A time trial by any other name

Because of the compulsory staying up late on Mondy night to watch the Socceroos be valiently vanquished by those dastardly and conniving Italians, and compounded by an avalanche of work, I could not run on Tuesday. So last night was the first run of the week. Met the gang at the sento as usual and headed into the park for the mandatory warm up. Did 6.5 km by the time I got to the track to join in the monthly time trial. It was pretty hot and humid, and even given perfect conditions I am in no PB shape, so I planned to just run it at tempo pace. As we took off I was running past Gary and then asked him what he was doing: 3:55/km pace to attempt a 15 second PB. Well, that sounded like a worthy goal and matched my tempo pace, so I resolved to stick with him. The first km came up in 3:58...a little slow. In the second km I had to stop and re-tie a shoelace. It was hard work to get back to him but I got there just as we crossed the line for 2-km in 4:00 (that's 8 second adrift already). Gary made the running at this stage and I was just there with him. He started doing it tough in the third km and it came up in 4:03. Uh oh...I took the lead and tried to draft him and make up some time. We got back towards the right pace, but Gary really starting to labour: still only 3:59. I wasn't finding it exactly a bed of roses myself. The last hard km took 3:57. I recorded 19:57 and Gary about 20:03. Despite the tough weather, he was only seven seconds outside his PB, so his recent efforts have him in pretty good shape. His fiance, Mami-san, went one better though and chalked up yet another PB. Mami...On Fire!!