Sydney Marathon Clinic Half Marathon
7.00am Half marathon, Smithfield
I was kindly escorted to sunny Smithfield by Wine Trail runner and Lulu. Fortunately the police had not 'locked down' Smithfield or even the giant Smithfield Booze Barn that WTR was reminiscing about. WTR, Lulu and I arrived as foreigners from the Eastern suburbs in a 'foreign' European sports car, waving bottles of French wine and a Bondi Icebergs medallion.
Nevertheless, we blended in before the race and chatted to a few other CRs, most of them also foreigners to the wild west: johnny dark, O Runner, Gnome, Jerry, and Fake plastic trees. Pre-race, I liked the small fabric race numbers at SMC. Noticed Lulu had Bib number 15 in the 5km event as a seeded runner. Wine trail runner was looking at an outright first place finish with 30 minutes to go until the start of the 10km.
Felt good this morning before the run. There are more than feelings involved in half marathon performance as I was about to find out. First 5 metres I felt the gentle tug of a few hamstring and glute muscles reminding me this has been a 100km week of training. Watched the front runners glide away as if I was in a dream. Settled into a short stride rhythm which lengthened after 10km.
The park and trees surrounding the SMC pavillion are betrayed by the contrasting industrial splendour of the SMC course proper with wide boulevards, factories, and warehouses. I was surprised that the course was on roads the whole way.
Basically I shuffled the first 10km, shook off a couple of guys when I lengthened the stride, ran by myself and looked a million dollars in the last couple of kms having had to run so conservatively. Probably also kidding myself that I was running conservatively.
I almost took a wrong turn in the last 200m, not being familiar with the course. Being a 'black letter' lawyer I applied a literal interpretation to
'SMC 21.1 2nd Lap (arrow left sign)'
- meaning being on the 2nd lap as I was, I should follow the arrow. The other correct meaning being turn left to start the 2nd lap. Fortunately I had Lulu, WTR and Go Girl shouting in the distance in disbelief, and I diverted back to the finishing straight. Finished in 88min 49. Pulled up reasonably well. Definitely an easy day or two ahead.
Now off to drink some French wine and lobster in the Eastern Suburbs with Lulu, WTR, Jen_eats, and Kit.
posted by Don Juan @ 11:27 am
7 Comments:
Glad we were there to stop you doing a further lap of the course this morning DJ. Not matter how hard you say you're finding a run you always make it look easy to me; well apart from the hobbling around the Fish Markets I witessed this morning.
Glad you were allowed into Bronte before the 'lock down' and we were able to feed you French wine and lobster as a recovery meal from the adventures in Smithfield.
Great run on a 100km week!!!! imagine what fresh legs can do :-)
Thanks for a great afternoon- Ray and I had a lovely afternoon! A much better view from Lulu unit than ours ;-)
Lovely to see you again DJ at lunch today. Yes, I agree - December is the month of butts and glutes - oh, and food :-)
Hey, I know that sign 200m from the end, I tried to follow it myself once. Lucky your girls look out for you.
Hope you post a report on the lunch that followed :-)
Glad to hear you have a new stamp in your passport DJ, but you really do have to brush up on your foreign language skills - that could have been a costly comprehension error, good thing you travel with pretty young interpreters!
A 100k week is not the ideal taper for a half, great run DJ ;-)
After a 100 km week and finishing in 88 mins not a bad run. One day I might get up 90.
As you mentioned the 'lock down' areas I had visions of police stopping and searching runners. Now that would have made the news.
Que?
Post a Comment
<< Home