Bit of a delay in posting this entry! This years marathon was the reminder.
October 11th, 2009 was Melbourne Marathon Day. I had decided that 3h30min was my goal time. I thought this was fair considering this was my first marathon, I had basically done zero speedwork that was on the training program and I had been battling my foot injury. I picked up a 3h30 pacing band from the Runners World stand the day before, so I was set.
The plan on the morning was to meet a mate at Richmond station at 6:40am and we were going to jog up to the start as a warm up. Jo, the kids and I got there at about 6:20 and soon realized the station was shut and no trains were running that early. We decided to park at the G and I text him to say meet there. By the time he got close (on his bike!) we couldn't wait any longer. Parked on the opposite side of the G to the Tennis Centre bridge and with 10mins to the start, I started jogging around. When a marshal on the bridge said to me, 'you're about to start', I was nearly sprinting.
I got to the start with about 1 minute to spare and started looking for my 3h30 pace group, I couldn't find any pace groups, so I just jumped in the crowd about half way back and off we went. The first couple of k's through the city and onto St Kilda Rd were very congested and it was hard to get into a rhythm. By the 2k mark I was already a couple of mins behind schedule and there wasn't much space for overtaking to get to the speed I thought was right. I took a risk and started running down the St Kilda Rd median so I could get past people. It helped and by the 4k mark I had stopped losing time against my schedule, and by the 5k mark, I was starting to peg back some time.
I decided I would endeavor to catch my 3h30 pace group, but do it in a controlled manner so I didn't blow up. Not far after the 5k drink station I saw a large group ahead with a flag attached to one of the runners. Unfortunately, it was the 3h40 group, but at least I knew where I was now, and I would just keep going at this pace, making sure I grabbed water and gels at most of the stations.
There were 2 points where the course looped back on itself and I had a chance to spy the 3h30 group. I was getting closer each time, but they were also still some way in front. There was no need to panic, as there was still a long way to go.
On Beaconsfield Parade, heading towards St Kilda after about 20k, my hip flexor twinged a bit. I didn't know what that was about, so I made sure I was still running fairly upright, tensed the gut a bit more, and the pain eased. Not quite halfway, it was too early to have an issue I thought.
Pushing past the 21k mark and getting close to St Kilda, I was coming up to a guy running with a balloon attached to him. I noticed the balloon had 3h30 written on it. The guy said he was at the rear end of a 3h30 pace. Cool! I was nearly there, although I still couldn't see the lead guy with the flag, I really wanted to be up there.
The course then headed down to Elwood before looping back a 3rd time, this time I could see they were very close, and about 1k later, I caught the group and started running with them. This was about the 28k mark. At this point I was thinking, this is not bad, I obviously had to back off slightly to stay with these guys now, and this left me feeling quite good.
After running back through St Kilda, the course merged with the half marathon course as we got back onto St Kilda Rd, again this led to congestion. It was frustrating to again have to deal with passing slower runners, especially at this point in the race. The group called out for slower runners to stay left, but there was still some zig zagging to do.
Next we reached a major drink station at the Domain Interchange, and it was at this point I thought, I am going to leave these guys behind and run harder to the finish. I was feeling too good. There was about 10k to go at this point and it was time to see how much under 3h30 I could go.
While running under the Art Centre tunnel, it felt like one of my toenails got caught on my sock. It wasn't painful, just annoying, but I didn't want to stop just for that, and pushed on around to Birdwood Ave. The climb along Birdwood Ave past the Shrine to Domain Rd is not steep, but after 35ks in the legs, it wasn't easy. I kept my pace along here as I knew once I got to Domain Rd, it was downhill back to St Kilda Rd. There was a very slight indication of cramp happening with about 2k to go, but I was still on a roll and feeling good.
Running onto the MCG for the finish wasn't a draw card for me, but I must admit, it felt pretty awesome running onto the ground to complete the final lap. Looking around at the finish, I couldn't spot the support crew so I followed the herd through the bowels of the G, grabbing drinks, banana's and my medallion. Once outside of the ground, I took a look at the annoying toenail thing and realised a blister had developed on the end of my 2nd toe, it had burst causing that annoying sensation earlier.
Considering my injury plagued leadup and rushed start, I was pretty happy to have run a 3h 21m marathon and doing a negative split!
