This annual event from SAFRA is the highlight from on the running calendar. This is due to the organization and sometimes excellent route.
When I reached the start point, they have just flagged off. No big deal as the pack is 1 km long. To my horror I realized that my phone was not with me. The water bottle and energy gel distracted me. I must have left it in the Golden Shoe car park toilets. Did a fast 500m sprint back to the toilets to find it empty. Luckily it was still in the boot of the car. Another sprint back to the Esplanade bridge and to find the starting point is now on the near center of the bridge. In the past it was close to the Fullerton Hotel. So long story short, I have to run the bridge near twice just to start.
By the time I hit 3km mark, I was already out of pace. It took up to 6km to sort things out. Unfortunately I was unable to clear the pack before the slow stretch at Costa Rhu condos at 8+ min/km. The route around the Sports Hub was really stupid. We were doing zig zags to get to the Nichol Highway.
The U turn at Crawford Street was a short one, but it merges the 10km runners. They were still going really fast with some near collisions. This year and probably for the first time, the route did not take into the F1 pits and Floating platform.
Overall a late start gave bad results and I need to do more 10km training runs.
2 hour 42 minutes.