Back still sore in the morning. I made an appointment with the chiro at lunchtime to see what I'd done. Apparently I'd had a bit of a back spasm. Some massage and a few clicks later it felt a lot better. By that I mean I could at least run tonight. Steve gave me some magic Chinese liniment to rub on my back just before the race. I hope it's legal!
I did a 5km warm-up. It was still hot (26 degrees) which I didn't mind, but the humidity was quite bad. A gentle 20 minute jog and I was perspiring lot-sa. Times could be slow tonight.
A bit of panic just before the start as I didn't have a lap counter. A nice lady volunteered and we were all soon toeing the line. My goal going into this race was to give sub 32 a shake. So 15:50 at halfway, then hang on...
The race started and I settled into a nice group with me, Rob, Cale and Chris. We went through the first km in 3:06, 3km in 9:33 - so already we were slowing. I tried running at the front for a while but that was hard work! At 5km we were 16:08 or thereabouts and our group was still in tact. At this point Rob dropped out of the race leaving 3 of us. From there on in it was time to start hanging on. The pace had slowed further and we were probably averaging around 80 second laps. It was a case of not falling of the back and saving what you could for one final effort. In the last couple of kms I tried another stint at the front, then Chris had a go. Then it turned into a last lap shoot-out. With 200m to go I made my best attempt at a sprint. I think this took Cale and Chris by surprise but Cale had me easily covered and I hung on to finish a few seconds behind him. The time 32:38 and I placed 5th overall.
So just shy of my PB by 3 seconds but overall I'm pleased with the run given the high humidity. I can honestly say I've never sweated so much after a race. It was embarrassing!
The placing flatters me a lot. It seems that a lot of the top runners are just not interested in running 10km on the track. Fair play to the Chin for showing up and running a very respectable sub 30.
A 3 lap warm-down. Everything hurts. I'm getting too old for this. Beer is the answer.
UPDATE
I've had a bit of time to ponder last nights run and on reflection I think it was definitely a better run than my 32:35 PB. Humidity is my number one enemy and when I ran the 32:35 I had perfect conditions. Also, this week has not been ideal with the virus, then the back spasm.
My km splits were:
3:06, 3:11, 3:16, 3:18, 3:17, 3:19, 3:18, 3:23, 3:21, 3:09
Looking back it seems the 8th and 9th kms were where the PB was lost but at the time I was probably saving myself for the last km.
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