Why you don't drink the night before short races...

Woke on Saturday morning around 7:30 or so, fully aware of the CR drinks the previous night with a slightly disturbed stomach and a touch of a headache. EliseS had a personal training session so I lay in bed half awake until around 8:30, enjoying the lie in.

The stomach didn't clear, leaving me at Mutch Park at around 2:30pm Saturday afternoon after a fairly ordinary 1 mile warm up wondering if I could decent odds on me throwing up climbing the big hill on the third lap. Mister G and Amjan were racing as well, with Skizzik taking photos.

Photo courtesy of Mister G's Blogspot

The course wound its way through Mutch Park, starting next to the car park, running parallel to the exit road and then heading up alongside the footpath to the corner next to Bonnie Doon Golf Club, then ascending the big hill next to the golf course. You then descended the same hill, through some loose dirt, headed up into the north section of the park, winding between the trees and then heading back to the finish, with a little complex of corners near the finish with a nasty little climb and descent to the finish to complete the 2km loop. The race was 6k, so 3 loops it was.

Finished in 22:38, with laps of 7:30, 7:40 and 7:28. I probably got out a bit hot in the first lap, consolidated in the second and had enough in the last lap to push and make up a place - I passed another guy just before the finish but he had a huge kick down the hill to the finish line that I couldn't counter. Never felt great during the run, with my stomach playing up, plus other, uh, biological urges. Taking that into account, I was pretty happy with the run, and looking at times from previous events, it looked a solid hitout. Tough little course, with a fair bit of loose surface, weird cambers and quite a lot of tight turns making getting rhythm difficult.

Jogged through a 2km cool down with Mister G to finish off. Two little niggles at the moment - left hamstring, right up the top (only appears occasionally) and my right hip. Which reminds me, I'm due to see the Horned one again...