Move aside, and let the man go through

Ran home from St Leonards via the CBD, 16.16km in 1:13:22, in around 4:30 something pace. Just kept it controlled, aware of right hip/pelvis but not a big problem. Felt pretty comfortable. Nice night to run, just a bit breezy up on the Gladesville Bridge.

Catch up

Yeah, so I haven't blogged. Been pretty flat this week, probably a combination of the bug and the post-marathon 'blehs' finally hitting. Life goes on.

Got back on the road on Wednesday. Very grindy run home from via the city that I pulled the pin on about 12.2km in, 55 minutes or so (so, I'd been rattling along reasonably quickly), getting the bus home from there. Big problems in the right hip/pelvis, felt like the femur was being driven into the pelvis, very painful on up and particularly down hills, so if you think of the profile from the Shell at Drummoyne to Gladesville you can see what I stopped.

Am seeing an Easy Tiger recommended physio Tuesday morning.

Thursday was squad training, 35 minutes at half marathon pace (3:47). We formed little running groups which swapped leaders much in the style of the track based team pursuit cycle races, which alleviated some of the boredom of running around in circles. I pulled out at about two thirds distance, the last remnants of the sinus conditon making me light headed and eventually dizzy. Hip/pelvis was bearable, not great.

Friday. Gave up on my 30 minute easy run at Bedlam Bay oval 19 minutes, citing boredom.

Saturday, 7km Randwick Botany Harriers event at Sir Joseph Banks Park at Botany. Didn't feel great in the warm up. Out too hard chasing people who were quicker than I recalled, ended up doing the distance in 25 minutes flat, a 40 second improvement on the same event back in April. Since I ran 18 minutes for 5km the following weekend in April, guess it means I'm probably in 17:20-30 5km shape at the moment, which is good.

Sunday. Two hours at Centennial Park. Gaf had a fit after a toilet stop half an hour in and gave increasingly bizarre readings. Guessing around 25-26km, felt okay, hip/pelvis was okay, conscious of it but never really threatened to curtail the run.

So, there. You're up to date.

Lost Weekend (and beyond)

Well, two glasses of sparkling rosé on Friday night, and woke up on Saturday morning with a recurrence of my anti-body issue. So, no running Saturday through to today. Planning a return tomorrow.

Gah. Fine...............

Cold and wet

Got out after work and did a cold and wet 6.2k in 30 minutes around Bedlam Bay Oval. It tipped down there for a while. Nice.

Somewhere in an alternative universe, another vat is sitting at the Welcome Hotel in Rozelle, enjoying a quiet Friday night James Squire Amber Ale in front of the open fire...

4 x "800"

Rained pretty well all day in Sydney today, so it was no surprise to arrive at Kensington this evening to find the ground soaking. Not quite as bad as that night in June, although it should be noted there were two ducks on the field. It was cold, and we had a couple of light showers through the session. Numbers were very limited with most of the juniors running in a school event on Friday.

Got through a pretty damp warm up. SW shortened the track a bit to protect the usual line, which with the heavy ground (it was quite muddy through the 'front' straight) probably ended up about square.

Felt okay through the the drills. Reps went 2:40. 2:41, 2:40 and 2:38. Tried to push hard on the last rep, but there wasn't a lot there for the last lap, suspect the heavy ground and lingering effects of Gold Coast combined there.

Glad to get through the cool down and get some dry clothes on. Looking forward to some dry sessions, I can tell you.

Damp and calm

Another relaxed 12k in an hour this evening. Well, a touch over 12k in 55:20, so between 4:30 and 4:40 pace, same route as Monday.

The afternoon did not look promising, with regular grey outs of the view from our 8th floor vantage point. Heading outside just after 5 showed it to be a little drizzly, but nothing serious, and that's pretty much how it stayed through the run, although it was certainly wet under foot.

Felt fine, although I probably went a little harder on the climb to Lane Cove from St Leonards than was appropriate, and felt pretty flat once I got to the Fig Tree Bridge after the long descent down Epping Road and Centennial Avenue. Touch of stiffness in the right adductor, but it was better than it was initially this morning. I shut myself into one of the conference rooms and did some stretching and work on it just before lunch, which did it wonders.

