Saturday's 5k Challenge

Arose to a cool but pleasant Sydney Saturday morning.

Dropped the other half off at the start point, drove the bus to Timbrell Park and parked it so she could pick it up on the way back. Jogged the 2.8k back to the Drummoyne Rowers, was decidely junky initially but felt a bit better as 26.2 miles caught me on his bike and I met up with Gasher who was warming up as well.

Usual chatting went on before I went off with the 19 minute group. I initially hung at the back of the main pack, but had the feeling they'd gone out pretty hot and fell back to around 10 seconds behind. I got through the first km in about 3:47, so they must have been well under 3:40.

Had a solid, if fairly slow rhythm going through to about 2.5km, and then, going by my splits, had a bit of a doze from there to about 4km (apart from a brief burst on the downhill after the left turn on to Dobroyd Parade) - effects of the last two days training coming through, with 'dead' quads. Put in a half decent last kilometre to finish at 19:22, which I'm a little disappointed with, but still, given the 20.5k from Thursday and the hard 3 x 2k yesterday it was never going to be brilliant, and I was certainly never stuggling aerobically, just didn't have the leg speed.

Then, the typically 'hard' easy jog back to the start to chalk up another 5k back to breakfast and Blue Dog's excellent blueberry pancakes and a bit of chat. Had to scamper, though for our second wedding in a week up on the Central Coast.