The 30th of July rolled around and I headed into the city bright and early for Run Melbourne. I felt pretty good on the morning, I’d been clear of almost all cold symptoms for a week, except the mildly annoying cough that would take another two weeks to go away.

I figured that my goal was a sub 2 hour half, so despite a less than ideal last month I started the race as planned and settled into my goal pace of around 5:40km a minute. I felt strong, until I got to 11km, then the legs said nope. With 10km to go I knew there was no way I could keep that pace for that long not matter how hard I pushed. I backed off and changed the plan to just finishing. By 18km I was completely done. I had to walk up a couple of gentle hills! I managed a slight ‘sprint’ to the finish. Got to look good for the photographers; I didn’t.

I’d missed the sub 2 mark by 7 minutes, but somehow I’d managed a 2 minute PB!

I was so disappointed with not getting the sub 2 that I really didn’t care about the PB.

It was all the fantastic running friends, both online and locals and my wonderfully supportive, enabling wife that made me see that it was a successful run. A PB is a PB. There’s always another half marathon.

Funny I should mention that. Many months earlier, early enough to get the race number 83, I had signed up for the Sandy Point half marathon. I did the 10km race here last year.

I’ve been building my kilometres and fitness with the ultimate goal of the year being Chicago marathon in October. But along the way I had a 10km and two half marathons to complete.

On the 8th July I completed my local parkrun as the tail walker then headed straight to the airport to head for Sydney and the Sydney Harbour 10km. I attended this event last year and it wasn’t my best 10km run. Calf cramps struck at about 8km and I staggered the last 2km.

On arrival in Sydney I headed to the start line to grab my bib, I then spent a few hours wandering around Sydney. I was actually a bit worried about this as with the stairs, hills and bridge my legs were feeling fatigued the day before the run. I grabbed dinner, headed to my hotel and relaxed for the night.

This year the run started an hour later, but the forecast was for a cool morning so no crazy warm Sydney winter day.

The run went well, no cramps, great location. A 10km run is an odd distance, It’s not a quick 5km sprint, but it’s also not close to a half marathon. By 7 km my legs were feeling it, I was pushing but it felt like I was getting slower, I didn’t want to check my Garmin to see how much my pace had dropped off. I just kept pushing and gave it everything in the last km.

I finished with a time of 52:18, a new 10km PB by a minute. Colour me happy.
Turns out the last 3km were the fastest with a 4:22, 5:02 & 4:39.

The next three weeks were hell. Within days of getting back to Melbourne I had a cold, just as it was clearing I gave some family a lift to the airport, they all had colds, guess what? Two days later I had another cold!

I lost 14 days of training due to the double cold, probably a bit more as even when I could run again it wasn’t pretty. With Run Melbourne half now just over a week away I wasn’t very confident of my sub 2 hour goal. I’d missed my last long run and numerous other sessions whilst ill. Oh well, we’ll see what happens on the day.