Sri Chinmoy Williamstown 10km

I woke this morning with a start, I thought my alarm hadn't gone off and I missed my race, but that wasn't the case turns out it was just super sunny. Oh and windy, which isn't ideal for a run along the beach.

Breakfasted on an english muffin and honey and made my way to Williamstown. Having not actually checked the location of the start line it took me a little longer to get there than I'd anticipated. But in the end I had enough time to cloak my bag and get to the end of the running queue.

I was a little anxious about this race given my preparation hadn't been ideal. I had two low volume weeks followed by a week off due to asthma, travel & rainy weather. My goal was to endure, remain positive and just be happy to punch out a 10km.

I confirmed what I suspected what as been true for a long time, my polar is well out on km markings! It suggests I run slower than I actually do, which is preferable to indicating than I'm faster than I actually am.

The run was two loops of a 5km course. There were plenty of runners doing the 5km and starting at the back meant I was able to pick people off (which is seriously unusual for me, I'm usually the one being passed). The second lap saw significantly fewer runners. Just after 5km I caught up with the two runners you see in photo 2. At about 7km I made a break for it, I heard the guy say I'm going to try and stick with her. We were running into a headwind, I could hear him drafting off me, it made me more determined to hold him off. We made a turn with 1.5km to go and finally had the wind at our backs. I pushed on, he pipped me with 5m to go in the finishing straight. We had a laugh over the finish line, knowing he was there totally pushed me.

According to my watch I ran a sub 60 min. 59:15. 45 sec off my 10km PB. I couldn't be happier.

We were given chocolate at the finish line. Certainly my preference over a medal!
The queue for the pancakes was getting long by the time I'd got my bag, I didn't have time to wait, nor could I justify another breakfast in between the breakfast I was off to have with my girlfriends!

I really like the Sri Chinmoy races, they're inexpensive, friendly, smaller, well organised with plenty of volunteers, water stations and post race food. I'm hoping to run quite a few in the new year.

Williamstown run: 59:15 | 10km | 5m 56s/km
Thursday run: 42:42 | 6.6km | 6m 28s/km. Lunchtime training run. Sluggish to say the least.