Manly Dam Cutler Run

The solid training started again this week with Sydney in focus (12 weeks away). I have been doing 40-50k weeks the past month and the program I put together said to pick it up to 60km this week.

Corporate Cup was on wednesday and it was another PB (24:50). I wasn't feeling crash hot, so was happy and surprised to get a 5 sec PB. I now have a couple of runs on the Garmin to compare splits which should be fun. Nice to get a PB so early in the marathon program. :-)

Debated whether to do the Woodforf to Glenbrook or the cutler 10k run today. In the end it was too hard to pass up a fun run 2k's from your front door. I was planning 20k, so I deceided to run down to the start, do the 2.5k race, run back to the start, run the 10k race and then run home. It turned out to be easier said than done.

The 2.5k race was focused on the local primary school kids and the parents. There was about 400-500 at least. Met up with Richard and also Jeremy Horne at the start, amogst all the kids. After a delayed start and nearly freezing to death, we were off. A million kids running as fast as they can - scary! After about 1km there was still a bunch of kids in front of me and I slowly reeled them in. I was only goin to cruise through the 2.5k's but my competitive spirit kicked in and ended up running as hard as I could ( even if it ws only against primary kids). It was only after the last few hundred metres that I caught the first placed girl (I chatted with her after the race and found out she was only 12!). Final result was 8:54 and 5th place. First time I had ever been up the front of a race - pity they were all primary school kids! Ha Ha.

Distance - 2.5k
Av Pace - 3:48
Av HR - 179

The 10k race started about 30 mins later and I tried to run around a bit to keep warm. The legs were feeling surprisingly tight. There was about 150 people in the 10k race which was quite a bit lower than last year. The course is really tough - with about half the course quite hilly. If you aren't climbing a hill in the middle section, you are descending one. I felt pretty tired throughout but was happy that I could maintain my pace. Finished in 42:06 which I was more than happy with. Big improvement from last years 48:xx. The doubts some had with the course length proved to be true. Garmin said 9.7k. Jeremy Horne won both races in 7:27 and 32:10.

Distance - 9.7km
Av Pace - 4:20
Av HR - 179

After running home I was VERY tired - the two races and 20k's of running nailed me which resulted in a little arvo nap.