48min 55 in John Gilmour 10k Track

Friday 30th November 2007; Ran 10km on Track (Coker Park) in 48min 55 (HR 189 end).
(5km splits; 22min 54/26min 01)

Spur of the moment decision to go and have a run for fun. Only decided to leave work (Guildford) and go at 5.30pm. Race was in Cannington at 6pm. I did the B-race (the slow 40min+ race)...

The A race (sub 40min expectations) was won by english bloke over in Perth for a year called Angus in a sizzling 29 minutes I think! Not sure but it looked liked legendary running identity Todd Ingraham was 3rd, and Paul Mitchell the other Melville legend faded to 4th after looking a chance to be in the top 2 early on. The fastest woman was also pretty quick in about 36 minutes I think, she looked a bit like Kelly Exeter to me (3.15 in New York Marathon earlier this year and apparently there was a lot of triathletes in this state 10km championship, but I think it must have been someone else cos I think Kelly normally runs about 39-40minutes...

I went out strongly with the leading bloke (a triathlete coach so I heard afterwards) to split the first 400m in 1.16 sitting on his shoulder felt just like the good old days, but I knew given my lack of training/poor fitnes there was no way I could sustain that, although my legs were handling it easily at that stage (breathing wasn't though). So after my first moment of fun I decided to settle back into something more sustainable (I constructed a loose race plan in my mind during the day...---when I was still tossing up mentally whether or not to run, and about 2pm I decided not to do it, but changed my mind at 5.30pm---...of trying to hit 1.45-1.50's and to stay sub 2min per 400m, cos I knew that would deliver about 46min-50min for me, pretty unsure where I would be as my trackwork has been very occasional in recent months although not quite entirely non-existent, but I figured on the basis of my 48 and 49 in Challenge and Bridges earlier this year, and my Melbourne Marathon training I should be able to stay under the 50, despite no specific training targeting this event, only considered doing it, when I saw it in my diary this week) .....
So back to the race; 400m split for first 1200m were 1.16/1.40/1.47, and from then on I tried to hold onto the 1.50's but ended up blowing out to 2min for a few laps.
2km was 8.27 (4.13's per Km average), 3km 13.21 (so 1k split there was 4.54), 5k was 22.54, so hitting around 4.46 per km for that section. Then I took a bit of a break to drink 600ml of gatorade which I had left at the drinks table in the back straight. A bit mad in a 10k race, but I hadn't drunk much since I rushed from work in guildford, and despite the fresh north westerly winds, I was feeling the heat a bit. I got passed by Ian Roberts, Alan Deans, and Don Pattinson somewhere before or after 5k.
So I needed the gatorade, but then spent a few laps trying to avoid spewing it up, it was a bit much to try and hold onto that in the stomach and try and run sub 2 min 400m laps. So my 6k split of 28.54 shows a 1k split of 6min not too bad since I spent at least 30 seconds of that sculling the 600ml of gatorade. At some point in the race, when I was lapped by the leader, I latched on and ran with him for 200m which got me a 1.45 for that lap. But then it was back to the 2min 400's. Starting to feel the effects of not enough faster running in recent times by then. The surface of the track was very nice, reminds me of the stuff they had for the Sydney Olympics track at Stadium Australia when I did the 20km walk trials there. Wonderful place to run a 10km on track, reminded me of the good old days in the 80's and 90's when I raced and trained at Coker Park with Canning Districts and Riverton/Southern Districts... Went through 7km in 34.18 and then 9km in 44min 18, so 5.24 for 6k to 7k and smack on 5min flat for the 7-9k 1k splits... Brought it home a bit in the last 1km with a 4min 37, and a 1.45 last lap, and the usual dash for the line in the last 150m getting the heart rate right up there to 189.

Spent a bit of time after that chatting with Burnsy, and others, plus watching the exciting A-race unfold!!! Was like I had stepped back in time and was running with Canning Districts again (except that my time sucks bigtime compared to those days, and in those times I mostly was a racewalker only...)...

They asked me afterwards if wanted to coach their racewalkers...very tempting...dunno.... I'd like to, and I am confident I would do well, after all I have more experience than arguably anyone else in this state, noone else in WA has done the National 50km walk, although there have been a few who have done better at Nationals than me, and of course Michael McCagh went to the AIS briefly, and Sara raced extensively overseas in Commonwealth Games,European championships etc, so I she has much better top-level racing experience than me, me not really having raced internationally, although the Sydney Olympic 20km walk trial I did in February 2000 (my last competitive walk), had an international flavour with Italians, Mexicans, Malaysians and others in it,a s well as being an OLympic test event on the OLympic course that Jane Savillle was disqualified on later that year.

So a fun race, the time was pretty poor as usual but ok, enjoyed the night a lot, and then headed back to my poor wife and baby, who of course were wondering where on earth I had disappeared to...

A good sharpener upperer run....blows away a few cobwebs, that had been starting to set in mentally after my Melbourne Marathon last month. Pretty happy with the way the legs are moving, although as per usual the lack of reps is substandard/poor/a long way from where I could be. Six Inch 45km trails race in just a couple of weeks, hopefully I will be up for a sub 6 hour effort.