I "conservatively" set myself a goal of 1:32 with hopes of doing better. In the end I got myself 1:31:10. It all happened all rather smoothly. It started with an outstanding day. Probably the most Spring-like day you could imagine in winter. I warmed up a little hastily but felt prepared, and then we were off. Again I tried to size up who to pace with but the pace readings I was getting sounded too fast and I slowly dropped myself back from any potential targets. Eventually I was passed by "AH".
AH was a familiar face for me in many ways. He is in his 50s but a very strong, metronomic runner. I always remember him in the leading bunch in the previous year. He probably didn't know me from a bar of soap before today, although he might have recalled me from the Western Springs event. I'd followed him for half that race before burning him off in search of a faster companion. When he caught me, I parked myself a metre to the rear of him and bided my time. Eventually I took a few turns leading him until about the 15km mark where I made my move. I chose to go full-tilt down the one sharp slope on the loop course and bolted away from him and shot past another runner. My next target was "The Last of The Night Ninjas". The Night Ninjas seemed to be a training team. Almost all of them were in the top 20! Fortunately, there was one just a little bit slower than the others who had always been on the horizon in their orange kit. The orange was a key point because on the second lap there was a lot of other running traffic with the track being shared with the half marathon walkers and 10km runners. It could have been difficult to pick who was actually running in my event, but with The Last of the Night Ninjas ahead I had someone of relatively equal pace to reel in. It took about 3km before at about 18km we and one other formed a bunch for about a kilometre. That was when I attacked the last hill and left them behind. Once over the hill and just over a kilometre to go, I felt I still had plenty left in the tank and went into overdrive, passing more or less at will to the finish line and recording 1:31:10. It was a personal best by 5 minutes to my previous best official time.
The only blemish was possibly from my over-eagerness the day before. There was an Asics training event with a group run. I'd initially planned to run easy and put in some bursts of race pace. Usually I wouldn't run more than 5km the day before but with the group I decided to do 10km, mainly because my mileage for this week was going to be below 100km and I wanted to make up for the lack. Then I went with the faster group. I felt like I was running well but when I got home I noticed some tenderness in my shin. I treated it as well as I could but could still feel it in the morning before my run. In the initial kilometres I could feel it too. It didn't stop me running as I had wished. In fact it was the same problem I felt back in April/May this year. The same problem that I had in the Rotorua event. I'd ignored it then and I ignored it today. After that run I was a cripple. After this run I felt like a cripple. This evening the swelling and pain seem to have subsided somewhat and I hope that again it's just a temporary thing that won't hinder our trip to Fiji and any training I want to do there.
With it shattering the 1:35 wall, I look forward to the Mizuno Half Marathon Series, which begins in September. The next wall is the 1:30 threshold. With my current fitness on a flat-track, I would expect myself to be able to do it, and there are some flat tracks in the series. Couple that with further increases in speed and aerobic base, I look forward to it.
Three weeks to go to North Shore. Some lacklustre long runs had shaken my confidence; while some big events show I'm still pretty fit and able to take what the courses throw at me. I think this Moment of Truth is truest.
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