Maybe McMillans is on to something....

As mentioned in previous submissions, I have returned to my old race day routine of arising 3 hours before the start of an event, eating two bits of toast with honey and having a strong cup of coffee - yes, instant, I'm not prepared to risk scalding at 4am.

Got up for real at 5:20 to a cool (around 8-9), still and very foggy morning. Picked up Johnny Dark at Drummoyne at 5:50 and hit Lane Cove National Park a touch after 6. Here, it was dark and foggy, which made getting entered interesting.

Light gradually came good and I got out for a little 4km warm up - I felt okay, although not fantastic - did some stretches, some strides, and headed to the start.

Rounded splits for the 10k were as follows (as per the km markers, the GPS always battles normally at Lane Cove, let along with fog and damp tree cover):
3:38
3:45
3:49
3:47
4:01
3:38
3:43
3:38
3:38
3:24

Note due to rounding the splits add up to 37:01, not 37:06 as the watch indicated at the end.

Thought the first km was a bit hot and got out of the throttle a bit before the climb to Sribblys. Was solid on the climb up - has anyone noticed that Scribblys is actually two hills, with a bit of a flat section in the middle? - and made a point of really attacking the downhills. Carried that to the start of the climb and was sensible through there, although I was feeling it a bit towards the top. Brain mentioned that since that was the last significant climb that maybe that was a good thing. Made a point of shifting from the hammies and glutes to the quads just before the turnaround, and was able to really hammer from there.

I got sucked into a battle over much of the last half of the race with Coaster and I think this dragged a lot more speed out of me. He finally yielded with about 400 to go and I set my sights on Andrew T, who we'd been edging closer to since about the 7km mark. I drew alongside him on the right (which on reflection was a mistake - I should have gone up the left and suprised him) just before the left turn to the weir, and he took the inside line and was able to hold me off.

5k splits were 19:00 and 18:01, with the last 3km covered in 10:40.

I was confident during the week that I could comfortably slip under 38, and with the McMillan Calc suggesting 37:02 based on the 5k challenge time from last week (which I thought was optimistic, I thought 37:30 would be a good result. I picked MPHaz's 37:37 as a mark, just as he was around this ballpark when he did his 5 and 10k PBs, and it seemed a good target. Guess McMillans was right.