The five P’s, don’t forget the five P’s:

• Prior
• Planning
• Prevents
• Piss pour
• Performance

The Blackmores half marathon had an early start, with a 6:20am starting gun. At first I thought, hmm early train into the city and across the bridge to Milsons Point train station, run the race then catch a return train from Circular Quay home, to easy. I realized after looking up the train timetable that in order for plan ‘A’ to work I would have to catch a 4:30am train from my local station. This meant a pre 4am wake up, not keen on that. Looks like plan ‘A’ is out the window. Time for plan ‘B’, drive into the city and find some parking and thus save myself some valuable sleep time, well so the rational went away.

Feeling smart I decided for a grandpa nape the Saturday before thinking max rest would be best. But in the end this played against me resulting in irregular sleeping patterns and me not really getting tired and falling asleep until around 12am Saturday night. So with an irregular sleep pattern I woke up with my alarm going off at 5am.

Now I’m not sure if I wasn’t thinking straight, wasn’t thinking at all or the early start was just not going to happen but I decided on a 5am wake up. Not a smart choice because it really left no time for pre race preparation. Hydration, toilet etc. Rushing to prep for the race and drive in we made it to the Circular Quay where we picked up some early un-metered parking at 6:10am with the race scheduled to start at 6:20am. Looks like I’m going to be late. There was only one thing for it, a nice warm up jog from Circular Quay up to the Harbor Bridge across the bridge and down the Milsons Point start line. Hey what’s that sounds? Ohh, that is the sound of the start pistol! The leaders crossed the Harbor Bridge heading south as I was crossing it heading north and to the start line.

It was a lonely start line, with only a few stragglers still to cross the start line. Not a very good start as I was already 10mins down and had burned up a few km’s of fuel getting to the start line.

I crossed the finish line in 2hrs 11mins having missed my sub 2hr goal. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed with myself and my pre race preparation, but life goes on and there is always next year. It was a beautiful day for a run across Sydney’s land mark Harbor Bridge and the early morning was just golden. Despite my under achievement I really enjoyed the event and the atmosphere.

<a href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/australia/sydney/257222727″>Blackmores Half Mara</a><br /><a href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/australia/sydney”>Find more Runs in Sydney, Australia</a>