Australian Running Festival - 10km

World record conditions down in the nation's capital this morning! In terms of weather that is - not the course route. A beautiful sunrise coupled with a chilly, but bearable 8 degrees Celcius provided a beautiful backdrop to what I would have previously described as a dull location void of character. One thing I learnt this morning - Canberra actually has hills, and unfortunately the organisers of the Australian Running Festival incorporated them into the 10km course. The gun went and I got into a comfortable rhythm. This however was disrupted quite earlier than hoped due to the first 1km being primarily up hill towards Parliament House. I think the first 1km split was a slow 3:30 min/km. the ensuing 3-7km was undulating - no massive hills, but enough rolling bumps to really disrupt any consistent comfortable pacing strategy. I was averaging 3:19 min/km pace up until just after the 8km mark (on track for an offical 10km PB), but came seriously unstuck upon the final 1km rise towards the finish line (which was seriously cruel). Coming around the final corner for a 300m run to the line, it was the simple art of putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to fall over (due to exhaustion). I don't know what the pace of my final km was (nor do I want to know), but I dropped my average pace to 3:22 min/km to finish with the time of 33:46 minutes (9th outright). Nevertheless, I have to be satisfied with the run, as it was only 7 seconds off my PB, and given the toughness of the course, I feel that that was the absolute best result I could have dragged out today. This result also helped myself regain my confidence that was unfortunately shattered last week following a dismal showing at Lane Cove after two weeks of inconsistent training due to illness. Next on the cards is the Sydney 10 at Homebush on May 2!

A big congratulations to Hugh Williams (fellow physiotherapist) how had a 'blinder' return to racing finishing second outright in the super quick time of 31:19. Not far behind him was fourth placed Mitch Dean (32:14), who amazingly backed up just over an hour later to finish second in the 5km race (15:53) - using it as a great training 'hit out' in his lead up to London. Anna White had another strong race to complete the final step on the podium for the female's 10km race. She was closely followed home by fellow 'SWEATER' and McGrath representative Sandi Rabie who finished a credible sixth outright in the females in a fast time of 38:50. Lastly, but definitely not least, was Audrey Amiya-Hall who was just pipped on the line by 2 seconds, settling for second place in the females 5km road race.