The Sydney Harbour 10km

I think I'd had a few beers the night I decided to enter this race. The race, yesterday, was staged about a month before the City2Surf, which I will be running. It must have seemed like a good opportunity to pick the pace up from the long-distance plod pace I typically maintain. I rarely do "fun runs" so it is not my intention to meander the C2S with 69,999 of my mates. The Sydney Harbour 10k course is very flat so I was entertaining the possibility of beating my 10k PB which I set on the MiniMos - far from flat. I had the usual confidence-smashing slow runs last week and felt the need for a Lemsip Max on the Friday and Saturday night. So everything was going as it usually goes.

Pre-race-day Saturday started early-but-later-than-it-should when I failed to wake up until 6am. I grabbed a camera and dog and hurried down to Manly and back, managing to get there in time to see the sun rise over the ocean. The rest of the day was painting, which I'll cover in another post. Suffice it to say standing on a roof is not what my calves needed the day before a race.

Sunday morning started at about 5:30 and I got the 6:30 bus to the City, a bus that was almost full by the time it got to North Sydney. Very few passengers were not runners. We got to the City at 7am with plenty of time to emppty my bladder, skull some water and drop my backpack on the lawn in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Start was 7:30.

The course starts on George Street in the Rocks. The street is quite narrow, and despite being in the 'A' group I wasn't as close to the front as I would have liked. I am far too polite to elbow my way to the front and I figured I'd be able to get where I wanted to be and away from the crowds inside the first kilometre. The start was a little congested and it took  me over a km to get properly into my running. Annoying though that was, the dodging and weaving did result in me setting off at a quicker than expected pace. There were a few restricted sections over the first couple of km which upset my rhythm a little, but by 3km I was feeling comfortable.

I looked at my Garmin once early on and allowed myself another peek at half way. I was averaging in the 3:40s/km so could tolerate a little fade and still get my PB. Sub-40min was a certainty unless I managed to fall in the Harbour. The course is out-and-back (pretty much) so it was back around Darling Harbour and King Street Wharf, along Barrangeroo, back on to Hickson Rd and under the Bridge for a finish at the Circular Quay waterside, right in front of the MCA. I was fading a little towards the end but a couple of things helped me along; a girl with 'You Can't Catch Me' written on the back of her shirt (I did catch her) and with 100m to go, as I was easing a little, a guy shouting "go-on!" at me as he was about to overtake. I put my foot down and went over the line in front of him, before turning to shake his hand and call him a bastard.

Medals collected we had a chat about times - he was chuffed as he wanted sub-40 and according to my watch we'd done 38:40. We chatted about cricket and then parted, me to collect my bag and head to Manly for breakfast with Sal, the girls and some friends.

In the final washup I came 128th (net time) of 5000 with a net time of 38:40, which is a new PB. I think I earned my ferry trip and big breakfast at the Bavarian Beer Cafe. A beer would have been nice though.