Sydney 10 is a race that I haven’t missed since moving to Australia in 2013 and it is one that really shows the depth in NSW running and puts you in your place.  After racing 6 Foot Track in March, I had Sydney 10 in mind as my next goal race.  My body was pretty battered and it took a while to recover as the race started to loom.

It seems that the young gun Jack Maxwell has been backing himself all over town and in degenerate Hurts tradition we had a $50 head to head bet on.  He had pounced when I wasn’t looking all that fit and to be honest I was being very fair not insist on a start.  He has a 5k PB of 15.45 and trains like a pro-runner with precise warm up and cool downs, multiple shoe changes every run, a strength and conditioning coach and a tailored program from Coach Dupuy of the Delta Running Project.  Pretty tough for a self-coached kiwi battler and family man like myself to compete with but it kept me motivated and I trusted my process and ability to get up a level for race day.  I tried as much as possible to emulate last year’s training in the lead up to Sydney 10 which had resulted in a breakthrough 32.36 time.  I had some rough workouts but was happy to trail Jack around at Mona and Michigan sessions (inspired by kiwi silver medallist Nick Willis) at Gore Hill as well as a long 8x5min at ~3.30s and a pyramid set with Hurts

Race day dawned and I pumped myself up listening to my ‘Yacht Rock’ playlist in the car to Homebush.  I realised I was atypically nervous when I couldn’t find Jerome who was meant to be giving me a Delta singlet to wear.

After a short warm up I lined up 5 or 6 rows back near some of the usual likely lads.  The new start is pretty tight and the gun went off quite suddenly.  I was reasonably ruthless pushing past a few people (that’s racing and expected if you line up at the front of this race) however after the initial metres I could see Jack already had a decent jump on me.  I spotted Tom H and ran next to him around the back of the stadium as we slowly worked towards Jack.  I could tell the pace was on when we eventually caught Jack on Olympic Blvd and I was keen to settle into rhythm.  However, after the right hander onto Kevin Coombes Jack surged again to go with a bunch of guys wearing Newcastle singlets.  This move I couldn’t match and I stuck with Tom and watched him drift off into the distance.  I was regretting sharing my philosophy that you can afford to be aggressive and get out hard in the Sydney 10 to find a good group and set up the race. He looked to be moving easy and I thought that it might be time to come to terms with him having improved into a better runner than me.

However, I was still with Tom and worked on his shoulder down to the first turnaround.  I knew if I was running with a guy of Tom’s quality that I was on track for something decent if I knuckled down.  I always try to focus on the hairpin turns and making sure not to let gaps open there that I can’t close.  As we came out of the turn I pulled up next to Tom and then went past on front.  I was focussing on running on the driest and flattest part of the road for best traction and I was leading all the way back to the stadium.  I knew Tom was behind me but not sure if anyone else had tacked on.  I was trying to run smooth and relaxed all the pace still felt like it was on.  I could also see that Jack had lost his group up ahead and was dangling up ahead like a nice carrot.  We caught him before the turn around and tucked on for a little bit and tried to make use of his ample height to draft behind.  At this point I could hear others behind and expected it would be Tom pushing past to make sure Jack didn’t slow us down.  However it was a new Jack – Jack Green and Matt Ho.  We kept pushing for the turnaround and again I focused on making the turn quickly, so much that I had to put my hand on Jack’s back and someone was pushing me as well.

Back down the hill of Olympic Blvd Jack Green and Matt had taken up the pace and I tucked in behind.  I could hear Jack’s breathing and was feeling confident that I felt better than he would. After the turn back onto Kevin Coombes I could feel that it was just Jack G, Matt and me.  I was still feeling reasonably smooth and was trying to draw on the strength that my training gives me.  At the last hairpin I was able to see that we had a decent gap on Jack and Tom and again I accelerated out of the turn to hold onto Jack and Matt.  Again I knew that if I could hang with these guys then I would be having a good race.  After the turn I was starting to feel a little more desperate but was trying to gee myself and told myself not to lose the group without a fight.  At the 7k marker I told myself that if I could hold pace it would all be over in less than 10mins.  Small gaps opened a couple of times which I closed, but when the left turn onto Olympic Blvd at 8.3k came and I tried to accelerate out of it all of a sudden my legs went lactic.  Suddenly my world came crashing down, the gap to Jack G and Matt opened in no time and I was in survival mode.  I felt pretty horrific but tried to focus on form and forcing the legs to keep rolling.  Now I was the rabbit (or carrot?) dangling to be picked off. I also thought about how I didn’t want to have to make excuses so needed to focus on an honest effort even when feeling rough.

A few guys came past me on the forecourt of Athletics Centre and I made an effort to stay with them, less out of any competitive instinct and more as a way of surviving to the finish.  I tried to lean forward and let my legs go down the ramp onto the athletics track.  Normally once on the track with less than 400 to go it would be time to kick, but I didn’t feel like I was kicking so much as raggedly lurching to the finish.  I snuck a look at the clock as we went around the top bend and saw 31.58 on the clock.  Was it accurate and could I run ~150m in 30secs to go sub 32.30 – who knew?  In my desperation to get to the finish I stumbled on the inside rail and nearly went down but managed to stay on my feet.  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw streak go past me sprinting like a madman.  It was Tom – even if I’d seen him coming I doubt I could have reacted – but I was in all sorts and completely unable to react.  I can only describe his speed as being like terminal velocity and I was a bystander as he plummeted past.  I stumbled across the line and realised I had just snuck under my PB which was a relief.  I was a little disappointed to run a strong pace until 8k and then not be able to finish it off, however ultimately the gun time of 32.32 and chip time 32.29 I will take any day of the week.

Too many good results from the crew to mention.  The thing about Sydney 10 is that it is not a massive race like SMH or City2Surf but it seems like a real concentration of every semi-serious runner that you know is there so it was great to catch up with so many stoked people and find out how they had gone.

Now on to the next one – fired up for the rest of the winter racing season!