Last weekend I was in Newcastle for the weekend for work, and ran in the local Parkrun 5k. It wasn't the fastest course with some gravel path and a bit of breeze, but I was a bit disappointed with an 18:00 (second place).
This dropped my confidence/goal pace for the 10k track race last night.
B'Man kindly offered to pace me for the first 6k, and Craig D did my lap counting (especially useful after my Garmin fell off my wrist on the first lap). The conditions were perfect - little breeze to speak of. The field was down on last year though, with only 15 in the sub 40 race.
I felt alright other than having a large bread roll in the car driving to the race from work, which threatened to come back up for most of the race.
The plan was to run 87/88sec per lap, but predictably wasn't quite so even
I started out 82 then 84 then several 86 second laps. B'Man let me go for the first 3 laps or so before pulling in front of me and doing a great job of pacing me - far enough ahead so i wasn't worried about catching my feet on him but when he got more than 5m ahead pulled back a little.
B'Man stopped at 6k at which point i had to knuckle down. I was about 50sec ahead of 37:30 pace so thought I'd concentrate on running 90 sec laps then push in the last 3 laps to get under 36:30. This is pretty much how it eventuated, I didn't have anyone to run with but focussed on those who lapped me or those i was about to lap to keep the attention going. I kept all laps under 90sec (just) and pushed the last 2 to finish in 36:23
i never lost form and this given me confidence that a sub 36 is still there for the taking in the right setting - might even run at the Fremantle 10k race next weekend.
Thanks again to Simon and Craig. Roberto won in under 32min and lapped me 3 times, second place lapped me twice. Ended up 7th overall. Next year this race moves to Challenge, so much closer to home but potentially much windier.
