I’d been looking forward to this event for months, a lot of time and effort had gone into getting onto the start line and I was determined to have a good run.

In the time leading up to Sunday morning I spent a fair bit of timeanalyzing the race plan Brady had sent across, it called for a conservative start in the first 5k and then progressively getting faster each 5k there after and then going for it with everything I had left over the last 2km.

All up the race plan looked like this:

1-5k @ 3:42-3:44/km
6-10k @ 3:40/km

10km split 36:50 – 37:00

10-15k @ 3:37/km
16-21k @ 3:30/km and go for home with 2.1km to go – this would land me somewhere around 1:16:30ish

I tried to stay relaxed and treat it like it was one of my training sessions, just longer… and faster thani’d gone before, I wasn’t sure how i’d go but was confident in the training i’d done and knew that I would be able to get to 12-15km in good shape.

I felt good in thewarm up and was looking forward to getting the race underway, I had a reasonable starting position about 40-50m back from the actual start line. I had applied for a “sub-elite” start spot more out of hope than expectation (if you don’t ask, you don’t get) but that got knocked back as I hadn’t run a sub 1:17 before for a half.

The start was at6am and it was pitch black but a mild 12 degrees with a little bit of a breeze, once the race started, I felt good and settled into a good rhythm early and was right on the money for the race plan over the first 10km, going through in 36:46. At the turn around point the breeze we had early was there but could feel it blowing into my face so whilst it kept me cool, it wasn’t helping me run any faster. I was in a group of 3-4 other guys and somehow I spent most of the next 10km doing the work while they sat in behind me getting the benefit. I was still making good time, but instead of hitting 3:37/km it was 3:38/km and this continued pretty much all the way through to about 19.5kms. I wasn’t sure what I had left but decided to put the head down and work as hard as I could (I really should of done this about 10 minutes earlier) the guys around me lifted their work rate as well and we began the charge for home, the last km or so is lined 3 and 4 deep with spectators cheering and you can hear the music pumping and crowd at the finish line and the adrenaline kicks in, over the last 1.1km I managed to average 3:20/km, I checked my watch and saw I was on track to go under 1:17 so made sure I didn’t ease up at over the last 100m and was thrilled to finish with an 85 second PB with a 1:16:50.

Race Stats:

0 -10km in 36:46 – 94th best split and 94th position
10-20km in 36:23 – 60th best split and up to 76th position
20km to Finish in 3:40 – 36th best split and up to 70th position out of 8206

Over all I’m very pleased and proud of the result, I think I could of raced a little smarter and harder at different times but I’ll take a new PB and as long as they don’t change the qualification times, I’ll be able to start in the sub-elite section next year.