Striders North Head - 6th in 34:13

Cool this morning but thank God the rain stopped. Wasn't windy outside the house but North Head is pretty exposed so there was a bit of a breeze along the long straight sections. Caught up with Tucks, MC and the rest of the HuRT Squad then did a warm up with Timmy. He was looking pretty confident about staying within 80 seconds and taking $50 from me and I was feeling pretty lethargic. Plenty there this morning, with CT, Thamal and Cale Dowd up front.

Set off pretty conservatively allowing the front group to run off and found myself running with Andrew Wilson for the first couple of km. Fats suddenly caught us at the turn near the hospital and we ran together until about 6km. I was trying to put in efforts to break them but with no luck, however, it kept the pace honest. On the hill at around 6km they suddenly seemed to drop off so I put in more of an effort to try and create a decent gap. Turned at the hospital for the 2nd time and saw that there was a group of 4 still within 30m of me so once again put an effort in up the long drag. Saw my split at 9km and decided to try and get under 34:20 with a fast finish. Good to finish strong.

Splits were as follows:

2km: 6:48
4km: 13:37
5km: 17:05
7km: 23:57
9km: 30:57

You'll notice that there are no 1km or 3km splits. You can thank Hamburglar for that! Pleased to pretty much even split it. Backs up my theory of having the endurance but not the speed at the moment.

Some great runs out there. Richard P ran 35:01 which is an amazing effort given his injury problems. Timmy L ran 35:34 (81 seconds back! - but we'll wait on the official results), the Tiger was 35:4X, MC pulled up with an injury but good to see Kanser back out there with a 38:40.

Some great views up at North Head. Timmy, Kanser and I were appreciating them at the refreshments area post race.