Sydney Half Marathon 78.31, 69th

Rolled up early for the SMH to meet the usual suspects at the Stone Gates, big crowd in attendance and then warmed up with Enda before hitting the start line.
Felt pretty good going into the race with a couple of strong weeks training, and soon settled with PLOD and Enda either side of me covering every move i made. The first 5ks went well as we made our way round the city with Enda sitting on my shoulder the whole way, Passed a plodding POD at about 8ks and went through the 10ks in about 36.20 (?) Was joined by HuRTS boy Jamie who was looking strong and tried to stay with him, worked well and in the process caught a flagging Richie Palmer in the Cahill Express - all the while my back was starting to hurt with carrying Enda all the way. Did make comment to him to do some work and have a go but it fell on death ears. Richie Palmer then took off after getting his second wind at 17ks and all of a sudden put 70 metres into us. Started to struggle as i entered the Domain with 3ks to go and thought Enda would take us out at some stage, Got down to Mrs Macs chair and had a glimpse over and saw POD some 30 seconds back so barring any disaster knew i had him. Managed to get back up to the Art Gallery and gave it more kick to get away from Enda, held it then for the dreaded last 800mtres had one last look on the final hairpin and tried to kick once more to cross for a 78.31 finish, and 69th person home for the morning.
Happy enough with that, about 90 seconds quicker then Canberra recently and on a tougher course. I did honestly think that i may have gone quicker and was secretly hoping for a 77?.... but not to be :)

Some good runs out there with Tom getting my 'Perfermmance of the Day' for his 13th spot 72.38, Marshmallow Man (Clyde) lumped his way around for a 75, as did Kanser, Think J-Fen would have been a tad disappointed with his run, and good to see Slim Sammy Agnew get up to knock out 80 mins despite being ill and not training for the past 2 weeks.
Will be back out tomorrow with the HuRTS boys
cheers