Run 2:10:00 [3] 27.1 km (4:48 / km)
An early start even by my standards, and the last time for a while that I'll be doing a substantial part of a morning run in the dark (partly because sunrise is getting earlier, partly because I won't do another midweek run as long as this until after the championship season). This early start was motivated partly by the expected length, partly because I needed to be at work a bit earlier than I sometimes do and I thought going 10 minutes earlier was worth it, on the grounds that the 8.17 train usually has seats whereas the 8.26, which comes from further away, almost never does. (Such strategies will need to be rethought when the timetables change in October). A 5.05 alarm was still a bit later than was routine a decade ago, when I would regularly wake up on Thursdays to the dulcet tones of Alexander Stollznow doing the 4.58 international finance report on ABC radio.
Settled down quickly - the quads are fine now - and flowed pretty well for the first hour. Only fair on hills in the middle but stronger at the end, on a course that became increasingly hilly as it went on - started southwest as far as the Studley Park bridge, then east as far as Camberwell Grammar (I wonder if they know that one of their old boys is a world champion?) and then north the steep way, along the pipeline track through Bulleen. Finished quite quickly, partly in a bid to make sure I made the aforementioned 8.17 train.
I suspect the headline-writer for one of the local suburban papers would have enjoyed coming up with 'Happy As A Pig In Poo' for a story about the temporary closure of the Mornington police station due to a sewage flood.