Winter in full swing

With the WA State 10km road racing champs coming up this Sunday, Winter training has gotten into full swing.
After the Leonora mile the Ks started building up, with June being one of the best months I've had to date, averaging 130km per week.

The next challenge was a nice little "weekend getaway" to the Gold Coast for a 10km race alongside major event of the Gold Coast marathon. With a side-bet with some of the WA boys back home I wanted the race to go very well. I felt in good shape and even pulled out the light-as-anything racing flats the Mizuno Wave Universe for the race... So far the furthest I'd raced in these shoes had been 4km on road and as quite a toey runner I knew my calves would be in for a tough fight ahead, but I wanted any advantage I could get to shave off valued seconds.

In the race were a couple of good young runners but none of the star sub-thirty-minute runners of previous years, so it was open to many to win it.

I took the first K easy, letting the pack go out with anxiety and just sticking to my own pace. With a 3:05 comfortably through the first 1km I was about 10 seconds down on the leader. By the 2km mark I was some 60m behind the lead four and 20m behind the chase pack. As we neared the 3km mark there was a long curve followed by a long but small hill. With the pack in front of me choosing NOT to take the racing line and running wide, I quickly caught them by the top of the hill and then proceeded to inject a 40m gap on them on the decline. For the remaining 7km I was between 60 and 100m from the leaders... in no man's land, with the chase pack 70m behind me.
In this position it was a mental battle to try and reel in the leaders but not push too hard too early and blow up before that ever-distant finishing line.

WA Triathlete and past training partner Kenji Nener made a break from the pack behind to try and catch me in the closing stages of the race. But a glance over my shoulder at the 2km mark ensured I kept up the tempo to keep him behind me all the way to the tape.
I never caught the lead pack and finished in the position I was in at the 3km point... 4th. However it was a new PB of 31:14 (30 seconds shaved off my previous road 10km time) and a good guage of where the fitness is at.
Talking to the coach on the phone that afternoon, my simple response to the question "how did you feel?" was... "now I know how to threshold a 10km".

Overall it was a great trip and experience:
Flying from Perth to the Gold Coast on the midnight flight,
landing and then racing 24 hours later when my body clock still thought it was 4:30am,
in a race distance I'd only done three times before (the last being 11months ago),
with no taper.

THIS IS WINTER... THIS IS WHERE THE WORK IS DONE