35.19

Had a little calf niggle so I took Thurs off and tested the calf out on Friday with an easy 3km in the domain with Tim Lindop. The calf was a little tight but fine to run so headed to the track in Homebush. I was pretty excited to be toeing the line with Lee Troop (who has run a 2.09 marathon and already qualified for the Olympics). Discussed times with my lap scorer Chris (Big Bear) and felt I should go for 35 mins flat.
I felt pretty comfortable at the start and focussed on trying to run even 400s but it was very difficult to keep track of my splits. I was running solo for most of the way as Tucks was looking at running close as possible to 32 mins and Ray was looking at running a sub 33 min. I went through 5k in 17.29 and then started to lose around 2secs per lap. Chris gave me plenty of encouragement from the sidelines as did Serg and his father which was great. Happy with 35.19 which is 50 secs quicker than Lane cove last week.
Fantastic run by Ray 32.54 and Tucks 31.54. Chris Truscott who also ran Lane cove last week ran 31.43 which was 50 odd secs quicker than last week. It's also his quickest run in 10 years. Troopy won in 29.19 and I had a great chat with him at the end. He's already qualifed for the Olympics and will run the Lake Biwa (Japan) marathon in 3 weeks time. It will also give him the opportunity to get over to Beijing to review the Olympic course. Fellow strider Guzzo is also looking very good (29.57) at the moment as he prepares for Lake Biwa.

http://www.nswathletics.org.au/answ/live_state/080208F160.htm

http://www.nswathletics.org.au/