Race report:
Michael-Clease has family in Newcastle so on Saturday we drove up to the Hunter Valley with plans to stay in Newcastle for the night. We drove straight to the Hunter Valley Gardens. All went well, collected my pace pack, got a free t-shirt that disappointingly only mentioned the running festival. When I run a marathon I like to advertise the fact by wearing the t-shirt!
We drove back to Michael-cleases grandmas house (got lost on the way) and she very kindly put us up for the night, thank you grandma!
I had a dinner of soup and rolls which in hindsight probably wasn’t the best pre race dinner. I did have lots of noodles the night before but maybe a few more carbs would have been good.
After not a great night’s sleep Michael-clease and I rose at 5:30 to quickly eat our porridge and banana (breakfast of champions) and were out of the house by 6am.
When I was lining up I took a look around and realised there were only about 100 people doing the marathon, that scared me a bit. I was sure I would come last.
The route was two laps, quite near the beginning I started chatting to a lady, we came up to a humongous hill and she told me she always runs half way and walks the rest. I reckon that if she hadn't told me that I would have been ok but in the end I walked a little of it. Then I had to do it on the second lap and again struggled.
I'm not a big fan of gels, I struggle to get them down. Some people can't stomach then I know but with me its fine once they are down its just getting them past my taste buds. I had one gel before I started and another at 15km. I planned to take the last one at 30km but annoyingly they water station had run out of cups and I had to go to 35km before having the final one. I also ate some jelly babies which I think was more of a placebo and a distraction than anything else.
There isn't really to much to report about the race, towards 35km I started to struggle a little and the gel didn't really seem to help - I guess it would have been worse though if I hadn't eaten it. 35k to 40km I started doing a little run walking but managed to run the last two ks.
The 6km fun run started at about 10am so by the time I came up to the finish line I had lots of, shall we say, less fit runners along side me. In one particular photo I am running next to a 10yr old girl! It was nice when one volunteer cheered "well done marathon lady"!
At the end we were herded into a pen to remove our timing chips and get our medals. Unfortunately all of seats were taken up by chubby kids who were waiting for their parents so I had to stand while Michael-clease helped remove my timing chip. Then there were no medals left :( although the organisers kindly sent mine in the mail a few days later.
Over all it was a good run, nice countryside (saw a few kangeroos!) and well organised. I don't think I would do the marathon there again due to the double loop but can imagine doing the half.
I took the next day off work and was pleased I had. Nothing to major but my legs were very stiff.
The route was two laps, quite near the beginning I started chatting to a lady, we came up to a humongous hill and she told me she always runs half way and walks the rest. I reckon that if she hadn't told me that I would have been ok but in the end I walked a little of it. Then I had to do it on the second lap and again struggled.
I'm not a big fan of gels, I struggle to get them down. Some people can't stomach then I know but with me its fine once they are down its just getting them past my taste buds. I had one gel before I started and another at 15km. I planned to take the last one at 30km but annoyingly they water station had run out of cups and I had to go to 35km before having the final one. I also ate some jelly babies which I think was more of a placebo and a distraction than anything else.
There isn't really to much to report about the race, towards 35km I started to struggle a little and the gel didn't really seem to help - I guess it would have been worse though if I hadn't eaten it. 35k to 40km I started doing a little run walking but managed to run the last two ks.
The 6km fun run started at about 10am so by the time I came up to the finish line I had lots of, shall we say, less fit runners along side me. In one particular photo I am running next to a 10yr old girl! It was nice when one volunteer cheered "well done marathon lady"!
At the end we were herded into a pen to remove our timing chips and get our medals. Unfortunately all of seats were taken up by chubby kids who were waiting for their parents so I had to stand while Michael-clease helped remove my timing chip. Then there were no medals left :( although the organisers kindly sent mine in the mail a few days later.
Over all it was a good run, nice countryside (saw a few kangeroos!) and well organised. I don't think I would do the marathon there again due to the double loop but can imagine doing the half.
I took the next day off work and was pleased I had. Nothing to major but my legs were very stiff.
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| A couple of photos of me not looking too bad, buy photos from marathon-photos.com folks! |
