Sunday, 9 March – Pro Meet (Bendigo)

Going to be 37 degrees today in Bendigo and very pleased for the air conditioning in the car. My race is at 4:24 pm. We didn’t get to Bendigo until about 40 minutes before my race which is a little bit later than I would have liked. Once we got the children settled, I barely had enough time for a warm up run. As I only had one race today I extended the warm up a little. Wanted to do 15 but only did 12

The track was perfect. Firm underfoot and in really good condition. Best I have seen this year. The event was part of a three day Madison event for the long weekend, so racing was on the infield of a velodrome. And it was only 360 metres around

This was my first foray into frontmarkers running. Evidently, my mark is improving to the point that I am now in the frontmarker category rather than backmarkers. Fair enough, as most backmarkers should run around 4:00 – 4:15 for a 1500 and I am not in that class. Yet.

For some reason, perhaps the smaller track the front of the frontmarkers were “pulled back” from their usual mark to 150 metres which would be the maximum today. Normally the front guys are spread out up to a max of 400 metres, so it was quite a way back for some of these guys

My mark for this was 30 metres and second most at the back. So I had 1570 to travel. Had no real plan other than to try to maintain good pace. I have barely got into my first lap and the commentators are saying the leader has 3 laps (1080 metres) to go and I still have 1620!

No real movement for the first two laps, although I can hear the commentator say that I am the best placed of the backmarkers. With two laps to go, the leaders are about 200 metres ahead of me and I am thinking that perhaps another 5th or 6th are on the cards.

I get around with about 500 to go and I can see the leaders are only about 100 metres head of me. Getting a little excited now as I know that money is paid out to fifth place in this race.

Get the bell and I am making up some really good ground on the leaders which number about a dozen. No colours there which meant they were all out at the very front when we started

Catch them in the back straight and suddenly with 150 metres to go I am in the lead! Can’t believe it!! I can hear the commentator say that I have put a big break on the field and then barely 125 metres later I can hear someone finishing stronger behind me. I try to put in a burst but kinda think to myself that second isn’t so bad and still wins some money so I settle for that. Costly decision!

So I have finally placed in a pro meet and discover later that it was the richest pro race of the day. I won $200, but $600 went to first! Still, a victory would have cost me a run in the Restricted Mile at Stawell and realistically the guy who beat me was an 800 metre runner generally so was always likely to have a better finishing kick

Warm down run and dinner in Bendigo putting some of those winnings back into the local community before we get home at 9:30 pm

TOTAL DISTANCE = about 6.5 kilometres