Hungry like the wolf

2.30 pm, Randwick-Botany Harriers 7km Road Race, SirJoseph Banks Park, Botany

It felt good not going for a run this morning, and pretty weird. At 7am I thought what am I going to do now, so I went and bought the paper.

Tip for early afternoon racing, don't get hungry at 11.30am, it is too late for a decent feed. I'll stay hungry next time.

The Joey Banks Park course is flat on a bike path and road, and fast, at least faster than the hilly cross country course at Mutch Park. There was a small field with a few of Sean's runners in attendance: Vat, Mohammed, Easy Tiger, Mr Ed, David, and Lowana spectating.

I felt tired during a short warm up and then felt the lunch inside me.

At the start I followed Easy Tiger, Vat, Mohammed and Ed out and briefly noticed the views across Kingsford Smith airport. The pace was pretty decent, a bit hot for me at the start, but the others didn't disappear. There was a guy breathing heavily right behind me, and I was keen to get rid of him.

I ran most of the way with Vat and Easy Tiger. The road section at the top of the park reminded me of a small scale Sydney Marathon Clinic course with deserted streets. After the turn around, Easy Tiger surged at the top of the park and I thought he would disappear with a big kick. I then ran along with Vat and he also seemed keen to move away from me. Vat told me to stop surging which was quite funny but I was too out of breath to reply that I was surging for his benefit. Vat ended up pushing me along until the finish. It was faster than I wanted to go. I'm still not convinced I enjoy the 5km - 10km distance at this pace. So I'll have to give it away or get fitter.

I finished 5th in a miniscule field. Time was 25.27. Happy with the run.