East Met Sydney Park 7.5km

People who know me know I'm a bit of a stickler on the time front - to the point that I tend to be chronically early for appointments. Today showed why that is.

After a pretty relaxed morning playing Civilization IV and doing household chores, I left home at about 1:45pm for what I thought was a 3:00pm race. On arrival at Sydney Park at about 2:15pm, I see a large crowd, and quite a number of people I know in what looks to be the final stages of their warm ups. Park, grab my bag, enter, and find the race starts at 2:30pm.

Oops.

Got through a fairly abbreviated warm up. I'd been tossing up whether to wear spikes or my unloved Asics Magic Racers (the boring white pair), and this question was answered earlier when it became apparent that one of the pairs of spikes SW was referring to in his e-mail as being in his car was in fact mine.

Oops. Again. It was that kind of week.

Oh well. Felt okay on the line, usual banter with a lot of the CR crew around. Field set off and I worked hard to remember my mantra, "nothing stupid on the first lap". After initially sitting in just behind Mohammed and Don Juan, I passed them on the way down after the first climb, declaring them wimps for their less than breakneck approach to the descent.

From there, I worked in with a couple of the junior girls who were doing the 5k. I could see Vespa and Craig Dunn up ahead, and worked to keep them in sight while continuing to keep things controlled. Course was quite saturated in a couple of spots between the first and second hills, and it was quite slippery on the descent from the second climb.

Got through the first lap in 9:05, which was pleasing - I was targetting 27:30, so 9:10 had been the number. Continued to chip away at Vespa through the second lap, and was about 18:25 through the second lap. Picked her up on the first climb, and eased away on the way to the second hill, thinking I might be able to get on to Craig Dunn. He put a kick on from the second hill, so from there it was a case of pushing to keep Vespa at bay. Through the line 27:36 for twelfth, managing to find 37 seconds on last month, and it was much tougher underfoot today, with the course very in places and quite a bit of standing water. It was also 7 seconds better than my best from June last year, which again was in better conditions, so bodes well for Nowra next week.

Good to catch up with the crew afterwards, which included Amjan, Fats, Blue Dog, Bernie G, Mister G and Skizzik down from the mountains, Mohammed, Silverfox (good to see you out), Royworlds, Superflake, Brightshoes, Planetsumo, Kit and Don Juan (apologies to anyone I missed). Got a handshake from SW afterwards, he was pleased with my result, as I was, so a good afternoon despite the rushed start.

One run left of the two weeks of PAIN!