Run the Bridge!

Sydney Running Festival
The Snook and I staggered out into the early morning light today for a bit of running… along with 20,000 other people. We caught the train to Milsons Point and joined the crowd waiting for the start of our second 9K Bridge Run. (Last year’s blog post.) It was cool in the shade, but the sun was warm and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Soon we were off. We did pretty well getting up onto the bridge, and going downhill onto the Cahill Expressway is always fun. We hit the first drinks station at 3.5km, and that’s where I somehow lost the Snook. It was rather unbelievable really. I mean, we’re both giants and we were both wearing bright red baseball caps, but somehow he’d just vanished. I persevered onwards. I hit the 5K mark at about 33:00, so I was on track for the same pace as last year. Unfortunately that’s where the course veers into the Domain, and I ran into some serious trouble on those hills. It’s not just that my legs felt like rubber; for the first race ever, I was actually having some significant chafing issues. I’m pretty sure I wore the same shorts in the City 2 Surf, but today they were just KILLING ME. So I ended up walking a fair bit of the latter half of the course. Once I got back out onto the main road with a straight shot to the Opera House, I picked up the pace. My speed was also helped by the fact that I passed right by Julian from The Chaser standing at the side of the road with a bloke with a video camera, and nothing motivates like the fear of the entire nation seeing your chubby butt walking towards the finish line. I crossed the line at 62:00, which is about four minutes or so slower than last year. I can live with that. I found the Snook not long after, and we had a laugh at discovering that he’d only finished two minutes before me. We must’ve been within sight of each other the whole time yet somehow I never found him. I’m happy to report that the post-race organisation was much better this time, and it didn’t take us long to turn in our timing chips and receive our medals. Unfortunately none of the buses were running yet (because the marathon was still going) so we had to walk the whole way home. Dudes, my thighs KILL.