15th April - Chirnside GTR Course

Did you know that there is a GTR course in Chirnside Park???

With 3 good climbs, and plenty of other uphill bits, probably not as many good long downhill sections, but close enough. This is my 'test' course, in preparation for the GTR.
Trust me when I say, that you really need to be sure you want to run it before taking it on.

My plan of delaying dinner till after my run failed when my lovely wife had already put the steak on to cook......so instead I delayed the run for 3hrs after eating, so I didn't get out the door till 10pm.

It was a nice night to be out, the air was warm and reasonably still. I saw a bit of wild life tonight, a big scary possum (it must have been given how much I jumped), an owl, a couple of dogs, the common Outer East bogan, and the very rare courteous driver......given how much they slowed down, I'm not so sure if it was courtesy or disbelief.....

I deliberately took it out slowly to ensure the distance was covered in one piece, so the first 4.2km - 19m17s, this includes the first decent hill.
From here there is a bit of up and down, till you get the 2 largest climbs, almost one on top of the other. 4.7km - 20m35s, 8.9km in 39m52s.
With the big climbs out of the way, I used some downhill to build a bit of pace and rhythm in the final section. There are 3 hills but only 1 mildly steep and long. Once over that one, I tried to push to the end. With the mind games coming, this was not so easy.
4.4km - 18m22s, to finish the 13.3km course in 58m15s.

Overall an average pace of 4m23s / km, so not too bad, I was only looking at the watch for the splits, but I had hoped I could slip into the 57m but not to be.
Happy that the toughest middle section was at 4m23s pace, and the final effort section at 4m10s despite the hills involved.

Feeling pretty confident that I can beat last years time of 56m20s on race day, but I can't help but be aware that this time last year I was well and truly into marathon mode and doing some very long runs. This year I've only gone over 80mins twice.

Off to sleep now...suitably cooled and rested.