St Peter's Sweat Box - Park Run.

Managed to get the morning off work today due to the Aussie Day long weekend so took the opportunity to do not only Sydney’s but perhaps Australia’s toughest 5k Park Run at St Peters.

Stinking hot and humid once more and knew it was going to be tough when I was sweating buckets and that was just in the 2k warm up.  A few quick hellos before the start to Mrs. Fats (Amanda) , ‘Blue Dog’ (Wayne Gregory), Taffy Lad who was out for a hit out, and father of HuRTS Under Achiever himself ‘Serge’ – Jose Carvelho who still runs strong at the age of 58.

Gun goes off and boy they go out hard and I find myself in about 10^th position after about 500m, Reel a few in before the 1k mark as I see a 3.31 pass by at which point old man Carvelho is about 5 seconds ahead. Pass a couple around the 2k mark and can see the winner who breaks away from a pack of 6 about 50m ahead. The hill is a killer and make no ground but try to at least come down stronger, There is a hairpin turn about 2.6ks and work out I am about 20 seconds ahead of Taffy Lad, Then bridge the gap on Jose and go past at 3ks – he’s a wily old fox (like Sergio) so I expect him to come with me……. Thank God he didn’t though and I gap him. Feel my pace drop even more coming around the 4^th mark but actually close in on 5^th & 6^th guys and run with them for the undulating last 1000m. Felt the pace pick up especially with about 400m to go and the two boys decide to ‘Race On’ but I was gonseki and more than happy to see the run out as they beat me by about 4-5 seconds.

A good hit out for me, and happy with that. The heat and humidity were a killer and I reckon on a good flat course it was perhaps worth 30 seconds ?

I think everyone was in the same boat though , and Taffy was perhaps 60 seconds behind me on finishing time?,  so he lost even more than I did over the final 2ks or so.  The big test will be in two weeks mind when we venture out to Homebush for the first of the Striders 10k series – let’s hope I can at least put a marker down in the sand for the opening event?

Cheers