I've been looking forward to this event, Sri Chinmoy 30 km at Princes Park, all week. Heaps of activity on both the Cool Running & Aus Run forums and it fits in well with my Melbourne Marathon training.

The start/finish (click to enlarge)

I was up nice and early, about 5.30 am, quick breakfast and heading out just after 6.30 am. My intention was to arrive there on 7 am, hopefully get a good car park, close to the start. Well that wasn’t to be, had to park about 300 - 400 metres away; oh well, such is life.

The weather conditions were excellent. According to Weatherzone the temperature at 8 am was 10 degrees. It was overcast but no rain (I copped a bit of rain on the drive in). Still though I had to wear my long sleeved shirt but one hour into the run I could have ditched it for short sleeves.

The registration queues were enormous and speaking to one of the officials afterwards, they were expecting around 300 but reckons about 500 turned up. Apparently, according to the official, a half-marathon somewhere else scheduled for today was cancelled or postponed, which he reckons is the reason for a biggish turn-out.

Back Row (L-R) Mikey, Rohan, Eat Em, Azza
Middle Row (L-R) Tiger Boy, Michelle, Jaykay
Front Row (L-R)Beki, Em

Heaps of Cool Runners and Aus Runners turned up and too many to name. If I try I'll probably forget a few. Is the above photo the Eastern Suburbs Running Group (ESRG) invading Princes Park.

Very serious runners
Tiger Boy and yours truly (click to enlarge)

Pick yourselves out (click to enlarge)

Splits per 5 km (click to enlarge)

Now to the race or probably I should say training run. A few weeks ago I was toying with the idea of running this event in fartlek style, slow 5, fast 5, slow 5, fast 5 you get the idea. With my recent bout of knee problems and not enough recent good runs behind me I thought this might not be a good idea. I decided on the start line that ’yes’ it was and should make for one good training session.

The gun (or whatever it was) went off (actually, I think it was someone yelling, "GO&quot and I started my first lap (5 km) at an easy pace. The splits graph, separated into 5 km segments clearly shows the slow and fast laps. When I say slow and fast, obviously relative to me.

Heart rate over time (click to enlarge)

My theory in training in this style is that I wanted to exhaust myself towards the end. I was trying to simulate marathon conditions. As it turned out I certainly did that. My last 5 km was suppose to be a fast rate but I just couldn’t maintain the pace and slackened off. The important thing for me is that I kept going even though I was stuffed.

The distance was 30 km and I completed in a time of 2:19:42 which is a pace of 4:39 /km. The heart rate figures were 168 bpm for the maximum and 152 bpm for the average.

Further details about this run can be found here at Motionbased.

Overall, I thought it was an extremely well run event, they always are. Yes, the start line is a bit hectic, but isn’t that just a given for any running event. Pancakes were nice and I know some are complaining that seconds weren’t possible. I was there right at the end and seconds were offered, so I ate.