Wednesday - 15km

Another day, another 15km. A bit of cloud cover ensured a moderate increase in humidity following a couple of cooler mornings. Nevertheless, a nice 18 degrees is far from unbearable. I knew Justin and Darren had organised to meet at 6:45am at the lagoon, so I was anticipating seeing them along the way. Like clockwork, I ran past them at the very start somewhere between North Steyne and Queenscliff SLSC. A few seconds later, I heard some footsteps fast approaching from behind. Justin wanted to see what my pace felt like. As he is just getting back into it after a long lay off, he not surprisingly didn’t last very long (about 50m). That was about as social as this morning’s run got for me today, although I did see some familiar faces in Maria, Darrell, and Mel. It was the Shelly-Fairlight loop once again this morning. I got held up twice this morning - on the first time past Manly LSC (the usual B&B suspects taking up the entire path, not realising that there are other people in Manly who use that path), and then (surprisingly) on the third time past the construction works between Manly and Shelly Beach (surprising in that this is only the first time it has happened). Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. Actually, when I turned around with 800m to go, a guy was jogging with his dog off the leash. I ran past him and his dog took off, running in front of me. The guy kept yelling ‘Jessie,’ but the dog was having none of it. It continued to run just in front of me for about the next 600m or so. I’m not sure what happened after that. Anyway, I felt good again today, although I perhaps went out a bit harder than usual (no thanks to Justin’s tactics, which obviously spurred me on a bit more than anticipated). So I was massively surprised to cross the finish line outside North Steyne SLSC in a massive new benchmark of 53:25 (3:35’s - possibly even faster as the GPS slightly under-read this morning; 3:33’s according to Strava). Very happy with that, and am amazed that I am able to back up almost everyday and run this sort of pace. It bodes well moving forwards, but as always, I’m not actually training for anything other than enjoyment and keeping a sane mind as I commence the second half of my PhD. Whatever it is, it seems to be working, and I feel great!