Brisbane Marathon

Today I ran my first marathon, the annual Brisbane Marathon. Start was an early 6.00 am. Majken and I headed down to the start at the Southbank Cultural Forecourt at 5.15 am, joining the crowd of people heading home after a long night on the town. Grandmother was designated babysitter.

By 5.45 am dawn was rapidly approaching and a couple of minutes before the start it was just light enough to take a few pictures without a flash. Deputy premier Anna Bligh provided a few words thanking the major sponsor Mizuno and we were off.

The course is a mostly flat, out and back loop course along the Brisbane River that encompasses the Goodwill Bridge, Riverside Drive, the City Botanic Gardens and the Coronation Drive Bikepath. Marathon runners had to do the same course twice.

The majority of runners at the start were doing the Half Marathon. I settled into a nice pace with a few of the half marathon runners. At the 4 km mark, the 1 hour 30 minute pacer for the half marathon passed me. This was good news because I hadn't intended to do the first round of the course that quickly. At the 10 km mark I noted a 44 minute split which I thought was okay. Majken had passed me a bottle of sports drink at around the 8 km mark which I had sipped for 2 km.

I reached the half marathon mark in 1 hour 35 minutes. At that time I thought “this is too easy”. My legs were good and my pulse was low, but it would not last! By about the 24 km mark my legs all of a sudden froze. The feeling in my legs was crippling and led-like. I was running on a slight incline when it happened. At that stage I thought “f*&%! - I have 18 km home, this is far too early to hit the wall”. Anyway, I pushed on at a much slower pace. At the 28 km mark Majken was standing with a bottle of sports drink. When she passed me the bottle I was hoping that it would save me. But of course it didn’t - although I did manage to increase the pace slightly for around 4km. By the time I hit the finishing straight I felt utterly crippled. I crossed the finish line in 3 hours and 33 minutes. Just outside my goal of 3 hours and 30 minutes. Taking into consideration my battle for nearly 20 km, I was happy with the time.

It was a great learning experience. The marathon distance is one I will do again. Next time I will have to train more purposely towards it though. My longest training run was a meager 20 km and I only ran that distance once. I will need to do more long runs (probably around the 30 km mark) so I can postpone the onset of problems with my legs to later parts of the race.

Next time will be the Hans Christian Andersen Marathon in Odense in September.