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Lake Macquarie Half Marathon Race Report

Lake Macquarie running festival, well why not?? This was my first half marathon in 2009 and with the M7 marathon still fresh in the bank only 4 weeks prior and 3 weeks to go to Blackmores Sydney marathon, it just seemed to fit that I should race. The fact that I was fueled by Cain’s 2nd birthday cake from the day before didn’t seem to upset me too much either.

Over the past 2 weekends I’ve managed to break the 20′ park run barrier by a few seconds so I knew I had a little extra speed. The goal was to go sub 90′ for the first time and thankfully some familiar Newcastle flyers from the Sunday morning sessions were supplying the 90′ pacers…
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I knew that I had to get an extra 15 seconds/km out of my Diesel engine, so the plan was to keep a consistent pace the whole way. At the end of the day my 5km splits were:

21’21 @ 4:16km/hr
21’08 @ 4:14km/hr
21’19 @ 4:16km/hr
21’02 @ 4:12km/hr
4’55 @ 4:11km/hr

I reckon Arnold’s 90′ pacing ballon hit me in the head about 100 times throughout the day, however in the end it was completely worth it! Last year I tried to stick to the 90′ pacer and ended up with a 1:34, which even then was a 5′ PB. A new PB of 1:29:47 makes me over the moon! The Newcastle Flyers long run and interval sessions once a week have once again been critical. I’ve also kept up my chiropractic, massage and strength training. With the extra baggage of relocating our business over the past 3 weeks, training has not been number one priority. However, putting it all together I was able to have one hell of a race day- one that I know would not have been possible without the support of my amazing family, friends and training partners that continue to find more speed in this big old diesel….

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