Timmy Lindop was picking us (myself and Vic) up at 0610 so only a few hours sleep later and I took myself, singlet and skimpy shorts to the corner of Crown and William. Paul Birch was also in the car and we all had to hear about Tim's "fair" bet with James Matthews which sounded, to the rest of us, like a rort.
Never ran Lane Cove before, but heard it's a tough course with two big hills and plenty of undulation. In Birchy's words, "it's not a fucking quick course".
Almost pitch dark on arrival and bibs were handed out under torchlight. A 1km warm up with Tim and Vic, at about the pace I ran North Head last month, and we were about set to get underway.
Time-wise I was thinking about sub-40 again, definitely after hearing Mike Ho was pacing that time. He runs close to 32 minutes so 40 minutes would be easy and I had confidence he'd do a good job. I figured I'd just try and stick with him, but drop away early if I was feeling the pace to try and prevent a blow-up.
From the gun Mike and the 40 minute group got a bit of a head start on me and I was left in a slightly slower group just behind. Could see James and Birchy in the 40 minute group and managed to bridge the gap. Felt pretty comfortable, but the first hill (2.5k) saw Mike make ground on me, and a few others, and I decided not to go with and ran my own race from here on.
Lengthened the stride coming down, but felt I was stronger compared to others on the way up. Downhill running is something I really need to work on. Back on the flat (read; undulating) and I kept it comfortable around the 4:10 pace being well aware the next hill was reputed to be even tougher. And so it proved. Just didn't seem to end, but again made ground on quite a few of the guys around me, only to be lost on the long downhill.
There's about 4k to do after coming off the hill and I just fell onto the shoulder of some girl doing a similar pace. I'd pass her on the uphill sections, she'd pass me on the flats/downhills. I was just starting to think about pushing hard and dropping her over the last one or two kilometres when she went up a gear and left me for dead. Chicked again. Didn't even bother giving chase.
Came in on 41:12, which I was pretty pleased with over a tough, tough course. The downhill finish is nice, but I'd say that's the hardest 10k I've done. Enjoyable though. Paul Birch was pretty close behind with me being 55th overall.
Confidence building certainly. That's about the same time I did my first 10k in last year, in May at the Great Manchester Run (41:06). A much easier course. As such I feel I'm probably faster than I was and a month earlier. McMillan predicts a 91:51 at Canberra next Sunday which I'd take your arm off for.
Another top result for Victoria who got her second 10k PB on the bounce, by about 20 seconds, on a tougher course to North Head. Exciting to see where she'll finish this year. She's almost 2 minutes up on her PB (Manchester) from last year already.
And Timmy's bet/rort? He'd given James a 90 second start and subsequently ran a 38:43 whilst James went round in 43:02.
The little Stoke battler/rorter. Still, I fear the bet he's given me next week is even more one sided...
No comments:
Post a Comment