Maree 5km

Weather was not looking good - wet and windy. Still decided I'd have a 5km hit-out to see if the old legs were still working.

There must have been well over 200 runners and one of the best local runners was also racing so good to have someone to chase. I went out hard running the first km in 3:01 but I was still a good 10 seconds behind the lead runner. I was a bit blown away by that and settled into second place. The second km was uphill and that was reflected in the time (3:24). I tried to push on but was not running with any conviction. The last few kms were fairly flat, in fact it was a good quick course. I thought I had a decent gap on the runner behind but at about 4km I realised there was another runner only about 10m behind! So I tried to lift for a final push to the finish and managed to hang-on to cross the line in 16:10. The winner ran 15:10. Amazing time - showed me a very clean pair of heels!

With a couple of kms warm-up and down it was 9km for the day. Not disappointed not to win - good to be back in Australia mode where I am the chaser. Not a bad time - though to be honest, I should have probably run 15:50. That's what a week on the shant does!