Pinning the race numbers back on for Sunshine Coast Half-Marathon

"If 'Plan A' doesn't work, just remember there are 25 other letters in the alphabet so stay cool!"

I've definitely cycled through a few plans and letters of the alphabet over the past few months but all of that came to a close at Sunshine Coast Half-Marathon last weekend and I finally got around to pinning the race number back on.

Following Byron Bay Triathlon in May I was always going to have a short break from racing before getting stuck back in, with the aim of targeting a few Ironman 70.3 and Challenge events in and around Asia. Sunshine Coast Ironman 70.3 was always going to be the next big goal but I had a few races in mind to keep me motivated and on track over the four month period. One after the other, I found myself pulling the pin and pushing back the next race for no significant reason but just a number of things that seemed to interrupt my training a lot more than I wanted to.

While I might've used the excuse of a few minor injuries, being busy at work and a car crash holding me back, I finally clicked on and admitted to myself that the biggest thing holding me back was my own motivation. I've always found that I'm intrinsically motivated and don't necessarily need to be pushed along by anyone else but my training had become a bit stale and as I went out to go training one day I actually said to myself that I'm not enjoying what I'm doing and need to make a change.

I've learnt to really embrace change this year and after taking a step back and looking at what I was doing I decided I needed to make a few changes to my training environment and structure, I'd found the enjoyment and motivation again. The biggest change I made was starting to work with a coach who has taken a lot of the thinking away from me. I tend to overthink everything but lately all I've had to worry about is getting stuck into the session at hand and I'm loving it - nothing to stress, think or worry about except for being in the moment.

Going in to the race, training had been going really well and I'd got myself into a good routine and was back to really enjoying what I was doing. I was really keen to have a solid run over a course that would be very similar to that of Sunshine Coast Ironman 70.3. My immune system on the other hand had different ideas about how the weekend was going to pan out. It started with the all too familiar tickle in the throat and before I knew it I was struck down by man flu. Running a half-marathon and in particular, a half-marathon that is an Australian Championship requires you to be at your best and coming down with the flu a couple of days beforehand meant I definitely wasn't going to be at that. It meant an altered plan of attack but I was still on the start line on Sunday morning.

The plan of attack wasn't anything stupid but to still have a bit of a crack at a solid time without making myself worse for the coming week of training. I was never in contention for the win, with the fastest time being approximately 1:03:00 but I was somewhat pleased with my time of 1:16:28 and 16th overall. To be honest, all things considered the run went as well as could be expected. I'm always going to sit back and say I would've liked to go faster but the body pulled up well post-race and training is continuing along well for Sunshine Coast Ironman 70.3.