Wet and wild

Started the day with a massage with Easy Tiger in town. Wasn't too bad, although I seem to be tending toward some issues with the inside of the calves, which may be following on from some slight weakness in the adductors - imagine slight bowlegedness, if you will. Suggestion - plenty of squats, particularly one legged and on the bosu board. Been meaning to drag that back out, tough with these cold mornings, though...

Shocker of an evening for training over at Kensington, with wind and light rain that eventually turned pretty heavy. Considering the rain during the day it wasn't too bad underfoot, although there is a patch at the north end that is starting to get gooey under foot.


Got through a cool and breezy warm up, and feel particularly wooden through the drills. Schedule was 3 x 1200, which went 4:18, 4:14 and 4:08. Slower than the last 12oos I ran which were off the back of a 2400, but given the proximity to Gold Coast and the atrocious conditions, to be expected, I guess, and it was good to push home in the last rep.

It proceeded to absolutely tip down two laps into the cool down. Mohammed and I had finished earlier than most of the squad, who whilst they had completed their intervals, were condemned to a very wet cool down. Kids, this is why you do your cool down as soon as you can...

Cruising home

A relaxed hour for 12km in the schedule today saw me run the 12k variation of the run home from work - basically up the Pacific Highway, down Epping Road and left into Centennial Avenue and all the way along to Huntley's Point, a loop under the Gladesville Bridge and over the pedestrian bridge near the school, up Victoria Road to a little loop at the finish.

Quite painful to start - almost like the pain I get when I haven't run on grass for a while. Psoas/adductor were fine. Suspect a lot of muscle fibres got recruited on Saturday and Sunday and it was payback time. Really didn't go away for quite a while. Not a bad night to run, though, with the predicted late showers holding off.

Still, had a good relaxed lope going, and knocked over a bit over 12km in 57:43, so comfortably under 5 min per km pace, and once the abovementioned pain went, felt fine.

Stiff and sore Sunday

SW's parting words to me on Sunday were that I was to do a VERY easy hour on Sunday.

Pottered down to Centennial Park just before 7:30am to run with the squad. I was a little cloudy-headed after a party on Saturday night (where, gasp, I'd had a few beers) but figured an hour of 5 minute pace would be a perfect sharpener.

Saw Don Juan heading up from Anzac Parade so knew at least one person would be there.

Parked and pottered over to the squad's meeting point near Mackay Oval, did some stretches. Don Juan turned up, as did Knoxy, and we did a couple of laps of the oval in case anyone else fronted. It was immediately apparent the psoas/illiacus/hip adductor was very angry, and plagued me through the run. Still, it eased off a bit as the hour wore on, and I ended up doing 13.24km in 1:06:47, so just a touch over 5 minute per km pace. The rest of the squad joined in around 8am, and we ended up with a pretty big group.

Sorry to bang on about this, but I was very impressed with the quality of the plotting from the 205. The 301 used to have some shockers around Centennial Park, but you can't argue with the quality of the plot here...

ANSW Short Course XC - The Crest

First race back from GC is the Aths NSW Short Course XC event at The Crest, in Bankstown. The course is as per below:


The event was two four km laps. I hitched a lift down with Mohammed and Jim from the squad, and later learned that we managed to avoid a major hold up on the M5 East due to a truck breakdown that delayed a few people.

Felt fine throught the warm-up, although a bit stiff through the drills and stride outs. Went with spikes - the course was very slick in places with a shallow layer of mud through some sections, particularly one fairly steep downhill bit, and with only a 100 metre or so tarmac section it was a simple choice.

The course started from the grass infield of the athletics track, used the outside bend and headed on the grass alongside the main straight, out the back gate and headed out beside the soccer grounds. It cut back on to the path, then turned left into the carpark for the only tarmac section, which quickly became gravel/soil/mud. A right turn saw the course run down the back fences of some homes bordering the course, and this was a quite treacherous slick section, fairly steeply downhill - there were falls in the women's race through here.

A right turn brought you alongside a road bordering the south edge of the course, and along here the course would rise and fall. The surface varied in quality, runners needing to be watchful of damp and muddy sections, and in places the camber combined with the lack of grip often saw you nearly forced over to run on the road, which of course invited disqualification. There was a right kink, before a 90 degree right and a short, sharp climb before ducking through a gate to continue north east within the boundaries of the park, where the surface became your more traditional trail.
At the northwest corner of the park there was a right turn and a short, nasty little climb up on the edge of a rugby field before we diverted off into the bush section again where the course dived downhill into a gentle left turn. This headed up hill and doubled back on to itself with a left turn heading back to the athletics track. We trailed along the south edge, between the athletics field and the hockey grounds, with a diversion around a grass square, a short sharp climb and hard off camber left turn to re-enter the athletics field.

