With a 7:30am race start I could afford to sleep-in this morning. Banana and poached egg for breakfast and I was ready. We drove in and parked in Woolloomooloo, only a short walk away from the start line. Beautiful sunny crispy-cool morning made perfect running conditions. Hammer and I lined up in College Street with about 20 minutes to the start after a quick visit to the port-a-loos and a drink of water. Chatting to a few Striders standing round us while waiting to start, the sandstone walls of St Mary’s Cathedral were reflecting the early morning light and it was great to be fit and healthy and living in the land of the runner.
The atmosphere reminded me of the City the Surf – we were lining up in College Street and the dense crowd stretching back along the street contributed to that feeling. An hour earlier I did not feel like doing this race but now that I was here I was going to give it my best. Two weeks ago I wrote down my dream race goal (1:48) and my realistic goal (1:52) based on training effort so far. In the last two weeks I ran a total of only 76km over eight days averaging a pace of between 5:20 and 6:50min/km on these runs. Nothing focused or specific, just ticking over kind of running. The gun went off and after standing around for so long I thought it would be hard to get moving. But I was surprised by how good I felt as soon as I started running – I felt light on my feet so I just ran by feel - but by 5km was a bit concerned that I may have started a bit too fast. I knew I could get to 10km at this pace but then who knows.
The second half of the race, the mind knew what was coming. Thoughts of pulling out danced in my head at this stage but I knew, that just like an addict, I needed to have that wonderful euphoric feeling of a runner’s high that finishing an event can produce. So heading out on Macquarie Road again I just focused on ticking off the hills and staying relaxed in between– Argyle Street, Hunter Street and lastly Mrs Macquarie’s chair. I told myself just focus on finishing each which will bring me closer to the finish and I can then simply cruise home for the last kilometre to the finish line. And so it was, I was feeling relatively strong at the beginning of each climb and ran though at the top trying not too loose any momentum. I crossed the finish line in a net time of 1:45:12 with pace at 4:59min/km for the first 10km, 4:58 for the next 10km and 4:58 for last km. It would have to be the most evenly paced race I have ever done – not sure where it came from. And a Half Marathon PB – who would have thought. Just like my first SMH Half Marathon 15 years ago – memories are made of days like this - and although the atmosphere of the race is different, it is all good.
1 comment:
Your splits on line are perfectly equal. 49.56 first 10k, then 49.58 second 10k and then 4.58 pace for the last 1.1k. Thats disciplined running. I am sure you can go sub 100 with the Hammer next time.
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