Bridge to Brisbane

Fri - 2 x 1k @ 3:31 and 3:21, 4k WU, 4k WD.
Sun - 125 mins, 24k's @ 4:40-5:20 pace

Friday saw me give Fitness First the flick again and head out to Kedron Brook late that afternoon after a day of rare procrastination. After an easy warm up, I clocked a steady 3:31 before getting carried away and clocking 3:21 for my second and last rep. Gees, my running stride felt a lot smoother and more economical when I last hit that speed and there is plenty more where it came from!!

Today saw me contest my 3rd consecutive annual Bridge to Brisbane. This race is a good fun day out but is unlikely to reach the iconic status of the City to Surf for a while yet. An early 4:30am start was required to ensure that I could eat two large bowls of porridge, drive to New Farm, park, catch the Intraining bus to the Gateway Bridge and collect my Official Pacers singlet and pink balloons from Coach Pat - before a 7am gun. There was some concern that being a 65 min pacer for 12k and averaging 5:20's would be a little too slow for me and lead to injury. However, a very slow first k with some walking up the Bridge in all the traffic ensured that I was able to roll along at a more respectable 5:10 pace for most of the way with team mate Steve G and I going through in 64:55 after stopping 500m out with 2 minutes in the bank. As always, pacing was good fun, but I got the impression that the once a year runners didn't appreciate or understand the service like Gold Coast, Brisbane or Noosa participants do.

Following the race, I took over 90 minutes to run my remaining 60 minutes for the day. In between, I did a warm down run with recent Qld X Country Champ and GC 10 winner, Michael Shelley all the whilst interviewing him for R4YL.He moves along nicely and was warming down at around 4:20 pace. I also chatted with Peter Nowill and the 4.5 k winner and was able to get a good feel for how the races unfolded and that will complement my race report which will be mostly based on what I see when watching the Ch9 coverage of the event next weekend. I pulled up nicely after all that. Bring on next week!

Km's this week - 53
Km's this month - 53
Km's this year - 918
Consecutive alcohol free days - 70