2021 Sydney Harbour 10km – Cicely Brown

Race Date: Dec 5th    Results: 2021
I joined the Flyers in December 2020 with a 10km PB of 44:40. On December 5th 2021, I raced the Sydney Harbour 10 and finished in 39:04.
It was a drizzly day in Sydney (not that any of us really cared. We were all just happy to finally be in a race again) and I lined up with Kim and Reggie in the preferred start. My imposter syndrome was through the roof, for the record. On the line with us to name a few, was Ryan Gregson and Eloise Wellings and this was certainly the first and last time I saw them.
When the gun went off, Kim and I set out towards the back of our field and got to work on establishing a group. This became quite difficult when the second wave of runners set off. The cut off time for our start was 35 minutes for men and 40 minutes for women. While I was stoked to get an “elite” start from that generous cut-off, it unfortunately meant that there were a lot (A LOT) of really fast 36-minute men waiting just behind us, ready to swallow up the back of our pack by about 2km into the run.
Somewhere in this confusion, Kim disappeared out in front of me, and I lost all reference to my pace as runners rushed past me at 3:30/km (Hi Stephan! Hi Jordi!)
By about the 4km mark, I found a couple people who seemed to be sticking to my goal pace of 3:55/km. Frustratingly, most of the group seemed content to let me set the pace and do all the work. For the next kilometre I tried not the think about it and took up the mantra of “sit and settle” just willing my legs to stay strong and breathing to stay steady. 
Around the 5km mark, I found a young boy wearing bright red sweatbands on his head and wrists. He was probably about 13 years old. It bruised my ego a little bit, but I really needed to sit behind someone for a while as I was starting to suffer. So I tucked in behind the sporty child and held on for the ride.
Sporty kid paced me evenly at 3:50/km through 6 and 7 km, before racing off the front while I copped a stitch. Stitches had been bothering me through all my sessions for about the past 3 months, so when I felt one coming on, I was really upset. That would be the end of my race. In my sessions, the stitches would come on around 15 minutes into the effort and would stop me from running anything faster than a 4:00/km pace. Usually, it would reduce me to a walk. It was like a physical barrier my body would put up so that I could not run fast.
With resignation that my race would soon be over, I stuck my head down and tried to hang on to the pace. The course itself was quite twisty, running between blocks around Sydney Harbour. On a good day you wouldn’t think twice about it, but with the light sheen of rain that came down through the first couple minutes of the race, the course had now become a series of ankle-breaking turns every 200m or so. We did several blockies around Barangaroo up til the 8th kilometre. Between trying not to ax myself on the corners and trying to breathe properly, the time between 7km and 8.5 went pretty quickly. In fact, I probably couldn’t tell you anything that happened in that 6-minute period at all.
But as we ran under the Harbour Bridge my entire race changed. I looked down at my watch and saw 8.5km at the top of the screen. 8.5km. That means just under one mile to go. That’s one excruciating rep at KART on a Tuesday. Or one lap of the number 9 at Carrington.
I hit my second wind. I focused in and saw that the two women who had paced off of me in the early parts of the race were about 100-200m ahead, and sporty kid wasn’t that far ahead of them. A man on the sidelines then yelled out to me “SIXTEENTH WOMAN”.
Well, I don’t have a choice now do I? I picked my knees up put my shoulders back and stared daggers into the back of the woman in front of me. Like a woman possessed I chased them down and picked them off one by one. At 9.5km, I literally felt like I had no control over my legs, I was running faster than I ever thought was possible, trying to put a gap on the women I had just overtaken.
The best part of the race was after the finish line. When I crossed, I soon found Reggie “My bad days are 35-minutes” Wright, and Kim “Just aiming for sub-40” Rackemann. Before long we had amassed a group of around 20 Flyers, all giving our race reports and congratulating each other.
​A couple shoutouts to end the year: Ben Toomey, for being an epic coach, talking me up after hard sessions and having endless wisdom. Laura, Jess, Reggie, and Hannah for being my biggest inspirations all year. I look up to you guys every day. Blue Train, especially Lou, Kim, and Felicity for making me feel welcome and included when I first joined (Note: Dave Mantle requested he be mentioned here too). Lastly, every Flyer for their company on long runs, kudos, and hours spent training.
​Bring on 2022!!