The time is in the book...

...so all we need to do now is put the entry in and we're good to go. 36:28 according to the results.

Had a particularly ordinary night's sleep, not really settling until 1 or so before getting up at four for some toast and coffee, back to bed for an hour, then up, get ready and out the door to pick up 26miles and head over to Homebush.

Arriving early, got through 4k of warm up and was nervous to the point of near incoherence. Conditions were ideal, though - cool and still. The inner gravel section at Wentworth Common was mostly dry. Still hate that bit, no energy return, slippery, or you lose distance running on the tarmac.

Managed to snag a position right up the front - numbers were down a touch with many members at the Gold Coast Marathon events - and had the Garmin set to go off every 3m38s.

We started and there was the usual jostling of position. I elected to take the tarmac the first time around and we got through the first kilometre in around 3:42, which was ideal. I seemed to pick up pace from the downhill section that leads under the brudge through to the 5km mark. Turnover and stride were good, although I was certainly aware I was fairly close to my maximum. The field was a little thin - I was racing with a fellow who left me at the entrance to the Common, and I had periodic sightings of Ross Sinclair and Boof.

Second time around Wentworth Common I elected to take the gravel section. Got through 5km in 18 flat, which mentally raised an eyebrow - "I feel okay, but that might have been a bit quick". The small climb past the start/finish area put up a little caution light, and as I came out of the Common the legs signalled that given I was 2 seconds outside my 5k pb through 5, they were under the impression that we might have been doing 5 and not 10.

From there on they continued to signal their disapointment, and form started to suffer as I became a bit thrashy trying to maintain speed. Of course, this meant a higher heart rate, oxygen demands went up, and I started to suffer aerobically. Acknowledgements of fellow runners became grunts, teeth were gritted, and eyes were closed. The metronomic 3:38 alarm started to come before the kilometre markers, and by about the 8km marker my 10s buffer was gone. It was fairly lonely, too - I was pretty well by myself, with another fellow about 15-20s up the road and going away.

The emotions of the last two km were a mix of despair, desperation and periodically determination. I was very close to just packing it in, jogging out the last kilometre and taking the high 36, and actually fantasised about accepting the "well, you were close, but you got your PB, good effort". I couldn't let it go, though and flogged it through to the finish. I neglected to stop the watch until a few seconds after crossing the line, managing to stop it at 36:33, leaving doubt as to what the time was.

This coloured my mind a bit post-race, and I was on tenterhooks somewhat until the results came out late Saturday afternoon, showing 36:28. Two seconds under goal time. I guess I should be more pleased than I am, but the big positive split was indicative of how much I'd battled over the second half of the race, and I can't help wondering if 10s invested at the front might have been worth 20s at the back.

Still, it's done. I'm a mid-36's 10k runner now, and it looks like I get a sleep-in on August 14. The shift in my speed paradigm in the last two months is a little scary - suddenly I'm finishing up ahead of the Andrew T's and Coasters, when not long ago they weren't even in my mental picture.

Just wait until I'm 5-7kg lighter and have another couple of months of speedwork under the belt...