Do that twice, the second time, finishing on the track, and you had 8km. The Garmin said 7.96, so I'd say it was pretty darned close to 8km.

Race was fairly straightforward. I settled in behind Royworlds, and we swapped positions here and there through the first lap. He got past me early in the second lap and eased away with a strong back half to the event. I ran pretty close to even splits, making up a few positions through the last two km (although one RBH runner I had passed beat me with a sprint in the last hundred metres - nothing I could do about it). I really fought it out on the last lap, the marathon apparent in the uphills. The spikes were a big help, as I could run pretty well any line, rather than being forced into picking dry lines like the flat shod runners. Finished in 29:31, which was pleasing as I was really only looking for sub 30 minutes, and underlined how well the recovery from Gold Coast has been going. Finished 52nd, and eighth Strider home. I think we ended up with silver in the open men and women and the men's 45+. Not sure on the others, I think we would have had a pretty strong B-Grade result if we had enough numbers.

An enjoyable run. We were all mud-spattered at the end - some people's new shoes ended up pretty filthy! SW was very pleased with my performance backing up from Gold Coast, saying it looked like I was in the middle of moving up a level, which is probably true.

Easy half hour

Just cruised over to Bedlam Bay Oval after dropping the car at the ferry stop for an easy half hour (I think it was around 4:54 pace) after work. Quite fresh out there, the cloud drowing out any hint of lingering twilight.

Cracked it with the shoes I was wearing. If anyone wants a pair of 10.5 mens Reebok Road Lights let me know. They'd be lucky to have 50km on them, 45 of which would be on grass. Pain on the inside of both feet and it seemed to anger up the psoas/illie. Gave up after 10 minutes and did the rest of the run barefooted, despite it being cold and wet underfoot. Something about them seems to be completely at odds with my running - I know Luke Skyrunner's been very happy with his, and Vlad from the squad likes his as well, so I guess it's just me. EliseS doesn't like 'em either (EDIT - so I guess it isn't just me), so let me know.

Didn't feel particularly good out there, but I guess it's good to get a 'grinder' out of the way before the short course XC tomorrow.

Back to work

I didn't run on Wednesday - did some gutbusters, but that was it. These things happen. I only had a swim scheduled.

So, Thursday night and back to squad training. Good to catch up with everyone, and a short session tonight ahead of the Aths NSW Short Course XC on Saturday, only 5 x 400. Have a little niggle in the left calf that Martin Horne had some acupuncture in this morning (helped), had Easy Tiger take a quick look at it but he didn't seem overly concerned about it. Wasnt a hindrance when running.

Solid warm up, and then into the (relaxed) reps. They went 81, 79, 79, 78 and 76. Didn't feel like there was a lot of speed to be had there, almost like breaking out of a locked pattern - guess 42km of 4 minute k pace is probably going to affect your pace.

Felt fine otherwise.

Cruising home

Packed my bag with some running kit, planning to run laps of Gore Hill Oval at lunch. Alas, the changerooms were locked, so a quick fiddle with arrangements saw me cruise home.

Nice night for a run, quite mild, if a little breezy. I only had a singlet, so was grateful it wasn't cold. Just loped along very comfortably and kept it relaxed. Took the shortest route home, 9.13km in 42:33 for 4:39 per km - hey, it's downhill!

Been pretty impressed with the 205. Getting a satellite lock in front of work takes about a third of the time, and the plots are far more accurate. Had to laugh when the watch, close to getting a plot, figured out it was in front of work, something it announced seemingly with great pleasure.

A visit to Run Club

I decided this morning that I could not face the prospect of another 20 minutes of swimming, and decided, after a small amount of persuasion from EliseS, to attend the Freespirit Fitness Run Club with her. Legs had felt basically back to normal on Friday and Sunday, so figured it would be a good sighter as to how the recovery was going so I could make a decision on the Aths NSW XC event this Saturday.

Caught up with Tim and 26 miles before getting into the session proper on a very cool, still and clear evening at about 6:40pm, with a group of 25 -30. We did a fairly short warm-up, some stretches and some drills before heading over to the shoreside path in front of Balmain Shores. The session was 3 x 2km, the course being two laps of a straight out and back course. Gaf had the course slightly short, running between 1.9 and 1.94km, probably exacerbated by the 180 degree turns.

