Here it comes

So I’ve sort of been cheating on my blog with another blog (of the cooking variety) and I feel really bad about it, but I actually haven’t been able to run much in the last couple of weeks. I did something strange to my back last week, so last weekend was out. The weekend before, I was too lazy to train.

I got up this morning to do a short 10km to sort of get a feeling of whether the City2Surf was going to be hellish. I wanted to get out there and think through some kind of race plan for next Sunday, but it’s kind of hard to do that when you’re on the run and you can’t get hold of any statistics. I tried asking Siri.

Me: What was my result in the City 2 Surf last year?

Siri: Checking on that... Would you like to search the web for “Post letters optimistic SFR stew”?

Me: No. Forget it.

Siri: I didn’t catch that.

Me: Play my Maritime Insurance playlist.

All I could do when I was out on the run was think about whether I wanted to wear a skirt in the race, or my standard stretchy pants. On the way back, all I could think was “I’M BLIND” because of the sun directly in my face. So that was no good.

I’m going to think about it now, to at least maintain the facade of being an organised individual.

As far as I see it, I have two goals. The primary goal is to beat my personal best. The secondary goal, if I really tank it, is to at least qualify for a green entry next year.

Last year, I ran a time of 1:24:55. Hmm. That’s cool. Better than I remembered, when I was on my run this morning. So to beat it, I’d have to run every kilometre in faster than 6 minutes. Eww. I don’t like that quite as much. This is going to hurt.

If I stuff up, the qualifying time for a green bib this year was 90 minutes. Assuming they’re nice people and decide to keep it the same, I’ll get an auto-qualification on the basis of last year’s time anyway. I know I’ll definitely get in under 90 minutes in any case. That’s reassuring.

So, will I run a steady pace, or are there parts I’ll need to push a bit harder to make up for the hills?

Last year's elevation map. It thought the run was only 13.5km long. Silly Garmin.

From the elevation maps recorded over the last two years on my Garmin, I can determine one or two things: The first five kilometres or so are undulating, with a few short hills and some nice little downhill stretches. I could probably afford to up the pace in this section, providing of course that I don’t let myself get pulled by the crowd and burn out too early. Maybe 5:20 or 5:30 pace after a short warmup over the first kilometre, depending on how I’m feeling and whether I’ve eaten too much at breakfast.

Then, we hit Heartbreak Hill. which starts easy and gets harder over two kilometres. Nothing I can’t handle, as long as I keep my head down. I could afford to slow to a pace just below 6:30 here, but I don’t want to let it become a habit.

The next two kilometres after the halfway point are a brief respite, and I should take it easy at this point given that there’s a tough and steep little hill coming up. Maybe a 6:00 pace just to be safe, but it will probably be speedier if last year is anything to go by. The hill is about a kilometre long, and when I hit the top of it at about the 10km point, it’s all downhill from there.

I’ll floor it for the last couple of kilometres because they’re nice and speedy and exhilarating when you can see Bondi looming ahead.

It looks so easy on paper.

Let’s see how we go.

I am concerned though, I still haven’t figured out whether to wear stretchy pants or a skirt yet. This is an important decision, people!