Great Ocean Road marathon 2013 - Race Report

We woke at 5am to kindly be taken to the airport by Michael Clease's brother for our 7am flight. The woman on the flight next to me was very irritating, she kept knocking me with her elbow, flipping pages of her book very loudly, texting!!! and was writing in three different diaries each slightly larger than the last! It sounds so petty now but when you are cramped in a little box its very frustrating.

When we landed it became clear that a lot of people were heading to the running festival. Lots of legging, trainers and I even heard one woman in the toilet talking about wee colour (as in trying to check it to make sure she was fully hydrated). 

We collected our hire car and set off. Michael Clease was keen to check out Bell beach, location of the surfing movie Point Break. We did briefly but it was cold and windy so we were quickly on our way. 

As we got onto the great ocean road we soon saw the amazing views that it is so famous for, rolling green hills, crumbling cliff edges and blue foamy shorelines. 

The day was cold with on/off showers and we checked a number of different weather websites praying that the conditions would improve for Sunday. 

Our accommodation, the Claerwen Retreat, was slightly out of Apollo Bay, up a windy, gravelly, hilly road but once we saw the amazing views I was happy to see we'd made a good choice. 

We decided to make dinnner in our room and have a very quiet evening. Michael Clease knocked up a quick pasta with sausages, veg and tomato sauce. Thanks to the early morning I was falling asleep at 9pm while watching Harry Potter. 

View from our room at Claerwen retreat, it really doesn't do it justice.

We woke at 5am for a second day in a row, dressed, ate some porridge and drove down to the coach collection for a 6:15am pickup. 

When entering online you could specify that you'd like a coach trip from the finish line in Apollo Bay to the start line in Lorne. There was I expecting one coach maybe three quarters full but with the help of the half marathoners there must have been about eight coaches waiting. 

We arrived at the start line at 7amish which I thought was a little early but by the time we'd been for a wee, drunk a Gatorade, pinned on our numbers, gone for another wee and put our bag in the bag van it was nearly time to start. 

Just before the start

We started slow, in training Michael Clease has been setting off quite fast and I was very conscious to take it easy and not get carried away as I have in past events. We decided to have our gels at every 10km and so the provided energy drink at every 5km. This strategy worked well and thanks to some new gels I have discovered called Torq I was actually looking forward to using them. There isn't much to say about the run, the uphills were quite tough, the downhills were very welcome. At around 30km I began to struggle but that is to be expected I think. We reached the marathon mark at 4:24, roughly a ten minute pb for me so I was chuffed. I think we saw Toadie from Neighbours which was pretty exciting for me! Michael Clease had a little banter with him.

Due to the location of the towns this marathon is a little different to most in that they give you a time for the marathon and then you have to continue to the finish line totalling 45km. I was originally worried that this would be a mental struggle and once I got to the marathon mark I would not have the motivation to keep running. This turned out not to be the case, I had mentally broken down the race into nine 5km portions which I think helped, and we crossed the finish line in 4:37. 

Originally we had planned to grab a beer and some food straight after but we really felt like going back to our room for a shower and a rest. 

Much to his reluctance and my encouragement Michael Clease showered his legs with cold water before the hot shower, I did the same after. I don't know if it was due to this or the beers after but we pulled up quite well the next day. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the race, it was really well organised, the views were spectacular, the crowd at the end was really great and I think having Michael Clease with me really gave me encouragement. I'd definitely do it again, maybe not next year due to the cost in getting and staying there but if you live near by its a must!

Now I am just waiting for the official photographs.

Chubby Katie.x