Saturday - Parkrun

Slightly cooler, drizzling, but still a bit of humidity this morning. I didn’t get too wet on the warm-up to Curl Curl. Had a quick look around at the start line and saw John Binfield, but wasn’t too sure what sort of form he was in. So wasn’t too sure what to do, so I just thought I’d try to lead from the front and see what happens. I didn’t realise at the the time, but the first kilometer I ran a 3:04! Probably a bit too fast, but I was out solo. I reined back the pace a bit for the next kilometer, and then realised that John was right behind me. This was good, as I sat on him for the next kilometer or two to grab my breath back. When we got to the bridge with 600m to go, we were neck and neck. Actually, I took the lead (by about a meter) until about 300m to go. But, as I’ve recently come to discover, I have absolutely no finishing kick these days (thanks to a lack of specific speed work beyond my weekly Parkrun and weekday 15km runs) and was never going to pip him. In the end, I followed him home in second place one second behind in 16:23.4 (3:17’s). So quite happy with the time (a second off my best in recent times), but I reckon had I have known how close I was, I might have been able to push a bit earlier for a sub-16:20 (although perhaps not with that first kilometer). Oh well, it was a great run for both of us, and we were both pretty stoked to get it done. A very slow and gentle cool-down along the beachfront with Darren for 17km all up.