CR 5km challenge

7.15 am, 40 minute warm up, 5 km hard and 15 minute warm down, Iron Cove bay

Up at 6am for light stretching in front of The Thunderbirds. Ran through the city, over Anzac bridge to Iron Cove. Felt Ok on the way over and ran on schedule to arrive on time. A good collection of people at the start including Kit, Tesso, Blue Dog, Ray James, Chunderbolt, Johnny Dark, Boof, Colin, Superflake and Firehorse.

Lined up with the 18 minute group: Blue Dog, Springer, Boof and Andrew T. All good runners so I expected to mop up after the start. Then Thunderbirds are GO, and we were off. I was at the back of the group for the first km and saw boof and Springer drift away, with Blue Dog and Andrew t. closer ahead. After a km, the pace was hot and I felt like I was going flat out, but I was OK in the legs for the time being. Started wishing I'd worked harder in training. Then gradually started catching Andrew t and by the time I passed him, we'd both caught Blue Dog. Then just thought about holding the pace. Caught Luke Skyrunner with stroller at 3km and timed it at 10.40. So on track for 18 minutes but doubted I could hold the pace. The next 2kms was painful which I'll have forgotten about in a month's time. Started seeing a few others around the 4km bridge and I was feeling rooted by then.

After 3km mark, I didn't look at the watch and just focused on a respectable low 18 min finish. Finished in 17.59. Training program is light on for speed work so pleased to have broken 18 minutes which I thought might be at least another month away.

Now I only have another 40km to go for six foot. I saw Paul Arthur a bit later at the finish and he looked in good shape.