Reflections of a Slow Runner: Even Beached Pirates Need a Plan

This marked my third - and quite possibly final - year running on the Endeavour 500k relay. I was on Intraining Team 3 for my second year (yes, it's so popular in my running group there are still three teams entered!). It was weird being one of the more "experienced" relayers on the team, having done it three years in a row amongst a bunch of first and second timers.
My team was pretty good though, and put up with all my "back in the day" stories and "last year blah blah blah". What was really exciting for me was that out of the six sections I was running, four of them were brand new to me!
Okay, okay, I know there are 71 sections in total, but there is one section where most of the team (14 out of 17 runners) are required to run, and a few others that are "required", so really, four new runs is pretty darn good.
Now keep in mind that my last 5k time trial was on Monday, where I ran a 5.21min/km pace. As such, I didn't have high expectations for running in peak condition over the weekend. It's always good to have a race plan, so before the weekend came I scrutinized all my races.
Last year our theme was the epic SUPERHEROES. This year we couldn't decide between "pirates" or "beach", so it sort of became "Beached Pirates".

The Pirate Plan: pick one of the two races on the day to focus on, and allow myself to run easier on the other run. As it turned out, before the weekend I had selected to focus on the second race for each day. This had nothing to do with it being the second run and everything to do with the type of run it was - the Hero Leg! My favourite run! Which meant that my first race each day I would hold back - just a little - so I could pour more energy into the later race. Easier said than done! I find it hard not to give 100%, but it was practical. And good experience for me if I'm going to return to longer runs where I need to focus more on pacing than on racing at the start line.
However, I didn't want to completely "throw" my first race each day and I also didn't know how my fitness would hold up, so I mentally picked an achievable goal time for each race and stuck to it. My goal time? A humble sub-5.30 pace! Keep in mind this slow pace was also to account for heat, hills, humidity and other unknown factors that may or may not start with the letter "h".

Now for the weekend that would - as my coach put it - "make or break me". And since my plan was set, I could spend the weekend focussed on more important things than running...

...Such as stuffing my face with food...