City to Surf - out

14km at the Bay 57:20 (4:05s)

Started today's run easy (4:30s) but felt good after a couple of km so picked up the pace. Bay was very quiet at 3pm - bad weather and public holiday I suppose - which meant a lot less ducking and weaving than usual.

Happy with how I'm starting to get back into shape, but received some news today that has changed plans a bit. A good mate from high school and uni is getting married up in Brisvegas on 13 August - the night before City to Surf. After missing last year's race due to injury (my first miss in 11 years), and with a bit more time on my hands at the moment, I'd earmarked this year's event as a good one to aim for from a race perspective. I've already entered (got one of the very last preferred spots before they filled up a week or so ago), but there's no way I'll miss the wedding. The race seems to start earlier and earlier every year, due to 0road closures and whinging Eastern suburbs motorists I suppose, so an ultra early flight back isn't really an option anymore.

Shame really, as I've done my $ and will now record a DNS. But there's plenty of other events in August and September I can look at doing, including perhaps another crack at a marathon - my first road marathon in 6 years.... a lot of kms to run before that one though. I'll see where I'm at in another couple of weeks.

On City to Surf, its always risky to put a time out there (esp when I'm now not running it), but I was hoping to run 49:xx this year, which would continue my streak of PBs, which started back in 2001 with a bit of a giggle at the back of the pack before I got back into dedicated running:

2001: 87:35
2002: 79:20
2003: 67:08
2004: 64:57
2005: 56:00 (after joining a running group - Northside Running Group)
2006: 53:32 (finally ran a preferred group qualifier of sub 55 mins)
2007: 52:59
2008: 52:31
2009: 50:10 (after some more serious and consistent training than previous years - 11 bl**dy seconds quicker would have been nicer though...)
2010: Didn't run, injured with torn ankle ligaments from roller skating (first time in about 20 years - and now the last time ever)

Aim is to start injecting more speedwork into the sessions this week.

14km around the Bay