Notes
There we go! I knew I was in PB shape although I was a little concerned that I might have been about to come down with flu. No worries in the race though, it was smooth as silk.
Jamie gave me a lift and we were a little stressed for time. Once parked and having dropped off our stuff, we headed to the start line with 5 minutes to spare. The start gate was already rammed so we were well at the back. The first 2 kms were really cramped and I was zigzagging like crazy. There was even a fall and I was clipped a number of times. So a 4:09 split was a real surprise for me - I felt it was so slow!
It was still a bit crowded for the 2nd km but it started to free up and it was a 3:59 that didn't feel too bad at all. The heart rate seems off with the sudden increase from a too low rate.
At 3km I could see I was 1 minute up on 4:27 pace and I knew that I just had to hold on so that I wouldn't fade too much on the latter stages. The kms kept coming and I was waiting for it to feel hard.
Official 5km split: 20:53
At 8km there was a ok sized hill and I started to feel the tiredness. I pushed but was thinking that this was going to be a bad one 4:40-4:50 but it was only 4:33 and so I knew this was going to be really fast. I knew at that point that I was 80 seconds up and that my watch was 10 seconds behind. I needed 89 to break 43 mins and I was right on that.
Once I reached the 9km I tried to summon my strength to push for the line. I didn't feel like I was going much faster but it was a very impressive 4:07. Looking at the stats, I was 5-6 seconds down on a sub 43:00 with a km to go and I managed to gain 11 seconds on that last surge!
Got to the line exhausted and I had no idea if I had made it. Wouldn't even say that I sprinted the last part as I had not much to give and was being overtaken rapidly by others. So I was really pleased to see that 43 was broken and a 95 second PB!