When the real race is run tomorrow morning I will be in the pulpit of the Devonport Presbyterian Church preaching from 1 Timothy 1:13-18 about the most priceless of all treasures and how we have the responsibility to guard it no matter the cost.
So this afternoon I did a mock City2Surf from home and along the local bike track. OK, it was an easier course than the real one as my hill at both the start and finish was not equal to what the competitors will face in that run, but it is the best that I can do around here.
When I set off the humidity was hovering around 80% after weeks of rain that has left the ground saturated. But today was also windy with gusts up to 50 kph, neither of which made for pleasant running.
I hoped to be able to run it in about 90 mins and ran at what I thought would be a steadyish pace to accomplish that, but my times, though feeling comfortable in the early stages, were faster than I had envisaged. At the quarter way mark I realised that that pace would have me at the halfway point at 44 minutes, but this was wind assisted so I wasn't too concerned about that. For the last 1.5ks of the outward leg I was buffeted by a side wind but, amazingly, that didn't slow me down. It was a different story on the return leg, but I still felt surprisingly well and tried to maintain the pace at which I had commenced.
By the 10k mark the humidity was starting to get to me but, knowing that there were only another 4ks to run I tried to maintain my pace. By the end of 11ks I was starting to feel tired, but I knew that I could not give in and take it easy, even if I was slowing down.
And then, after 12ks, I hit the incline and noticed it - but that wasn't anywhere near as bad as the final hill and I had to walk up the steepest part of it.
I was pleasantly surprised to come in at 1.28.51, which was slightly faster than my first effort in this mock event three years ago. On the other hand, it was about 7 mins slower than what I did two years ago - but that was before I took 18 months off to recover from some hamstring soreness (from which I never have properly recovered). However, when I ran this course in a training run six weeks ago I was 6 minutes slower than what I did today.
I'm pleased with the run as I'm looking at it as part of building my endurance for far longer runs, which includes two mock half marathons in the next six weeks. Then I have to set my sights on the marathon distance.
http://connect.garmin.com/splits/356200012
