Dockland Dash 4k

Thought I'd write-up a little mini-report...

So while travelling in Australia I just had to find a race somewhere - I was hoping for a 1/2 marathon or something but the ONLY race I could find that worked somewhat with my schedule was a little 4k race in Melbourne. A long day - I flew from Sydney to Melbourne first flight 6am from Sydney - drove to where I worked and worked all day then drove to the race at 7pm then quick to the airport for a 9pm flight back to Sydney. This was my first experience ever driving on the left and I didn't suck at it too bad.

I show up at the race and it's a pretty small thing - my bib was 2xx - I don't think I saw any bibs in the 3xx so I guess <300 participants. I sat thinking sometimes these smaller races have winning times pretty slow - who knows - wouldn't it be cool to win a race abroad. I'm not in prime running shape after 2 months off and about a month back running pretty low mileage - but I figured I could at least do sub6mpm (MP pace a few months ago) - no idea how much sub - I don't think I've run a single sub6 mile since CIM so I really have not clue what to expect.

I jog the whole course before the race in a light rain. A few U turns, slippery wood and stones from the rain to watch out for but pretty straight forward.

Strange pre-race customs here - a fitness instructor get's in front of the 2-300 people and has us all doing warm-ups about 10 minutes before the start - OK - whatever. We're off - within a few steps the whole concept of winning this little race goes out the window as a bunch of kids take off. I'm pulled along with them and after 1/4 mile or so glance at my garmin showing 4:xx mpm pace - oops - I back down the pace a bit and by the 1k marker I'm around 5:30 pace - better but I don't think I'm that good - a guy asks me the pace at the marker but all I can say is I don't know - I don't do kilometers and mpm would be useless to him - he moved on ahead - and I think he was the first older dude to be up ahead of me. Anyway the rest of the race was more fading form a too hot start and I ended up 14:55 - 10th place 2nd AG. I didn't stick around for anything afterwords - just grabbed a few snacks out for the finishers and jogged on to my car to get onto the airport.

Fun to race in a foriegn land - whatever the distance.