11 km Beach Run

Wednesday 29th February 2012

Today we ran 11 kilometres from Hardwick Bay along the coast all the way to Wambana. My time in this run was ninety two minutes. It was pouring today so everything was soaked, we rode on the buses to Hardwick Bay and we got off there and went to the beach where we warmed up, the warm up really didn't do much as we were all still cold. We started running exactly at 7.25 am it was hard to run in the sand, so I devised a plan to run on the shells and rocks near the edge of the water. I also decided to break the run into different sections and set myself short term goals. I decided to run 3.4 kilometres flat out and then break for about 500 metres then run slash jog all the way to the 5.5 kilometre mark then break for 500 metres again and run to the end of the pony trail and walk 30 metres and sprint the rest of the way in. It was really hard until the 3.4 kilometre mark as I hadn't found my steady state. Then when I started to run again it felt a lot easier as I got into my steady state really quickly. I did however feel a massive pain in my legs and back as I was constantly using my legs and back because I pushing myself to the limits.

Bill Song and myself were running along with each other and we pushed each other along, then when we got to the pony trail, I ran a little faster and I decided to finish in front of Bill, but Paul came along in the support vehicle and I sprinted off ahead as I wanted to finish before him and he almost ran me over, but I just kept on sprinting to beat him to the end. It felt really good when I reached the end as I knew that I had just run 11 kilometres and that all the training and hard work we had done over the fitness program payed off and we managed to do what we thought was the most difficult thing in the world. We estimated time for this run the previous day and Dale also made a prediction on how fast we would do, my estimate was ninety minutes and Dale's estimate was eighty five minutes, but because of the weather conditions we all did a little slower than expected. So Dale is cutting our time down by two minutes I my prediction was exactly correct.

Yesterday Dale explained to us about the rewards that we would if the boys who challenged him beat him and the consequences we would get if they lost. The reward was that we were allowed to buy things at the BP when we stopped along the way. If one person beat him then we were allowed two items, if two people beat him then we were allowed three items, it three people beat him then we were allowed five items and if all four of them beat him we were allowed ten items, sadly only one person beat him so we are only allowed two items, but I am still happy with that. Dale also explained how this run was like our life, the first part of the run was school and university then, the second part is when we are starting our jobs, the third part is when we are senior people in our jobs and the final part of the run is when we are retiring. It is meant to show us how we can overcome any challenges we face throughout life. This run was also meant to show us that we can do anything if we set our minds to it and try our very best.