SMOKING

With a little rain overnight, and almost no wind conditions looked good for this morning's 10km race. Friday's little 5km run didn't tell me how I was going to run, but the day at work had given me a bit of hope. Both legs were moving in the right direction as I walked out to lunch, and then that evening I had energy to spare as I took Shandy and Peanut for a walk...

Why all this energy?
Well we are down to the business end of training for Oceans and with a public holiday in the week we mixed things up a bit...
Monday hills 2 x 2min, hard up and fast down, then 5 x 60 fast up easy down. Now with the session basically over we headed back to the club by running up the hill round and back...
Tuesday, well Nike had a 5km runpoolparty funrun, so after a warmup we ran a hard 5km.
Wednesday was back to the track for a couple of rolling 200s (fast - slow) I only did 10 sets.
Thursday holiday time, and yes I could have run a half marathon, but... I headed off too UCT to recky the 2Oceans trail. Ake joined me and we took it easy. 2h35

Ake climbing to the cannons

Back to the race:
I joined the start line from the front, but pushed a couple of rows in so as not to get pulled out of the start blocks to fast. I really don't know how some of those guys run so fast! But races aren't won in the first km! I settled into my running and past the 1st board in 3:35... Long km not a good sign. Now yes Ms. 310 can tell me distance, we are running their 10km race and if they have stuffed the distance we still have run to the finish and it makes getting your time just that much harder... Lucky the board was only in the wrong place so as I passed 2km in 6:38 feeling fine.

Maybe 3.5km

I went 5km in 16:35 and for that moment on I knew that aim of a sub 34 was on the cards. A guy past me and I changed my focus to stay with him. Now the head was working overtime, maths at 3:20 / km isn't my strong point, but I knew if I could keep the km under 3:30 I would be OK. I wasn't thinking about a finishing time, just about that sub 34. As I past 9km in a few sec over 30min, it was mine. I didn't slow down running a 3:20 last km and finishing in 33:23. Fastest time in 6 years... WOW didn't know I could still ran that fast, the question now is can I run faster... Don't know and well, I don't know if I'm going to find out. I have other races to run, and it's about having fun out there. The week ahead is taper week, much needed going to enjoy the couple of easy days...