Sydney Running Festival: Bridge Run

So my last fun run of the year is over. On Sunday I completed the 9km Bridge Run. In the lead up to the day, I wasn’t very confident. Two weeks before, I did a long 10km odd run after work which left my knees wrecked, and had to take the rest of the week off to rest.

The week before the race, I ramped things back up again. Did two 5kms runs out at work in Cumberland Forest, with one of them being a personal best for that course of 21:24. Also twice hit the gym to use the bike which really helped with my leg and knee strength. On the Friday evening, I did a nice, quick 7km around Moore Park at about 80% pace which I finished in 31:18, so I was feeling pretty good after that.

Had Saturday off to go to a wedding but I didn’t make it home until about 11:30pm, which I wasn’t too happy about. Then Rozie came home from the wedding at 1:30am, then she was feeling crook at about 3:30am, which I helped her out as much as I could. I woke up at about 5:45am having only had what felt like about 4 hours sleep.

Got myself down to Central Station to catch the train over to Milsons Point, since I had to get my bag onto the trucks before 7am. Got to Milsons Point around 6.45am. After I put my bag on the trucks, I thought sleeping probably wasn’t a good idea for my race performance, so I just sat in the sun until about 7:30am, feeling super-crap. Had bit of a warm up, a quick pee and joined the other runners ready for the race at 8.05am.

Now there’s supposed to be self-seeding, but that didn’t seem to work out too well. Lots of walkers pushing into the front area. A lot like City2Surf (although admittedly not as bad). Megan Gale fired the starting gun, which was a pretty damn good start IMHO!!

So the race went up the road from Milsons Point, up over the Sydney Harbour Bridge (I didn’t really look too hard), along the Cahill Expressway, up Macquarie St, down Gallery Rd to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair and back, back down Macquarie St, then to the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House. *phew*!

For most of the race, I was pulling in 4:20mins/km, which was I really happy with, since up until recently I’ve running at around 4:30mins/km. I still managed to see I swear the same little kid who runs most of the race ahead of me that I saw at the Bay Run and City2Surf.

Right near the end of the race at the roundabout near the Opera House I quickly saw Rozie waiting for me and she gave me a quick cheer which helped me make a final dash for the end.

So I ended up finishing the race in 37:59mins, which was way better than the 39 to 40 minutes time I’d set for myself. And in the field of 7100 odd runners, I finished 186th (that’s not adjusted… I’ll probably rank better once the results are finalised).

So all in all, I was super-stoked with my time and performance. After a creaky start, it really felt good and just rolled nicely along. Next year, I’m planning on perhaps doing a half-marathon or two, and with the time I did on Sunday, I reckon I’ll easily smash that sub-60min goal for the City2Surf to pieces.