Sunday, December 16, 2007

Le Tour de Tourist 33ks

Actually regarding as the Sydney Striders Tourist Trot STaR. It starts close to my house and was the first STaR I did with the Striders on Boxing Day 2004. So has always been a favourite run. No bush in it and too many traffic lights to mention, with plenty of stairs. A pretty stop start run but great for the tourists. If you want to take one of your running friends to the sites in Sydney then do this one.

You start in Centennial Park doing a lap of the park, run down to Edgecliff and proceed to run back along the City 2 Surf course to the start line. Past St Marys Cathedral, Hyde Park, Hyde Park barracks, St James church designed by Francis Greenway and built in 1829 as was the barracks. Down King St past all the designer shops before heading North along Kent St and through the Rocks going past The Lord Nelson Hotel(Australias oldest pub) and down onto Hickson Rd. Running the last k of the SMH half course.

Then across the Harbour Bridge and through North Sydney, Milsons Pt, Blues Pt and back past Luna Park and Nth Sydney Olympic pool and back over the Bridge again. Then past Circular Quay, the Toaster, the Opera House. Through the Botanic Gardens, past the Boy Charlton pool, past the Finger Wharf and Harrys Cafe de Wheels. Past the Naval Dockyard of Garden Island and up the hill through the slut and sleaze of Potts Pt and Kings Cross.

Past St Vincents hospital(don't go there), and along Oxford St passing a couple of late or early drag queens. Where was Priscilla? Then back past Victoria Barracks, the SFS, the SCG, the Hordern Pavlova and to the finish at Centennial Park. Enough Japanese tourist photo ops to last a lifetime.

Now about me. Slept in and only started out about 12:30. Had a few showers during the run which was excellent as it was pretty humid. The legs were complaining for probably the last hour as I have not been doing any long runs lately.

Total was 33.5ks for the day. Done in 2:50.59. Average pace of 5:06 per klm. Pretty hard to keep a good pace with all the lights and tourists in the way. Made it back before the heavy rain came.

3 comments:

Jen said...

Great result today Flakey, particularly given the course & your race yesterday.

Tesso said...

Wow, sounds better than one of those bus tours!

Ewen said...

I remember the Tourist Trot - it was a fun long run, although not enough bush track for my liking. I meant to ask, if you run the mile at Bankstown, it'll be a PB?

Glad you've been enjoying the track - even if you've been racing like a draft horse lately ;)