1st Rees Buck 4:17 NZ
2nd Mark Gorski 4:18 AUS
3rd Paul Hamblyn 4:18 NZ
4th Phil Clode 4:18 NZ
5th Ryan Taylor 4:19 AUS
6th Marcus Tierney 4:22 AUS
7th Ben Ruthe 4:22 NZ
8th Alan Failla 4:28 AUS
9th Tim Prendergast 4:29 NZ
DNF Carl Jackson Pacemaker
Carl Jackson took the field through the first lap in 61 seconds with me close behind and the rest of the field about 3-4 metres back. The gap between myself and third place increased during the second lap with the 800m split coming in 2:06 and and the rest of the field through in 2:09. I then took over from Carl and tried really hard to hold my lead through the third lap. At about 1000m Phil Clode made a move from the bunch and started to pull me back and with one lap to go was only about 10m behind. The 1200m split was approx 3:12. Phil Clode and Paul Hamblyn then closed quickly to pass me down the back straight with about 200m to go. I managed to stick with them as they went past and with about 120m left Ryan Taylor came up beside me. With 80m to go I started to sprint and went around Hamblyn and Clode and held off a late challenge from a fast finishing Mark Gorski. The finishing time was a relatively slow 4:17, but I am not sure why as I thought the surface was great for running and we certainly ran hard. This was a well organised event and I loved being able to compete in a race in front of 19,000 captive fans, and certainly look forward to racing at the 'Cake Tin' again next year.
