The Horrie and Belinda Show

16/10/05

I enjoyed another great morning out at the monthly SMC series. It's always great to see the usual suspects but it was great to see Truckie and Aunty K backing up after the Melbourne Marathon last week. It was also great to see Sydney Striders legend Frank Dearn out there running hard in the 10km.

There was a bit of talk at the start about expectations of times and there was a bit of poker playing going on. The only person who ran close to the time they stated was Professor who had a good run to run a course PB.

I missed the start as I was playing around with my watch so it would give me my 1km splits. By the time I got my watch started, Superflake had bolted out of the blocks in his first serious hitout after telling us he was going to stick to the grass. I settled in just behind Papa Luigi who had settled into a nice rhythm. I then moved up alongside him and we ran together through the next km or so. As I was feeling surprisingly good at the 2.5km drink station and I could see Solo and Professor up ahead. So I stepped it up a bit and set about reeling them in on the climb to 3km. I pulled up alongside Solo at the top of the climb but he would have nothing of it and pulled back away from me on the downhill where he set his sights on Professor. I continued to chase them and I could see Superflake gradually coming back to them as his lack of fitness was starting to show. I was starting to close the gap and reeled all 3 in just before the turnaround which I reached in 21:27. The only problem was that I after I surged past them I had nothing left so I couldn't sustain it. Just as quickly as I went past them, Solo again pulled away and I was content to run side by side with Professor until the 6km mark. As he pulled away, I told him I would see him at the finish as I knew I couldn't stay with him. As they both pulled away from me I just concentrated on holding my form and not letting my time blow out too much. I could hear footsteps behind me but I refused to look. I sensed it was Papa Luigi who was not far behind at the turnaround. I had visions of him cruising past me at 9km as I could feel the energy levels dropping. When I got to 9km and nobody had passed me, I had a quick drink and just gritted my teeth and gave it everything and was relieved to get to the finish in 43:10.

Splits were:
4:19
4:11
4:15
4:19
4:22
4:20
4:24
4:20
4:24
4:12

I was very happy with the run today considering it is only a week after Melbourne. I am amazed that I was able to run a minute quicker than last month. A better paced run combined with it not being as humid as last month probably helped. This is now the 6th day I have run in a row since Melbourne and I think this has helped get the body moving again. Already looking forward to next month.