Reps went:
6:52 - just settled into a rhythm and get some feel for form, plus do enough to keep 26 at bay.
6:41 - pushed a bit harder, looking for a 10 second or so improvement, although did the first km a little harder than I really wanted and copped a slight positive split for my trouble
6:29 - decided to stretch out and push harder for a time, although I again probably overcooked the first 500, with the legs going a little dead from around 1200 to 1600. Bigger positive split, but pushed hard in the last couple of hundred metres.

Good fun session with a big group, and nice to catch up with a few people. No real feeling of the marathon still in the legs, although not having run on tarmac for a week the energy return from the surface probably helped a bit. Be interesting to see how I pull up.

I've got an easy half hour tomorrow, and a swim is scheduled for Wednesday before returning to squad on Thursday evening.

A quiet weekend

Had a very quiet weekend activity-wise. Caught up with a heap of CRs at drinks at the Sackville on Friday night, as always you don't get to chat to everyone you want to. Keep an eye out for Springer on the pool table, too.

Basically didn't end up doing anything on Saturday. Was hoping to get to have a look at the Mutch Park race but with other arrangements it just didn't end up happening.

Got up and did a pretty relaxed 25 minutes at about 8am Sunday morning. Pretty darn cold down there, the half of the oval still in shade had frost and I ran in gloves. Managed 5.27km in 4:44 pace, felt fine.

Had vague aspirations of getting out on the bike in the afternoon but they didn't quite pan out.

Eh, if I hadn't earned a bludge weekend after GC, then I never will.

Interesting to note I did suffer some mild repercussions from the alcohol on the weekend. I was fairly congested on Saturday morning, but it did clear pretty quickly, and I could feel it come on immediately after a glass of red on Saturday night. So, I'm going to have to keep pretty tight discipline on this.

More circle work...

...although thankfully in a different location today.

With post-GC drinks tonight, I had planned to do my 25 minute relaxed run this morning, but simply couldn't get up. I packed my running kit and threw it in the car, the plan being to either run from the ferry stop in the evening, or try my luck that the change rooms were open at the Gore Hill Oval, in front of RNS. Readers of silver fox's blog would know it well.

As it turned out, they were, so I changed into my running kit. Beautiful lunch time, cool air but bright, warm sunshine. The oval was generally pretty good, but a touch muddy and slippery in the north west corner.

Felt pretty comfortable cruising around and was quite surprised to see Gaf work his way down to 4:28 per km pace. Aside from a little pain in the right hip and right arch that went away after 15 minutes really felt little to no discomfort and was really just cruising along in the relaxed manner suggested in the program. I'll check the plot, maybe the pace wasn't quite that, but who knows?

Nice afternoon to be out, and quite enjoyed the run. Recovery is going very well.

Another swim

Had a quick chat to the crew at Run Club this evening before heading over to Leichhardt Pool for a 20 minute swim. It was outside in the 50m pool, so fewer turns, cold, and periodic views of airliners.

Bumped into Aunty Karin and Eagle in Rozelle as hunger drove me to get something to eat, so we had a nice chat.

Legs are fine, left foot is clearing up nicely.

Some good news

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, got some good news yesterday afternoon when it was confirmed, courtesy of Sunday's effort, I had re-earned my preferred start for the City 2 Surf. So, I get a sleep-in on August 13.

Ongoing recovery

A touch stiff in the legs today, but nothing out of the ordinary. Got out at about 6:15pm and rolled around Bedlam Bay Oval for 25 minutes. Kept it pretty relaxed, 5.01km in 25 minutes - 4:59 pace. Legs felt fine, just not a lot of grunt there. Had a nice rhythm going, but this time last week it would probably have been 4:30 pace. A couple of little twinges in the upper right leg later in the run.

Lap swimming is teh suck

A first from SW today - no run scheduled. Instead, 20 minutes of relaxed swimming.

Massage with Easy Tiger this morning. Looks like I came out of GCM relatively undamaged, just a couple of spots around where shin splints might show up, so those got dealt with. Calves were particularly tight this morning compared to yesterday, but were much improved post-massage. Probably highlights the wisdom of regular massage in the month leading up to the event.

