HuRTS 45mins Fartlek

The big news of the day is that Tucks is back. Patently he's been deceiving us all on tales of only running 40-50km per week.

Had a shocker this morning in forgetting my orthotics so tried to improvise by cutting up an old pair of insoles to little effect. Just gave myself blisters. I was feeling pretty good after a good rest since C2S but was worried about the cold I've got so planned just to take it easy. That went out the window after 50m with JB running off the front so thought, bugger it, lets just have a go. JB, Tucks, the Judge and I ran together until the Opera House when the Judge dropped off. I kept on expecting Tucks to drop but the tenacious bugger just stayed there, barely breathing as usual and coming out with well formed sentences such as "nobody's talking much today"! We reached the Park Hyatt (start of the 2km reps) in 16:30 so I knew we were on for a very quick one. Eventually turned just before the final speed bumps at the very end of the Hickson Road reps. I only had my stopwatch on and Tucks said something along the lines of "don't ask what average pace we're doing". So I didn't.

JB started to drop off under the Harbour Bridge and until then I'd been feeling great but it suddenly started to hurt a bit. I'd be checking the watch with 30 seconds to go on the fast stretches rather than 10. Finally we got to the Opera House and Tucks mentioned that we'd just gone through 10km in 33:54 and that he was taking it easy back. By myself the incentive to push on was tough and I took 10:24 to get back from the Opera House Gates. Got back 34 seconds over the 45mins. We turned at 6.6km (3:24 pace) and I was about 150m short coming back so I'm guessing 13.05km all up.

Some good running out there today. Timmy was strong getting back under 45mins and JF held me off going up the hills at the end. We even had 2 girls join the group today. MC didn't seem much interested in chatting to us afterwards. He was making sure the new recruits felt welcome.