Saturday - May 15: East Met

Enjoyed a rare sleep in on Saturday morning. After dealing with shopping, had an early lunch and got ready.

After battling horrendous Sydney traffic, arrived at Sydney Park, Alexandria to run in the Randwick-Botany Harriers East Met 5k Cross Country. Bit shocked to see Sean Williams (well, maybe not Sean), Paul Arthur and Chris Truscott. Got through a quick 2k warm up and some stretches/strides.

The course was 90% grass, consisting of two loops of the park, including assaults on three pretty serious hills.

The fairly smallish field (guessing 25 starters, some were doing the 2.5k) took and I settled into a nervous solid pace. The first, and worst, hill sorted a fair bit of the pack out and I took up station around 20 yards or so behind Jenny Truscott and another young fellow who ended up running the 2.5 only.

Felt stressed aerobically but 'in control' as much as you can be over a sub 20 minute blat. The downhills were pretty steep and it was an opportunity to 'open' the stride up, particularly with pushing the foot out in front, and I found I was able to make ground up. There was also an interesting little kink to the right where the surface went from grass to tarmac to gravel, all combined in an off-camber steepish downhill right corner. Trail running has some benefits - I was a lot quicker through here than a lot of people.

Got through the first lap and was hurting, but maintained station behind Jenny. The drag back up the first hill showed she was hurting as well, and I managed to draw even down the hill. She slipped back in front between the downhill and the second hill, and I again drew level down this hill. I was able to put a gap in between us up the third hill, and having seen the lie of the nasty little gravel kink, flew through there to finish fairly strongly for an 18:41 and seventh place.

Ran a 4.5km cool down with Mister G that proved eventful, but it is not my place to report on these incidents.

Suspect the course was short (Garmin said 4.73km, I would think around 4.8) but with the hills was very happy with the consistency of the run - I can certainly pick my improved cardio, and technique is getting there. Nice not to embarrass myself in front of my coach!