Blackmores Half Marathon - Sydney

So this past weekend I flew to Sydney for the 7^th race in my run around Australia. Just as a spoiler – I had an absolute blast…easily the most fun I had running this year!

8am flight meant that I at least got to see my eldest before I left home, although I did leave him and my wife happily tucked up in bed at 6:30. Once I got to the airport and was all checking in I tagged myself on Facebook and in hindsight am really pleased that I did.

On landing in Sydney (after a spare seat next to me all flight – SCORE) I had several messages from people I knew from life in the UK and Zimbabwe that were also in Sydney and wanted to meet. I was flattered…there was:

 

·         Charles and Megan (the internal auditors for the last company that I worked for in the UK over from the US, auditing the company in Sydney)
·         Tania and Geoff (I worked with Tania at said company and she had now transferred with her husband to the Sydney office for a couple of years)
·         Steven and his brother David (I worked with Steven in my first job out of school many many moons ago in Zimbabwe and he and his brother had flown in from Brisbane for the race).

After negotiating my way from the airport to the town centre we ALL met at the race expo and decided that reunion beers were in order. The afternoon blurred by and was an absolute hoot. I loved the fact that despite not seeing each other for 4 (UK/US) and 10 (Zim) years it was like we talked yesterday and everyone got into the swing of conversation!! It was great. Plus I ended up being able to cancel my proposed accommodation (out of town) and stay in Tania and Geoff’s spare room in the city…much easier. After a marathon fuelling dinner of pizza and another beer I confessed to needing to turn in for the morning (such a party killer this running lark).

4:15 the alarm went off and after the odd expletive I dragged myself up and out the house. I had my berroca and oat slice breakfast on the walk through town to the Town Hall station. Very funny getting wolf whistles from some of the bars (still going strong at 4:30) on the way through town.

Just a couple of peeps at the train station

Met up with a huge throng of people at the train station and made our way across the river to the start point. A wonderful starting point under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Well catered with port-a-loos and help desks and start zones etc – well laid out!

Traditional start line crowd photo...

Started at 6:15 on the dot and we were off. Awesome experience running over the bridge and into the city. I was so surprised at how much major infrastructure they had shut off for this run. Amazing and awesome!

Backwards shot for the Bridge

I went into this race with the mindset that I was out for fun. There was no chance I was going to injure myself this close to completing my goal (3 weeks till Melbourne) and I would be happy with ANY time (as long as it was sub 2).

Sydney had some beautiful sites and several areas where the spectators were out in force and they did their city proud!

The last 400 meters was along the foreshore of Circular Quay between the restaurants and the water and I was zig sagging from left to right getting as many high fives as I could muster in that final stretch – I was pumped and loving every minute of it!!! Probably really annoyed people behind me but it was fun (plus I am 6’ 5” and 230lbs so no one mentioned their annoyance to me at the end). Crossed the line with a 1:55:20! Woo hoo….race and state number seven in the bag.

Cheesy happy runner photo

Onwards now to Melbourne for the 42km run around the city to complete the sweep.

Only drawback from the weekend was not getting to see my fellow running buds of Simon and Jarrod but sadly logistics of flight times and accommodation and race start times (the marathon started AFTER the half!?!) meant that it was not an option this time. We will have a celebration meet up in Melbourne (their home race) in a couple of weeks!

 

Thanks for reading