Running race 39:28 [5] 10.0 km (3:57 / km)
am: Challenge 'Fun' run. Nice damp overcast morning for a bit of self-inflicted pain :-) I thought I would run this one a bit more conservatively in the first few k and hopefully finish much more strongly than I did in the Bridges. Didn't quite work out that way. First k was faster than I did in the Bridges (3:42 compared to 3:44), yet still had a horde of kids and women in front of me at the 1k mark. As it turns out, they were nearly all doing the 3k run, but it was slightly disconcerting that there were so many of them ahead of me. At this point I thought even though it seems like half the field is in front of me I've got to ease up a bit or I'm not gonna finish. Predictably, I eased up a bit too much and the next 2kms were then slower than I wanted. Got passed by a steady stream of people in this part of the race. Then went through a bad patch between 3 and 5k and thought a few times about pulling out. Kept plugging away though and eventually, after the hill at about 5.5k I started to feel a bit better. Felt even better when I started reeling in some of the guys who passed me around 3k. Didn't have much left at the end but did manage to run at a very even pace for the last 4km and finished just behind Jim Langford.
Splits: 3:42, 3:58, 3:58, 3:52 (some downhill), 4:02, 4:11 (an uphill section), 3:56, 3:57, 3:54, 3:55