Race Recap: Round The Bays

Race Website: Round the Bays

I last did this race in 2012 and I did it in 1:20:58.  It's a big event, very popular with individuals, groups and particularly workplaces.  Lots of people were wearing t shirts with their company slogan on it and at the finish area companies hire out marquees and put on food for their participating colleagues.  We had decided last minute to enter this event since we had done well during the Albany Lakes series and this race is all flat along the water front we thought we could do good times.

Official Stats:

Distance: 8.4 km
Time: 56:26
Pace: 06:43 min/km

Pre-Race

We had to pick up our race packs and then we decided to grab some lunch in town.  We went to the crab shack and had salads and beer and it was so nice I could have stayed there all day just drinking beer in the sun.

On The Course

The start area had been colour coded depending on how fast you intended to go.  Kane had a blue runners bib and I had a red joggers bib so we hung out together for as long as we could and then had to split into our respective zones.  The coloured zones were a great idea in theory but perhaps other people didn't understand them because they were largely ignored and there were lots of blues, reds, and purples (walkers) up in Kanes section and by the time I made it to the start line there was a large family all walking across the start line together.  It took me a good 1.5km or so of dodging all the walkers and pushchairs before I finally had a little bit of space.  I probably ran 10km in total with all the weaving I did!

There was lots of entertainment on the course, water stations were spraying water into the crowd and there was a candy bar part way along the course too.  I high-fived 4 ladies on stilts.

Overall though I just enjoyed listening to my own music shutting out the audible stimulation and being carried along in a wave people being both a part and apart.

The finish line was upon me before I knew it.  It took me by surprise, I thought it was further away and I was skipping through my playlist to find a good song to finish on.  I didn't even get to the chorus!  I crossed the line and trying to fire up my app to stop timing but my hands were so sweaty I couldn't get it to recognise my finger print so I had to type in my password with shaky sweaty fingers.  It worked on the third attempt.

Post Race

I got my water, found Kane, got a beer and we swapped race stories.  Our results were immediately available to us via the Round the Bays app which was pretty awesome.  We then walked the same route back to get back to the car and then we went straight to McDonalds for one of their Create Your Taste vege burgers that's become our Sunday post run treat.

I was really happy with my time and I got a new pb for the 5k as well.  I feel like I'm really making progress!