On Sunday I raced amongst a field of 100 runners in the Northern Beaches 10km Sprint at Kewarra Beach.

Lining up alongside me was Phil Bradshaw, one of North Queensland’s finest runners, whom I’ve had many races against and never come close to beating.

The goal for the day was to beat my previous 10km Personal Best (PB) of 34:23 which I had done in this exact race in 2011 coming runner-up to Phil.

From the gun, Phil and I left the rest of the pack for dead and headed out for the first kilometre at 3:00min/k pace. I dropped back my pace to 3:15min/k to prevent burning out and quickly dropped 50m behind Phil.

I knew I had a good 12 months of training behind me since last time and I was determined to not let him take control of the race and have an easy win, so I told myself “Never Say Die!”, and slowly started chipping away at catching Phil.

5kms in I went on an attack and stepped up the efforts to cut down his lead and within a kilometre I had caught Phil for the first time ever. I ran with him side by side for a further 500m whilst I caught my breath and waited for the right opportunity to attack.

This moment came at the 6km mark drink station where there was only room for one, before a sharp right hand turn, so I suddenly pushed ahead and got myself in front.

With Phil being such a strong competitor I knew from here I couldn’t afford to relax for a second so I upped the pace, blocking out the extreme hurt that was trying to slow me down.

The final run turnaround was at the 9km mark and I had no idea where Phil was until I turned around and saw I had broken out to a 30 second lead.

I coasted home in the last kilometre to finish first with a new PB of 32:44 beating Phil in the end by 44 seconds. In third position came Steve Cunnigham in 37:34.

Next up is the Solar Eclipse Marathon on 14 November in Port Douglas where I hope to get through unscathed ahead of Phuket 70.3, 18 days later.