My plans for seeing how I was going by participating in the Australia Day run came unstuck by me making a tactical decison to begin in the middle of the field. What I did not realise was that the shuffle forward would still be happening 1km into the run.
In the end I walked, ran and chatted. There is always another day.
rage against age 
Running, walking, chatting sounds like a great way to spend Australia Day, or any day for that matter.