10km Striders North Head

45:53…a PB by just over two and a half minutes :)

Had a good night on Friday involving an Italian meal in The Rocks with a great bunch of CRs. Ended up home much later than expected, but well worth the lack of sleep for a fantastic night…My thanks to Lulu for the invite and for organising it :)

And so armed with 4 hours sleep I was surprisingly alert as I packed my bags to head straight back to Port after the race. I arrived nice and early, allowing plenty of time to meet up with some of the dinner crew from last night as well as a multitude of CRs, many of whom I was meeting for the first time. Only Lulu, Wine Trail Runner (who were out at Holsworthy instead), and The Owl (other plans for the day, ahem) weren’t backing up at North Head in some capacity!!

It really was a sensational morning for running…nothing but blue sky and a nice crisp morning. I did an easy 5 minute warm up with a couple of surges towards the end before getting back to the start with a couple of minutes to spare.

As the pace chart below shows, I started on 45 minute pace, which was not hard being pulled along by the crowd in the beginning. I think that I ran pretty much as I planned simply by pacing myself as unfortunately Horrie, the planned 45 minute pacer couldn’t make it at the last minute. So it was good experience to go it alone anyway. I was fairly comfortable for the first 6km. By that I mean that I was definitely working, but I had my breathing under control and was able to have the odd quick chat to other runners, so I was happy that I wasn’t going too hard and risking blowing out near the end.

The 7th, 8th and 9th kms were more of a struggle, and as the pace shows I was slowing down but felt like I was working harder. But I was still holding a little back, and by the final km I knew I was fine to finish so I really dug deep and lifted, throwing it all in for the final run. It didn’t hurt that the final section is downhill, and it showed in the 30 second difference between the 9th and 10th km, to finish with my fastest km of the run!!

I’d have to say that with all I’d heard about North Head being a fast course and mostly flat, it wasn’t as flat as I expected. Certainly no serious hills to contend with, but when I think flat I think about the 8km Settlement Point return here in Port. My memory is blurred by the effort and I’d have to run it again to reassess, but I thought that the Homebush course seemed to have more level sections. I know it’s hard to argue with a 2 and a half minute faster run, but I’d put most of that down to much more structured training in the last couple of months than anything else. The view out near the turnaround is absolutely stunning…lucky I had a good look the first time out there because I wasn’t in a state for sightseeing on the second (final) lap!

The support on the course was great, particularly Go Girl, Jen_Runs and Tesso cheering near the start/turnaround/finish area and Rooster at the roundabout, so there were those regular boosts along the way! Thanks so much to them for the support, and the other odd “Go Cool Runner” along the way.

I missed a couple of km markers, so averaged the 2/3 and 5/6 kms. I missed hitting both the start and the finish on time, so my watch time is slight off official time, but only by a few seconds.

In any case it blew my first 10km race on the Striders Homebush course last year out of the water, which for the record was 48:30.

1 - 4.31
2 - 4.25
3 - 4.25
4 - 4.32
5 - 4.37
6 - 4.37
7 - 4.50
8 - 4.38
9 - 4.49
10 - 4.24

After the race there were plenty more CRs to meet and quite a few PBs were to hear about. Then there was a quick hop to Manly for a leisurely breakfast. Mmmm, breakfast.

After breakfast I dropped into Northside Runners to have a look at some new shoes. I had in mind to get a pair of Asics Nimbus to see how they felt. After the guys in the store had a look at my stride and the wear on my current pair of shoes after about 600km they recommended that the Asics GT 2110’s that I have now are actually most suited to me. I tried a couple of similar shoes in other brands, but still preferred the feel of the 2110’s. So it turns out I stumbled on the best shoes for me by accident! It made me recall when I first got them and was surprised to note that I barely knew I was wearing them as they were so comfortable. So I grabbed another pair to start wearing in. I’d have to say that the guys at Northside were really knowledgeable and I had a good chat to them. Was really nice to see them selling me what suits me rather than just giving me the shoes that I asked about initially which was the more expensive model!! Also grabbed a few different gels to continue testing.

With that I headed off for a late afternoon arrival home. I really enjoyed the last couple of days. It was most enjoyable to chat with everyone, and hope to have further opportunities to do so when I’m in Sydney in the near future.