Race Report: VON Kick N Asphalt

Hey all, so this is my summary of my race this Saturday: Von Kick n Asphalt. This was a 10k race made up of two laps, all road, and surprisingly hilly! The race started with maybe 100m flat before along extended downhill, followed by another rise and then another long downhill, easy stuff to begin with I thought! Heading down the hills I just let myself glide as best as I could focusing on just maintaining good form and cadence and letting the hills do the work, I felt that was going pretty well but when I hit the 2k mark in just under 8 minutes I realised I’d been letting off too much on the brief flats and uphills so I began to push a bit harder and found myself falling into a steady stride for the next kilometre through the flattest part of the race. After that I began on what was essentially a two kilometre uphill run culminating in a very long steep hill the finished just before the start/finish line. I felt like a had a fair bit of energy left to put out at this point but I haven’t been racing too much and was a bit out of practice and there was no one around to push me by this point. When I went through the check point I grabbed a cup of water and poured it over my head without breaking stride to try and cool my skin (because fun fact: if you read runners world you may have seen a relatively recent article about a research group which has found that skin temperature has a hug impact on running performance, possibly because it forces you to divert more blood for cooling). After covering myself in water I felt pretty good and was able to maintain a nice pace through the second downhill stretch and the flat. The final uphill was a painful experience and I remember the feeling of lactic acid accumulating in my legs and stomach as I pushed up but I made sure not to think about how much was ahead and instead just focused on maintaining energy output. The constant effort worked well as it allowed me to push up the hill and at a decent pace before accelerating into the finish to win in 36:51! I was hoping for a faster time but I think partly I need to get used to pushing myself harder in races again because when I finished this it felt more like I had just come off a tempo run rather than an all out effort, the course was also much hillier than I expected! Anyways all in all a fun, well organised run, I look foreword to running it next year!