St Andrew's Hospice 6K

My plan to take it easy on Friday's long run to spare my legs for today seems to have worked - insofar as I didn't crash'n'burn. ;-)

It was nice conditions for racing, cool without being too cold and with only a very light breeze. Apart from a couple of hillocks in the first couple of km it's a nice flat fast course. Being a fund-raising fun run, there was no timing. In previous years they have had a big clock at the finish but even that has gone now. Still, I suppose it means more money for the hospice so I shouldn't complain.

Apart from the usual hoards of football strip clad kids going off like the clappers at the beginning, it's a good run and I feel I ran it well. Not being too used to running 6K, the plan was to just treat it like our regular 5K time trials and just hold on as best as possible for the last Km.

During the northward "outward" leg I had fun chasing down some Hamilton Harrier runners (always good to have a target) and when we turned for the return leg we found that we had a slight tailwind which made the finish feel slightly downhill.

In the end I didn't feel like I pushed quite as hard as I do for our 5Ks but I was pleased with my 24:35 (4:06 pace) which is my best pace this year. Would have been nice to get back to sub-20 5K shape before the end of the year but I guess that'll have to wait for the new year.