51:04 - PB!!

The final days of my City2Surf prep couldn't have been worse. Somewhere between the Qantas Club and airplane food (Thursday night) and fancy work lunch (Friday), I managed to get the worst bout of food poisoning I've ever had! Friday night was horrific - I was waking up throughout the night to be sick and woke up Saturday feeling weak and drained. I concentrated on drinking as much water as I could, eating throughout the day as I felt better, and getting as much sleep as possible. At about 5pm, I decided I'd give the race a crack.

Maybe it was Rochey's amazing spag bol Saturday night, but I woke up Sunday actually feeling half decent! Unfortunately the weather was shite, but at least I felt I could run. Annabel, not convinced I'd actually make it, kindly drove us in and offered to meet us at Bondi.

I went through the motions in the warmup, seeing a lot of familiar faces huddling for shelter before the marshals pushed as back behind the line. All the HuRTs guys were there, Cyril was announcing, and I had a good chat to Lewis before the start. It's always an amazing experience being right up the front and knowing that there are over 80,000 people lining up behind you to run in your footsteps.

Not being sure how my body would react, I decided to stick to m 'original' race plan - i.e. go out at about 3:30 to the Hill and see how I held up! Amazingly, it worked. I wouldn't describe it as "comfortable"; I felt on the edge of falling apart the entire race. I guess that's the hard part about shorter races - you cant afford to just feel comfortable, you've got to hurt yourself. Down to Double Bay, I was doing around 3:25min/km and holding the pace OK. That slowed down up the Hill, but not as much as expected, and certainly not as much as last year. Somewhere in Dover Heights I passed Fast Charlie (who must have been having a very bad race) and caught up to Luke B, with Lewis not far ahead. Seeing those two made me realise I must be running well - Luke has beaten me convincingly in every race we've had over the last year. We went through 10km in 37minutes, which I knew was the right pace for a PB, and it was game on.

I ran the last 4kms in a little group with two girls (who ended up being 6th and 7th) and a few guys, with Luke just ahead. I've been conscious of my downhill running in training, and I ran down the hill faster than I've ever done. Coming into Bondi I realised that sub-52 was definitely on the cards. I actually felt really strong for the last kilometre, overtaking a number of people and not losing pace. 

In the end, one of the girls got ahead of me, as did Luke and Lewis, but not Laurens' time! I finished in amongst a whole lot of HuRTs guy - with Luke just in front and Pete just behind. My official net time was 51:04 and place 158 (one ahead of my bid number!). Im absolutely stoked with that time and place. It's certainly better than I could have hoped for under the circumstances. 

The tent afterwards was awesome, as usual. All the boys were there and we had a really enjoyable morning. Annabel was also a super-supporter, cheering at the finish, taking my stuff, and driving us home! The results wrap-up: Shauny ran sub-56, Rochey ran 57:22, Dave ran 60:32, Big Al ran a 62:11, Min (the sprinter!) ran 67:02 and Mitch did sub-80. From what started as a miserable day, some great runs! Poor DJ missed the memo saying that Batman is meant to fly, not run, and ended up limping home. Hopefully he recovers quickly.

In retrospect its easy to wonder whether I could have just run 4 seconds faster to be under 51. The answer I keep coming back to is that I gave it everything I had on Sunday and I think that i as fast as I could have run on the day. Do I think I can go a lot faster next year? Absolutely.