I need direction..and 2nd place is not good enough!

Great tune from a the Scottish Band 'Teenage Fanclub' summed up my morning. I headed up to Cessnock on the Saturday so it wouldn't be much a drive to the Lake Macquarie Half. I left the guys at 6am (they decided to stay in Cessnock after staying up late playing poker and the weather was pretty average). Anyhow without going into too much detail I couldn't find Warner's Bay. I arrived shortly after the start of the half and planned to just use the course as a tempo. At the rego table I heard the 10.5 was starting in 40 secs, I filled out the form and dashed to the start about 10 secs after the gun. I worked my way throu' and was surprised to hit the 1k mark in 3.20 (but it was short -Richard Gardiner told me at the end he went throu' in 2.55 so it had to be short). The 2nd km marker was long and I start to reel in a few people. I was in 6th position at 3k and I hit 5k in 17.20 in 4th position. I caught the 2 guys in front of me at around 7k and I never caught sight of the front guy. The markers were more accurate as the 10k marker matched my garmin. Hit the 10k in 34.02. The last .5k felt pretty long and took me nearly 3 mins to finish. Finished up in 37.01 with a 2nd place finish. My garmin had 10.85 so the last 500m was definitely long. Richard Gardiner came home first in 36.20 and he mentioned that last year some guys comments on the course being about 300 to 400m long. Who cares, it wasn't the session I was looking forward. Ended up running back on the course and picking up Blue Dog for a 19k run in total.
I really wanted a long tempo hit out so i was pretty disappointed as time is running out for Berlin. I will re-work my plan this week and incorporate a long tempo. I need a good 10 days training before I enter taper mode.
Got back to Sydney and had no difficulty in finding the Cargo Bar where I met with Martin Harris 'mph' who is leaving Sydney for a new chapter in his life in the UK. I had the pleasure of running my first sub 3 hr marathon with Martin in Melbourne in 2005. You don't forget your first one...