City to Surf

As mentioned below I've had sort of a stilted recovery process from the marathon, which has involved going too hard at times, then backing off altogether, so it's not really been what you'd call a steady progression back to decent mileage. Plus the City to Surf was exactly three weeks after the marathon, when you're not supposed to run any races for a month afterwards. So I was never going out to set any records!

Still my goals were to have fun, run steady and hopefully get in under an hour. I'd like to break 55mins one day, but this wasn't the year, nor did I ever expect it to be. Plus with that amount of people, it's never going to be a straight run to get your best time. So I gave myself the goal to finish in under 60 minutes, not kill myself but pace well and have fun - enjoy the experience of racing again!

I got chatting to people at the start line and forgot to double knot my shoelaces, so of course they came undone after about 50 metres and I had to pull over and waste 30 seconds or more doing them up before rejoining the mad rush of the massed start!

I wasn’t feeling like I could push it for whatever physical or psychological reason, so was happy to maintain a pace just under my ideal race pace and weave through the crowd and up the hills without being out of breath or in pain.

It was a warm day too, must have been close to mid-20s, and I saw a number of people staggering and going down with heat exhaustion. I drank and poured water over my head at all the aid stations except the first and last and I felt noticeably better cooling off at each one.

I finished at 57:06 (57 flat on my watch) which I was really happy about and I felt fine straight afterwards, legs a bit sore but not empty or struggling by any extent. I hydrated well and then jogged up the hill against the tide, hugging the houses and driveways to keep out of people’s way and braving the ten billion original comments of “You’re going the wrong way!” until I got to a shady spot at about the 9.5 km mark, where I couldn’t be bothered doing the salmon thing anymore and stopped to wait for Sarah. Within less than 5 minutes I saw her and joined her, then we ran together to the end which was great fun! She did such a good job, with very little training and on a hot and hilly course she ended up running the entire last 4 km!

We met up with the work crew and had a great Thai meal before hitting the high road home for a big gourmet dinner and some Sunday night cocktails. What a perfect Sunday.