I set the alarm this morning for 5:46 to give myself plenty of time for the morning rituals and the travel out to Smithfield for the Sydney Marathon Clinic series. I'd love to know what happened because after I turned off my alarm the next time I opened my eyes it was 6:36 giving me about 20 minutes to get there!
If it wasn't for the fact that I have to run the rest of the races to qualify for the awards at the end of the series, I would have gladly gone back to bed. Being on holidays and Indian Premier League has cut into my sleeping patterns! So I grab whatever gear I can find and race off still wondering whether this would be in vain. I did have a backup plan of doing the 10k that starts at 7:30 in any case. Let's just say it's a good thing there wasn't any highway patrol out because I managed somehow to get there and register and get myself over to the start line with about 3 minutes to spare. They kindly started the race a little late too which even gave me time to pin my number on and take a quick leak in the bushes.
It must have been the adrenalin from the drive over already circulating around the system because it just felt so good out there this morning. The conditions were great for running and as always the SMC people and volunteers had the aid stations well stocked. I ended up running 1:18.18 which is a massive PB and came in 2nd place. A lot of the big guns were missing today (probably recovering PROPERLY from Canberra) so that placing is a little skewed in terms of the series as a whole but I'll take it!
I always knew my old half PB (1:24) was on the way out but I didn't expect a sub 80 minute half so soon and so soon after a marathon. Maybe I should run late for every race!
