Matilda Bay

Ran the WAMC Matilda Bay run this morning. Had an easy, easy day yesterday where I ran about 5.5km including some race pace strides. Didn't feel great yesterday and was glad that the run wasn't on then but felt ok this morning and had a good warm up and felt ready to run fast.

Was hoping to run a PB (to beat my 38.58 in last years Challenge Fun Run) and was actually hoping I could break 38 minutes. Gave myself every chance as I went out in 3.33 for first km which was too fast. Although it felt OK I knew that I couldn't sustain it so consciously slowed down, probably a bit too much as second km was in 3.52. 3.49 for kilometre 3 and 3.40 for kilometre 4. Unfortunately, I missed hitting my split at kilometre 5 which was a drink station as I almost had a collision with three women who were out for a jog and decided that they might grab a drink from the drink table and then didn't see the sign for km 6. Went through 7km in 27.18 with those 3 km having taken me 12.22 so I had slipped well over 4 minute per km pace in those kms. Although I felt comfortable aerobically, didn't have any bounce in my legs, probably (hopefully) due to residual fatigue as I did not taper at all for this race.

Last 3 kms were 4.04, 4.00, and 3.49ish. All up 39.12 by my watch but I think I didn't stop it until a couple of seconds after I crossed the line so will have to wait for results for the actual time.

Was pretty disappointed at the finish as only 12 seconds outside my PB, so another second or so faster each km would have got me a PB but on reflection, I did a mini taper for the Challenge run last year so was definitely fresher then. It was fairly humid this morning but otherwise great for running with no wind at all. Bit annoying to get overtaken in the last 50 metres but I think the bloke who passed me had a bit more left in his tank than I did.

Basically worked out to be a 10km run at a bit quicker than tempo pace so even though I didn't set a PB, I'm pretty sure it will turn out to be beneficial.

Nice to meet up with a few people after the race including Simon who I ran with earlier in the week. It was his first race for a number of years and he had a pretty good one. Don't know what time he ran but could see him about 200-300m in front of me so hopefully he ran under 38 mins.

Also caught up with Ben Wyatt, Member for Victoria Park who was doing his first run for a while so managed to mix a bit of running talk with some of the political goss.

Met Sugar from The Path to Boston blog at http://sugar-42195.blogspot.com/
He is putting in some serious kms as he trains for the Boston Marathon and runs a wide variety of courses (much wider than me anyway) on his training runs. He is getting in plenty of hills, especially on his long runs in Darlington. Hopefully, will get a chance to join him and the Hills training group on a few runs in the next few weeks.

Long run tomorrow is scheduled for 32km. Will get out nice and early before sunrise. Rest of the week is a bit easier and next week's long run is only 24km before some big weeks after that which will incorporate a bit more speedwork as well.