Running warm up/down 10:00 [3]
shoes: Nike lunar racer
Warm-up along the bike path with robw - I wondered whether acejase was going to turn up, rob assured me he'd be late, shortly after he passed us riding in to the start.
Running race (Weston creek half maratho) 1:17:59 [5] 21.1 km (3:42 / km) +109m 3:36 / km
shoes: Nike lunar racer
I'd entered the weston creek half after 6FT was cancelled as an alternate race and to see if I was in form for a possible run in the canberra marathon. There was a good sized field there including robw and acejase who were also doing 6ft alternative runs. I'd been talking about the race with nick (horsey) at bilbys last week and he was planning to aim for sub-80 as part of a 30km run (with 10km beforehand) so we planned to run it at about 3.45 pace and see how it went. Off the start the pace was fairly contained, robw was soon out of sight, and we settled to about a 3.40 pace, which felt solid but sustainable. We gradually started picking off the fast starters after the first few km. After 6km or so we caught up to Ian and he latched onto us to form a little group that held together for a few km. The pace was still good and by now we were moving through all the early starters. Just before the turn round near Woden I saw robw again, looking like he was moving a bit slowly and we went past - always a scary thing because usually it means I'm going too fast and am about to blow up big time. We'd dropped Ian by this point too, I took a gel at the turn seeing as I was carrying it - I had to stop and go back for water because the drinks station guy didn't manage to pass one to me, but only lost a couple of seconds and was soon back with nick. The gel must have been a bit of a boost, as I felt good and drove the pace for a couple of km down the river. Had to dig deep for the first little climb out of the river then got back to a good rhythm and started ticking off little targets on the way home. The last climb out of scrivener went well, and was still at 3.45 pace - by now I knew that even with 4 min kms I'd be sub-80 which was good motivation and that there was the chance to get near 78. I was tiring a bit over the last 3 km and nick had a little gap - from here adrenaline took over and I just kept on pushing for the finish, round the last corner and the race clock was still on 77mins so I went for it an just made it under 78. Judging by the GPS trace I negative split the second half, so the pacing was spot on. Massive pb that slashed 4:08 off my previous best, next question is whether to do canberra marathon - the vdot calculator says it'd be sub 2.45.
Running warm up/down 5:00 [3]
shoes: Nike lunar racer
'warm down' run back to where I'd parked the car