29.99

Another lonely 6am start on Saturday morning. In search of a flatter course I ventured to the start of the Koonung Trail along the Eastern Fwy, parking near Park rd I was able to keep an eye on the new Eastlink construction, with the activity there was obviously some early starters there too.

In the darkness I passed a walker with large dog, obviously not on a lead.....grrrr.....me -- not the dog!! Then a runner!! Then no-one for a very long time. I had taken the chance on wearing my Zoom Elites, trying to get over a mental hurdle as far as what are the 'right' shoes for my long runs. They feel great on my feet, so why not for 2hr+

This time I used the gravel paths on the Southern side, and fortunately the rain had not turned them into a soft mush. After a while the light increased, but my pace remained in control. My hands were getting cold, so I made them disappear into my sleeves. Once past Elgar Rd, I noticed some wet footprints on the path, so I thought maybe I'd bump into another runner. So you can imagine my surprise when I bumped into a large group - maybe 12 - runners. They had obviously stopped for a drink at the tap, but they were moving a little slower, so I bid them good morning and kept going by.

At my turn around point, just shy of 70min. The group also stopped, some brief discussion then most continued but 1 runner turned back. So I caught up to him, and ran for some time with company. It turns out I had run into the Knox Road Runners, a group who I knew started at 6am, but had not looked up for a while. It seems I probably followed them in the darkness without knowing it. Anyway, Alan held a good pace so the company was great, he is running C2S next week.

I was left to run the last 3-4km on my own, but the pace had been set..... At the halfway 14.78km, the average pace according to SDM was 4m52s. By the time I had stopped at 29.48km it had dropped to 4m42s overall, so a much quicker 2nd half. Once back near the car, I decided a very light trot was in order partly to slow everything down, but also to get to 30km. Can you believe when I finally stopped to stretch my SDM read 29.99km!! So my question is......would you have run/walked 10m to get it to tick over 30.0km? I didn't.

A very satisfying run, slightly longer at 2hr18m running and almost 30km.....