After what has felt like a long while (it was actually only April, coincidentially also at North Head), the stars finally aligned and I was able to race a Striders 10km....
Picked up Tim and drove up to the Hospital, registering and still having time for a quick warm up.
The course had changed slightly since April with the start now on the main road rather than at the top of the hill. This meant that the first km was less congested, but the turnaround point was now the stone arch rather than a little further up the hill...which in turn makes the last 500m all up hill.
From the start my focus was to maintain a solid but comfortable pace whilst trying to push the hills. I knew I didn't have the legs for a spectacular time, so instead tried to focus on a solid hit out, although for some reason, the Garmin was showing me running at 4.10 pace whilst the km markers told a different story...strange.
By about 2km in, Tim had left me for dead, trailing the 40 minute pacer by only a few seconds. Meanwhile I continued to try and hold my form while not being overtaken by too many runners.
Knowing the course pretty well I also concentrated on breaking the route into small sections, each with a downhill part to finish...and that seemed to work well and I continued to feel pretty comfortable. By this time I had also found myself in a group of about 5 runners, managing to hold onto them for a good few km.
I went through 5km in 21.20 feeling relatively ok and whilst the time wasn't great, I didn't seem to be losing much pace or many places.
From there on to the finish I concentrated on putting in the effort on the hills and pushing the downhills, albeit knowing that the last 500m would be all uphill.
As is customary, I battled with a few around me over the last km or so, eventually crossing the line with 42.59 on the watch, although the same watch had the distance at 10.15km! Not quite the sub 42.30 I was aiming for, but not surprising either given the lack of any sustained pace work over the past 6 months. Hopefully, more regular sessions with the HuRTS guys will help that....notwithstanding that my principal aim is Melbourne and not a 10km pb!
Met Tim afterwards, who had smoked a 40.46 for a great PB. His running has really improved since the GC.
Didn't stop for breaky, instead heading straight home as it was pretty cold.
All up, not too bad a race, and actually my quickest Striders since last November...
km splits (according to the markers on the road, not the Garmin):
4.09, 4.26, 4.12, 4.21, 4.11, 4.20, 4.22, 4.20, 4.20, 4.13.
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