Australia Day 5K, Penrith. Short Course or Big PB?

Well, as my brother would say: "A little from column A and a little from column B."

I got out to the regatta stadium at Penrith for the race and met Sarge as we were getting out of our cars. We walked a third of the course to get from the parking lot to the start line.

The race started with a bit of a squeeze in the first kilometre, but I think the fact that I had to slow down a little bit may have stopped me from dying in the arse.

The course is basically around the rowing lake from the Olympics. This means that you have markers every 250m that you know are accurate. I used these to make sure that I was going at 5:00/K pace or a little faster.

I was heavy breathing after 500m, but I knew from last time that I would be able to keep this up you 5K, so I kept going. I finshed the course in 23:47, a huge PB, but I have since discover that the course is a little short, so it is a 4.9K PB. If I were to add 100m at this pace it is still 24:16, and a great result.

I wore the HRM, more to try and measure my max HR rather than regulate my pace. I got it up to 184, so I might stick with the 188 max ussumption I have been using.

When I got home, Fiona had made plans to go to Palm beach, so I spent the afternoonat the beach, swimming and eating chips.

Whilst at Penrith, I noticed that the Whitlams were playing a free gig at the regatta stadium later that night, so after we got back from the beach, I went back to Penrith and saw the gig. I'm home now and I'm stuffed. looking forward to a good nights sleep.

Warning: the rest of this post is a report on the Whitlams gig, mainly for the benefit of Chris (CR Omni). It contains no reference to running, feel free to ignore it.

I have seen the Whitlams a number of times over the last 10 years, I'm a bit of a fan.

Tonights gig was pretty good. They didn't nail it - they sounded a little bit loose, and Tim Freedman didn't look like he was putting everything into it, but it was a good show.

They opened with "Gough", going into "No Aphrodisiac" after that. This really set the tone for the gig: they played a really good cross-section of their catalogue, not resorting to an hour of songs from their latest album. Every song I wanted to hear, I heard. "I Make Hamburgers", "Blow Up the Pokies", "Laugh in Their Faces"... they were all there. In honour of Australia Day, they even played a Chisels cover (Flame Trees).

They closed the show with "I Will Not Go Quietly", another big favourite, and did "Melbourne" as an encore.

A good show - worth more than the money I paid for it.