So, after arriving home, grabbed a towel, togs and goggles, headed over to the Ryde Aquatic Centre, and proceeded to swim from end to end of the appropriately titled Slow Lane for 20 minutes. The first 5 minutes seemed to take 20, with the ratio of actual time to perceived time only improving slightly as the session bore, uh, wore on.

Relaxed indeed. If it had been any more relaxed, I'd have drowned.

Splits from Sunday

Taken from the km markers on course. I did miss a couple.

Interesting stat - despite a 1 minute 10 second positive split, I went from 85th to 59th, passing 26 runners between the halfway mark and the finish.

	Split Distance	Total Distance	Split	Total Time	Split Pace	Pace
1	1.000	1.000	0:04:06	0:04:06	0:04:06	0:04:06
2	1.000	2.000	0:03:55	0:08:01	0:03:55	0:04:00
3	1.000	3.000	0:03:56	0:11:57	0:03:56	0:03:59
4	1.000	4.000	0:03:56	0:15:53	0:03:56	0:03:58
5	1.000	5.000	0:04:01	0:19:54	0:04:01	0:03:59
6	1.000	6.000	0:03:56	0:23:50	0:03:56	0:03:58
7	1.000	7.000	0:03:55	0:27:45	0:03:55	0:03:58
8	1.000	8.000	0:03:51	0:31:36	0:03:51	0:03:57
9	1.000	9.000	0:03:53	0:35:29	0:03:53	0:03:57
10	1.000	10.000	0:03:51	0:39:20	0:03:51	0:03:56
11	1.000	11.000	0:03:59	0:43:19	0:03:59	0:03:56
12	1.000	12.000	0:04:03	0:47:22	0:04:03	0:03:57
13	1.000	13.000	0:03:49	0:51:11	0:03:49	0:03:56
14	3.000	16.000	0:11:53	1:03:04	0:03:58	0:03:57
15	1.000	17.000	0:04:02	1:07:06	0:04:02	0:03:57
16	1.000	18.000	0:03:57	1:11:03	0:03:57	0:03:57
17	1.000	19.000	0:03:56	1:14:59	0:03:56	0:03:57
18	1.000	20.000	0:03:55	1:18:54	0:03:55	0:03:57
19	1.000	21.000	0:04:03	1:22:57	0:04:03	0:03:57
20	1.000	22.000	0:03:56	1:26:53	0:03:56	0:03:57
21	1.000	23.000	0:03:56	1:30:49	0:03:56	0:03:57
22	1.000	24.000	0:03:53	1:34:42	0:03:53	0:03:57
23	1.000	25.000	0:04:02	1:38:44	0:04:02	0:03:57
24	1.000	26.000	0:03:58	1:42:42	0:03:58	0:03:57
25	1.000	27.000	0:04:00	1:46:42	0:04:00	0:03:57
26	1.000	28.000	0:03:59	1:50:41	0:03:59	0:03:57
27	1.000	29.000	0:04:00	1:54:41	0:04:00	0:03:57
28	1.000	30.000	0:03:58	1:58:39	0:03:58	0:03:57
29	1.000	31.000	0:04:02	2:02:41	0:04:02	0:03:57
30	1.000	32.000	0:04:01	2:06:42	0:04:01	0:03:58
31	1.000	33.000	0:04:00	2:10:42	0:04:00	0:03:58
32	1.000	34.000	0:04:02	2:14:44	0:04:02	0:03:58
33	2.000	36.000	0:08:02	2:22:46	0:04:01	0:03:58
34	1.000	37.000	0:04:02	2:26:48	0:04:02	0:03:58
35	1.000	38.000	0:04:07	2:30:55	0:04:07	0:03:58
36	1.000	39.000	0:04:07	2:35:02	0:04:07	0:03:59
37	1.000	40.000	0:04:03	2:39:05	0:04:03	0:03:59
38	2.195	42.195	0:08:41	2:47:46	0:03:57	0:03:59

Busted up around Bedlam

The recovery begins.

Got home from work and trotted out for my scheduled 15 minutes relaxed for 2km. Yeah, I was laughing at that when I got my program too, but it wasn't too friggin' funny when I got through the first couple of hundred metres in 5:42 per km pace and then proceeded to bleed pace away to 5:46 pace. Very grindy.

Ended up with 2.72km in 15:37.

2:48:04 - a sub 4 minute per km pace marathon is done

Well, it's done. 2:48:04 gun time, 3:59 per km pace.

