I woke up at 4am to get ready for the 6.20am start of the Sydney Running Festival Half Marathon at Milson's Point. Walking to Town Hall Station, I only saw one other runner but by the time the train arrived at 5.14am, there were a large number of us on our way over the bridge to the start line in the dark. Once I got down to the start area under the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the north side, I queued briefly to get an espresso, and then go through my pre-race routine which mostly consists of hanging around listening to the Dropkick Murphys on my iPod Shuffle, doing a little warm-up jog and doing some stretches.
As the sun came up, the weather was nice and cool with some cloud cover - perfect for running! I joined the crowd in the A group start and found the 100min pacer team nearby. Given that 100mins was my target I thought I'd run with them for most of the race. As the gun went, I completely forgot about the pacer group and pushed forward into the crowd. Once through the early squeeze, I set off at around 4:30 min/km pace and just ran alone. My lack of training over longer distances was always in the back of my mind (the most I had done was 14km) as I went through the first 10km and so I held back the pace a little but I knew the 100min bus was a resonable distance behind and the 90min bus a long way ahead so I settled into running my own race with a rather varying pace as usual. According to my Garmin 405, I went through 10km in 43:34 (
full Garmin details of my race here).
I expected to feel the fatigue in my legs at around the 15km mark but after a moment of tiredness and self-doubt at around 12km, I realised I was feeling good through the second half of the course. I was consuming energy gels every 7km and I'm sure this kept me on target for my revised on-the-run goal of 95mins. Just before we came on to Sussex St/Hickson St, at around the 17km mark, I started to push the pace a little and realised I still had plenty left in my legs. My left hammy started to ache a bit as it has been known to do but all other previous injuries were causing me no concern. Not wanting to leave anything on the race course, I kept the pace closer to 4:15min/km and got that 'in-the-zone' feeling. I got to Circular Quay and about 750m out from the Sydney Opera House finish line before my energy started to flag a little and from there it was just a case of trying to give it everything I had left.
I finished the half marathon in about 94:30, which was about 10 mins off my PB from last year but as I struggled with many injuries throughout this year, I'm rather chuffed with that time. I enjoyed the route but to be honest, I prefered the City West Link part of the course that was skipped this year as I enjoy having a long stretch of road to run straight on instead of turning so many hairpins.
I walked home from the Opera House and ate a lot of food through out the rest of the day, and drank a lot of water. I felt like I ran a good race and that I have put my injuries behind me now. I look forward to the rest of the year of maintaining my base and having a crack at my 10km PB and then onwards to the sub 3 hour marathon next year!
How good was the weather for the Sutherland2Surf 2011!? So much for wet and wild. Calm, cool and sunny - another perfect race day in Sydney. My race was far from perfect though. Two weeks in Fiji followed by a week with a cold equals under prepared. Nevermind. I still managed a 44:01 so was ok.
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