Owch: SC Yarra Boulevard HM

As I expected I wasn't properly recovered for this race. I could feel my achilles within the first km of my warmup and was therefore expecting to have to pull out of the race halfway through. Fortunately, everything felt ok once I got moving at the start (seems to happen that way quite often - excitement I guess) and I settled into second place. The leader had gone out way too hard (could hear him struggling within 200 m) and although I wasn't actively trying to get in front, I'd passed him soundly within 2 km and was out on my own. The pace (3:35/k) felt good and looking back at the field at the turn around, I was extending my lead. Went through 5k around 18 flat well under PB pace, but I could feel my form deteriorating. Aerobically I was fine, but my legs were really feeling the strain.

I lasted about 11k before the wheels fell off completely. Going up the little hill for the third time, my calves just would not give me any power and it was hurting a lot to push through it. Given that my 10k split was fairly slow (37:45), I decided PBing was out of the question, so it would be better to just jog out the rest of the race rather than push through and really trash my legs.

I actually quite enjoyed the rest of the race, running with a smile on my face even though my muscles were hurting a fair bit. Finished in 1:31:00, including a ~4 minute pit stop at 15k (having a second dinner at an Indian restaurant last night was probably a bad idea:P). Staggered along for another 2k afterwards to make up 25k for the day. Pretty happy with that, it was the longest non stop run I've done in over a year I think! I'm starting to realise that it's quite important to do some distance on roads to prepare my legs for the onslaught of the unforgiving asphalt.

Rode home via Beach rd to stack up 80km of cycling for the day. Seemed to do wonders for my legs and it was quite enjoyable until towards the end when I was running out of fuel.

Resting the legs (from running at least) seems like a good option for the next few days...