Go Hard

The plan to get some more racing in this year has been going pretty good so far. I've averaged a race every fortnight for the last two months. Today was my local, the Eltham Fun Run . It's a good hit out, run from the local YMCA over a somewhat hilly bike path. I was looking forward seeing what I could do over 10km since back into some consistent training. Weather conditions were mild and pleasant, almost perfect for running. My warm up felt flat. It took quite a while to shake off the higher than normal stiffness through my legs. That is to be expected as the training starts mounting up. I wasn't tapered, but I was ready to race. On the start line I was relaxed, but keen to get going. The 10km runners had their own wave, so I knew who I was racing when the horn sounded. The opening kilometre is mainly downhill. I let gravity do it's thing and fell  into a relaxed but quick opener. That put me in 7th position, but all in front were in view. I took stock of t...

Marathon. Recovery. Some exercise. No genuine training. To kick off the first day of training I decided to start hard with the Eltham Fun Run 10km. Last year I managed 9th place in a time of 39:31. Check last year's race report here . This year I wanted to do better. With having four weeks of recovery post marathon, I didn't really know if that was going to be possible. Whatever the case, I developed a race plan. With hardly any flat, this is a race of up and down. Mainly on bitumen, plus a small section of gravel. Not really a fast course, but a course I can make work for me if I can put up with a painful race. Having the ability to travel fast downhill and even gain a little recovery, I wanted to push the concept of going extra hard on the ascents. It is a risk, and may rob me of significant time later in the race, but if it works then I can gain some places and maybe some chunks of time when heading against gravity. There have been a handful of races over the year that...