The program rolls on and after a 5km recovery run on Wed morning (23:11) I headed across Lane Cove River to Blackman Park in Lane Cove West for Summer Series. A large sporting ground area built within a natural amphitheatre with hills on all sides and the river to the west.
I have run many of the trails through here a number of times and instantly dismissed the controls way south, knowing the slow running that it would take to get there. Mapped out a course which seemed realistic and headed off once I had paid my money. Again over 200 runners and had to line up for around 15 minutes just to enter!
The plan was to to a big loop and then cherry pick any of the 10 pointers in the sportground area as time permitted.
Up hill through the bush first and into the back of the industrial estate for 19, 9 near the substation and then 12 which was at the top of a trail. Back down to the water and along the walking track to get near the power line tower for 11. Surprised to see a pretty good track coming down from the service rd which was a good exit point but if I had known that I would have run the service rd/firetrail rather than the walkway. Anyway up the hill a little for 26 and then down to the bridge for 28. Slower going from this point with overgrown singletrack running as I picked up 10 and then after running below the Shell servo 29 & 18. Back on some tarmac for 7,24,6 then a short cut through a track to get 12.
More suburbia now as I zig zag for 22,20,16 & 4. Scrubbed heading to 15 due to time, wanted those 30 pointers further south. 23 was easy but 14 took a little more time as there were a number of rocks and rock faces. Up the hill a bit more for 30 and in and out for 25.
Big mistake time. Running short on time but wanted the 40 points on offer from 5 & 21. Ran down but could not find the marked path heading to 5. Determined later on it was probably the driveway. So did a bit of bush bashing but soon realised I was killing time. About 20 spiders webs later I got back on a track and picked up 2 on the way to only finish with 1 minute late so - 10 points. What I SHOULD have done after 25 was straight through the bush to get 13 and 3 on the way to 2. That way I would have finished on time and picked up another 30 points. Hindsight such a wonderful thing.
Slower going tonight with all the singletrack running and then straight out bush bashing so teh distance was 7.2km in 45:47 and a pretty sucky average pace. The good news is the guy just behind me in the points had a worse run than I did and so I will increase my lead!!
Here's the map and route traced out.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/dmbray/Blackman%20Park.jpg
Onto today (Thursday) and a recovery run down throough Lane Cove National Park to the weir and back. Legs felt a little tired but a resonable run 10.7km in 52:53 (avg pace 4:55, avg hr 158).
So 4 runs in three days and not doing too badly, however I have lost 2.5kg since Tuesday morning and I'm betting a bit of that is fluid so the water is going down big time today).
Probably a lighter hit out again tomorrow with the 5km on Saturday and then the Metrogaine on Sunday looming.
2 comments:
Michael here. (Said hello to you at SMC, before having an awful run)
Two weeks in a row you have pipped me by 10 points! Similar course choice. Swap (8,13 and 21) for (19,9,4 and 14) and you get my course. Same points, but I was back a minute and a half late.
Do you know what the winners score (presumably Andrew) was?
so that means you're still in third place over all, right? or did you get dropped to fourth at some point?
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