Brisbane Marathon Festival

Early start Saturday morning (4:30 alarm) to enable me to wake up and get to the airport by 6:30 for my 7 am flight. HUGE temptation to hit snooze but common sense prevailed and I dragged my carcass out of bed.

 

Uneventful flight (although a spare seat next to me – SCORE!!!!). Landed and caught the airport shuttle to the city and after a short detour of taking the wrong turn out of the station and doubling back I found the hotel and checked in. There I met one of the nicest hotel staff ever. She showed genuine interest and enthusiasm over the fact that I (with many others) was there for the run. She seemed so genuine and nice – it was really refreshing! Cab over to get my race number (on advice of nice hotel lady – wish I had gotten her name!) then took a walk from the hotel to the start line at the Botanic Gardens (12 mins!). Beautiful gardens and a really nice walk through them on my mini explore.

Met up with an old school friend (last seen about 15 years ago) for dinner and way too much chatter – it was great! Still managed to curb the evening to one beer, a burrito and a 9pm return to the hotel! Burritos and beer – the new race prep food…..elite level here everyone! The South Bank in Brisbane is a wonderful place – really vibrant and alive. Definitely enjoyed it!

Race had a 6am start so I planned to be there by about 5:15 sooooo 4:15 alarm. I woke up every 2 hours fretting that I had slept through the alarm and had flown all this way for nothing…needless to say when the alarm did go off I was so fast asleep I was grateful that I set a second alarm for 2 mins later…

I must have looked an awesome site walking through the centre of Brisbane in shorts and a tee at 4:45 whilst some people were spilling out of clubs and bars and getting the traditional junk food fuel up. Was really chuffed to see several thousand like-minded loony’s lined up at the Botanic Gardens start line when I got there.

Start was bang on 6 am and I had made my way about three quarters of the way through the pack to a nice little spot on the fence and we were off. A little meander through the city streets before we came to one of the iconic bridges! That was a cool feature of the run. I felt good and managed to maintain a reasonable pace (circa 5:30 per km which was my target pace I decided before the race). I did fret a little when the 2:00 pace setter trotted passed me like I was standing still…then a second 2:00 pacer passed me (?!?!) then the 1:50 pacer (WTF) and it was a nice distraction watching the TWO 2:00 pacers talking and debating!! Needless to say I decided I was better off in this case going with my own plan and actually ended up passed both of them later on the course.

Very scenic run (mostly flat) along the river banks (north and south banks). My only criticism would be that a fair amount of the run is on pedestrian and cycle tracks which makes it really difficult to overtake due to lack of space (although it probably helped to keep my pace steady). The other annoyance was the RUDE cyclists that insisted that despite signage and several thousand runners they would continue at high speed along their usual ride routes swerving in and out of runners! I did not see any instances of people being hit but it would not have surprised me - I hope all parties got away without incident.

For the first time ever I took on board a gel whilst running. I decided to try it out in a race after a couple of tries in training. So at 14 km water table I grabbed a cup and alternated gel/water/gel/water/gel/water then was back on my way. Did it help – not 100% sure but I still felt good throughout the rest of the run so I think it did and that is really what matters most.

We finished with a 1.5km loop around the Botanic Gardens which was lined with finished competitors and spectators so it was really nice to get the motivation from everyone. At that point I had taken my headphones off to enjoy the atmosphere and high fives…

Behind me with about 300 mtrs to go a lady started whooping and cheering that she was going sub 2 and it was quite infectious and even got me to step up my pace a little for a semi sprint finish. Crossed the line at 1:59:18 (gun time) for a NET 1:58:09!! Woo hoo new PB! Very pleased. (side note: one of the 2 hours pace setters came through at 1:59:59 – good effort!)

Grabbed my (medal) banana and water and started to stride out for the hotel as I had 2hrs 30mins to get to the airport for my flight (take about motivation to finish the race as quickly as possible).  ANOTHER spare seat on the flight home – woot woot! And back to my amazing support crew (and peanut butter brownies) by 3 pm!

A little stiff today and planning a 6 – 8 km jog in the morning to help loosen up as I have two weeks until the Alice Springs ½.

Overall, a great weekend of catching up and running and flying and a new PB.

Well done and thank-you Brisbane for a great event.