Canberra Marathon Number Eight

CJ, Katy (with Clairie's medal), me and Sue (winner of W60) at Rydges

I'm another year closer to becoming a Griffin as yet another Canberra Marathon bites the dust! It was quite a pleasant morning for a run apart from a bit of headwind over the bridge a couple of times which felt like a gale at the time! There were almost 1300 entrants in the marathon which is apparently the largest number in 25 years. It didn't rain and the temperature was ideal and the wind didn't pick up for a couple of hours.

I started off with speedygeoff beside me, my music plugged in and I felt fine. At about the km mark the white 4 hour balloon appeared behind me and I decided to attempt to keep it in sight. I was on track for four hours until about 15km when I slowly started slipping behind the correct splits. At this stage I was just 40secs behind so still had a little hope of catching up. By 18km I was 1 min behind and I realised my chances were defnitely diminishing. At the half marathon point it had taken me 2:00:49 - still behind time - but I felt quite happy. I could still do a respectable time if I kept plodding along at this pace. However at the 25km mark I was 2mins behind - I was obviously slowing down even more. It took me 2:55 to reach 30km and although I was plodding I was also relaxed, enjoying the atmosphere, the music and especially the cheer squad and the awesome Katy in her different set-ups under the bridge. She truly is amazing and makes everyone smile or indeed laugh.

The headwind over the bridge was annoying and the little undulations felt like hills. I had forgotten the repetitions could feel so long. I was starting to visualise the finish and kept reminding myself this was marathon number eight, a step closer to my ultimate goal, no matter what the time. I was still going to finish and I felt ok although there would be no PBs this year for me. At about 41km I heard a bit of chatting nearby and realised the 4:15 balloon was right there behind me - good grief, I really had slowed down. I tried to keep them at bay or at least run with them and as I rounded the final bend my ipod was very aptly playing, "the long and winding road". I ran through the finish line at 4:15:28 (net chip time). I felt comfortable, I wasn't in too much pain and I didn't fall over. I was just glad to stop and have someone else remove my time chip before I posed for the photographer with my marathon medal. Ok, so it was my second slowest time but I felt happy anyway. It's always such a great atmosphere and there are always so many inspirational runners out there.

Later CJ and I went to Rydges for the awards and to catch up with all our lovely interstate friends. Lucky Legs looked awesome and ran a great run. She is always an inspiration. It was great to catch up with Katy and Mark and Tesso and Clairie too. Then CJ and I had the surprise of our lives when we both received Masters' Athletics medals for our respective age groups - wow - that was certainly unexpected, especially with a time like mine! CJ's was well-deserved as her time was a very respectable 3:39 but my medal was definitely a fluke!!

To sum up it was a good day thanks to the fantastic support out there. I will download some photos soon.