Longest Day 10km

One last catch-up post then I'm off to bed.

Longest Day 10km - 48:26 - Mega PR

My goal was to beat my 10km time from 2006 (50:10) and to break 50 minutes.

Natash also wanted to break 50 so we decided to run together. She usually beats me right at the end at track workouts so I knew she might be abe to out-kick me.

The run started on a false flat on East Blvd then quickly turned to a fast downhill on 16th Ave. I let gravity do the work and just tried to turn my legs fast enough to keep upwith my controlled fall downhill. I surpressed the urge to yell "Wheeee!" the entire way down.

We regained the elevation in a small but painful spurts and there was a dead zone just past the Main Library turn around where it was really hard to keep going.

Natasha was pretty much glued to my side for the whole first loop. At the start of the second loop I told her "This is where it starts to hurt" then did my falling-downhill-disguised-as-running trick on 16th again and gained a few meters on her. I was worried that this meant I was going too fast but I felt I wasn't redlining so kept up the higher speed. At some oint I passed Chris Manore, which again worried me as he's generally significantly faster than me (he's training for Ironman so focussing on a totally different pace than me).

The "dead spot" past Main Library hit me again but I really didn't want to give up on a sub 50 run so I kept going.

I got within 10 meters of Joyce but never managed to catch her. After the race she talked about the heavy breather behind her at the end of the race and I had to tell her it was me!

I was super psyched at end, even more so as Natasha broke 50 and hit a PR and Valencia and Kathy smashed their previous best times.

There was a major feast and a beer garden at the end of the race, never a bad way to finish!

My race reports are now up to date, I'm going to bed!