I wasn't going to do it at all, thinking I was still in recovery from the North Face (this is exactly 3 weeks since the race), plus I haven't raced a 10km in so long, the last thing I wanted to do was go out too hard and injure myself or just feel like crap during the race. But it's such a fun race and so many great people I know were doing it, it seemed foolish not to at least turn up and have a crack.
So I decided if the monsoons of Friday night had eased by the next morning I would give it a solid tempo run and just have fun. In fact I applied to be the 45 minute pacer yesterday, but Jo got back saying that someone had just taken the job.
The conditions were perfect morning for running - cool without being freezing, not windy, fairly dry road, no sun. I nabbed a lift in with Andrew and as I chatted with everyone around me at the start (Andrew, Dog, Chris O, Tim, Reid, Todd, John Binfield, Mike Conway, Tom Highnam, Jeff, Horrie, Georgie etc) I just felt so happy to be part of the running community in Sydney!
Of course as soon as the gun went, everyone went mental, taking off at a pace they would never be able to hold. Seems to happen everytime at these races. My only plan was to find a pace that seemed comfortably hard and sustainable, stay ahead of the 45 minute pacer, and just monitor my legs and lungs to see if I needed to ease up.
The first couple of kms passed easily, I was chatting with those around me, waved at Charlie and his little boy spectating, and just enjoying the run. I saw the 2km marker at just over 8 minutes and thought "Well this feels ok, I'll just try to maintain this pace". The next marker I saw was another 2km on and it was under 8minutes for that stretch. Ok the legs still feel light, I'm breathing easily, and I'm almost halfway. Maybe I'll go around 40mins?
I then kept the pace even and ticked off the kms at just under 4 minutes each, passing more and more people as I went. At 9km I knew it was easily going to be 39.xx and with 100m to go I saw Dog in front of me and put on a spurt to catch him. It felt great to still have some pace in the legs and finish strong.
Over the line and chatting after the race I thought "Why have I left it so long between 10kers?" but of course my training schedule just didn't allow it for the longest time. But I'm totally going to try to make as many as I can for the rest of the year, so much fun!
2km - 8:05
4km - 7:56
6km - 8:03
7km - 3:51
8km - 3:54
9km - 3:56
10km - 3:42
Total: 39:28
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