So, now the story of the weekend.

Didn't get off to an auspicious start as dumb-dumb here didn't realise the flight to Brisbane left from the Sydney International Terminal, not the domestic. Quick panic and cab ride later, we manage to get checked in...only for the flight to leave an hour late because of delays with the crew coming in on the Perth flight. Flying would be great if it wasn't for airports.

We caught up with family and I got out for a pretty stiff old 20 minute run mid-afternoon around one of the University of Queensland ovals. Pace was okay, around 4:39 or so.

Wound up the carb loading with a reasonably light meal of pasta, salad bread (okay, and a Cornetto) before hitting the sack very early. It was a pretty restless night's sleep, but I finally got to sleep around 12:45am, and promptly had my first ever dream of missing the start of a marathon - and then it got weird....

Alarm went at about 3:50am, and I got up for my normal strong cup of coffee and some toast. For the first time during the World Cup I was up at a ridiculous hour, so I thought I'd catch some live soccer. Naturally, it was between games and there was no live soccer to be had.

We hit the road around five and made our way down. Caught up with most of the Strider crowd before the start of the half, and nearly missed the start of the marathon getting my racing chip organised. Got up there about 5 minutes before the gun, and managed to find my way up near the front, next to Spot. We had enough time for a quick chat before the gun went off, somewhat unexpectedly.

SW had told me during the week that I should aim for 83:30 to 84 through halfway. That was 3:57 pace, so I worked my way through the first couple of km settling to around that. There was some good banter early on with Spot and a couple of other guys. I was managing a stitch through the first 6 or 7 km, and felt pretty stiff (common post-carb loading).

A group of around half a dozen runners formed with Spot, but they were getting a little hot pacewise so I elected to ease back from them. We were around 39:30 through 10k.

The group broke up over the next 10k as we headed back from the turnaround to the half marathon point. I had it at 83:30 (third fastest half marathon!) bang on by the clock next to the mats - I see from the official splits they had me at 83:24. I hooked up with another old runner, Peter, and we ran together through to around 30-31km or so, where he just seemed to drift back. Through 25km in 1:38:44 (PB for the distance).

Through 27km - photo courtesy of Ross Stevens

It was around here I got on to the back of Spot, and fellow Strider Jenny Wickham. Time through 30km was 1:58:39 (massive PB for the distance, but then, only run it once at the SMC some years ago), and at 34km, just before the turnaround, was 2:14:44. It was starting to hurt a bit from here. I knew from pretty early on that I was getting quite a bit of rubbing in the left shoe, particularly on the end of my second toe and on the outside of the big toe. Suspect the shoe wasn't tight enough after tying the chip into the laces.

I was reeling in and catching people, which was helping deal with increasing pain levels around the hips. One fellow went past at around 30km, and that was it.

I was able to hold km splits (the numbers I'm giving are from the event supplied km markers) of between 3:58 to 4:02 through to 37km (2:26:48) where it started to get very grindy, with a lot of leg pain, pain in the arch of the right foot and ongoing dramas with the left foot all starting to play havoc with my mind). From there, it went 38-4:07, 39-4:07 and 40-4:03 as I started to realise I was going to make it.

There was a big group of Coolrunners where the southbound course rejoined the highway, and their support really, really helped. I was already getting pretty emotional, and it brought tears. I just wanted to get it done, to justify and reward the support I've had over this campaign.

I hit the car park entrance, and there was Clairie (I didn't recognise her initially, but in my defence I was in the last km of a marathon) who went absolutely nuts when she saw me coming in. The support through the finish was astonishing, and drove me harder to get it done.

Came over the crest and thought I might have been a chance to slip under 2:48, but 2:48:04 would have to do. And, it will. 59th outright, 14th male 35-39 and looks like first Strider home in the marathon (male Striders can thank me later for upholding gender honours!).

I was smashed at the finish, and gradually worked my way through the recovery area. Caught up with the crowd post-race, but sadly we had to head back to Brisbane to catch our flight before the late lunch. Had a good chat with a very pleased SW - his coaching really provided the framework for this result.

I'll make some more comment in the coming days. I'm obviously rapt, as it was the big goal for the year and to hit a target I've been aiming at for some time is deeply satisfying.

It's odd - I've been somewhat detached from the whole thing all week, kind of like I knew I was going to do it. It never crossed my mind in the last 8km that I was going to fail.