hope it continues.
You can follow Jeff on his website at www.jeffreyhunt.com.au
* Photos courtesy of Inside Athletics and Marathon-Photos.com
