Action packed day.

Round 1 - alarm clock bang on 5:45am (i.e. Trinity), jumped onto the bike en route to Centennial to make the 6:30am tempo (Timmy's idea). A great idea in theory. Rolled onto Para Road, slid over bits of glass and blew the back wheel. 2km walk of shame back home, then an easy 7km jog to work via Blackwattle Bay. Low point of my day, or so I thought.

Round 2 - plan B the 45 min tempo. Now add 80% humidity and crosswinds. The idea is 10s/km step-up every 10 min then a dog fight for 5 min. For me, start at 4:00s, finish sub 3:30s.

You need a group for the first half. Hence I formed a train with the hope the likes of Crossy, Tom, J'OL, Nick and later Darren Moyle would behave rationally. First 5 min OK, then Crossy started winding the pace up way too soon leaving me highly suspicious. By 10 min, we were 3:45s and even before 20 min, 3:40s. More pain to come.

Voiced my concern to Tom at Park Hyatt, who agreed this was a classic Crossy bait-and-switch Reached an impressive turnaround 150m past Barangaroo Gates at 23:15 and this was the last I saw of Crossy.

Worked with DM and Tom re-tracing the steps. Fought a losing battle against stiff headwinds whilst trying to hold low 3:30s back to Farm Cove. At this point, I realised I was on my own (DM pulled up stumps, the others I don't know). Kept the momentum, surged the hills at ABC passing Lambert, Luca, Renee and Champ in quick succession.

Last 1km I could tell most had given up and my form ugly to say the least. Delighted to see 15s to spare.

Went out too hard but salvaged the situation with late-stage splits of 3:20s.

12.3km in 44:45 at 3:37 min/km. 

Pulled up my blog from the past and this looks good vs 11.9km (Oct-14), 11.6km (Feb-15) and 11.7km (Jun-15).

2.5km cool-down with Conway and Tom. Daily total big, I'll leave it at that. So spent from today's effort that I had to be picked up from the Light Rail station by Lorie.