Notes
Conditions were pretty miserable today with it being cold with wet snow and big puddles (more than usual) along Cherry Beach. I pretty much lost hope of running sub 19 during the warm up as I realized it was also pretty windy from the east and the feet were already wet and cold. The plan originally was to get out fast but with the puddles to navigate and the headwind in the first mile I figured this would not be possible.
The first km was slow as expected but I was feeling OK and was able to inject pace when needed. The wind was somewhat strong for Cherry Beach but at least it was constant with no real gusts. I picked up the pace a bit turning towards TT and then again pushed hard with some tailwind between 2.2km and the turnaround. Wasn't feeling too bad at the turnaround knowing I had the tough part pretty much over but at the same time I had adjusted my goal to around 19:15 after the first 2 slow kms.
Knowing I just had to make it out of TT I really pushed hard into the cross-headwind between 2.5 and 2.8km. Legs were responding well and by 3km I was in full on race mode. Unfortunately I couldn't drop the pace too much after the hard effort during the 3rd km. Nevertheless I running pretty consistently and still feeling relatively strong.
With the tailwind during the last km pace finally started to drop but the puddles really sucked and my feet were soaked and feeling way heavier than they should. Finished quite strong as it looks like I paced the time trial pretty good. In better conditions I definitely should have run sub 19 but again it seems like Garmin measured the course long by maybe 20-30m.
The slightest improvement over 3 weeks ago on an easier course but under much tougher conditions.