As hinted recently, I have been wanting to test myself by running a time trial over a familiar course from the past. I did that this morning.

I chose to run one lap of Centennial Park, Sydney’s first major public park, and the most well known and used. I have run this course many times before, and it is the ideal test for me at this point in time. The walking path has a good surface, it is slightly less than 4 km in length, and is just 15 metres (50 feet) from the lowest to highest points. My all-time best is 12:57 (about 3:22 per km) for one lap, and that was nearly a quarter of century ago. I would have been pleased today to run somewhere between 16 and 17 minutes, although I was prepared for even slower.

So, what time did I run? A very pleasing 15:11 (3:57 per km). I still have a long way to go (not that I ever expect to run under 13 minutes again), but it shows I’m on track to get some of my speed back. That said, it is pretty much the pace at which I ran my best marathon, so I shouldn’t be too excited about being able to manage that speed for just 4 km.

Lots of other things happening too, but I’m not at liberty to reveal these just yet. I’ll do so at the appropriate time.