Friday - Brisbane Running Group 3k Challenge

Brisbane Running Group 3k Challenge - 10:19, 11th out of 224

I went into this race with a plan to attack the first 500m and then see how I felt - either I would have sufficiently recovered from the midweek virus or not. The short 50m run to the first turn made for lots of jostling and contact and Jason H and I ended up squeezed together with only room for one to get through a gap. Normally, I take no prisoners and would have just elbowed a rival out of the way but as this was a team event and Jason had faster recent 3k TT's than I did, I let him through. I felt good the first 500m and it was fun to stay in touch with the lead pack of Dennis Fitzgerald, Aidan Hobbs and Christian Cobbold with our boys Andy, James and Jason also in close attendance.

Inevitably, I dropped off the pace and wasn't too happy with my speed up the first hill, nor the second as hills are normally one of my strengths. Nevertheless, I had settled into the race in about 15th place and clocked 3:11 for my first 980m loop. In the second lap, I caught up to three weakening opponents and quickly dropped each one of them - was feeling good at that point. Clocked 3:24 for the second 980m as the fast early pace, two hills and tight bend leading into the home straight took their toll.

The hurt started around the 2200m mark and I was really stuggling, but managed to maintain a reasonable pace. Strangely enough, given the 200+ competitors. I was in no mans land with the nearest rival over 30-40m in front of me and my nearest pursuer about 10m behind me. Not having someone 5-10m in front of me to chase was disappointing but I had not yet been passed in the race and was determined not to let anyone through. Approaching the final downhill run, I managed to get a kick going and keep it up all the way to the line, finishing three seconds clear of my nearest rival.

The likes of James, Jason, myself and Glenda all ran around 10-15 seconds slower than our recent time trials as did plenty of others indicating that the course was a slow one as we had expected. All up, I was quite happy with the run and what I got out of myself and am looking forward to battling in out with the top five next time this race comes around.
Most importantly, the PCRG got the 'W' taking out the overall win. In the categories, our fastest 10 runners were also faster than any other Groups as were our 11-20, 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50 placed runners!!! Hopefully we can get a bit of a streak going now and hold onto the trophy for some time yet.