4hrs 10min to get onto MCG in the 30th Melbourne Marathon

Sunday 7th October Ran 4 hours 10 minutes 28 (unofficial wristwatch time) in the Melbourne Marathon. Half Splits 1.56.51/2.13.37. HR 183 at end. (I soaked up the experience of running 3/4 of a lap of the MCG by finishing strongly which resulted in a high heart rate.)

Update Monday 8th October 2007; Official results from http://www.multisportaustralia.com.au/racetecresults/
says I did 4hrs 10min 22 for 1680th place out of almost 3000, so almost in the top half of the results, was 289th in the 30-34 year old males category, and 1365th male.
Although I just located another listing of results which suggests I was 1735th of 2622 finishers, 296th of 384 30-34 year old males, and 1401st of 2005 male finishers. There was quite a few DNF's (DidNotFinishers) too...SEE HERE...


Photos online now from http://www.supersportimages.com/
Scroll down to near the end of this post to see photos from the last 5km of my 42.2km Marathon...

Like this one;


Enjoyed the experience similier to my City to Surf Half run in August in that respect. It truly was a remarkable incredible experience I'll remember for the rest of my life as one of the most special! races I have done so far, right up there with finishing the Sydney Olympic 20km walk trial in the Olympic Stadium, and stuff like that. Well worth doing for that reason.

Its been pretty hard to get the start line for this one, and remained so right up to the last hour or so. I had managed to get a taxi as far as the TAN (Royal Botannical Gardens), but had to run for 20 minutes to the start at the MCG, but still managed to get there by about 0650am, and for once I was at the start line by 0715am (30minutes before the original start time) having deposited my clothing in the Ponsford stand section underneath ("in the bowels of ") the MCG. I met the first of many Perth (WAMC members) then, and continued to meet new WAMC people or see a few familiar faces during the day, including the old Swiss bloke with his big swiss flag and bell, who often does the Perth Marathon, and shouts Ole Ole.

I literally shoved my way through the crowd to Clarkeys pace flag when I saw them pop up in the crowd about 10 minutes to go, they also had australian flags attached which made 'em easier to spot, but they were actullay quite hard to find in a massive crowd.

They had trouble getting all the roads closed and we started 25 min late, at about 8.10am. But they had Steve Monaghetti, & Rob DeCastella being interviewed before the race which was very interesting. One of the most amazing sights was seeing a wheelchair athlete trying to push their way through the crowd, but everyone made way for them. They had this giant blimp in the sky near the start line, and a few helicopters following us and stuff.

There was one woman called Shirley Young who is 78? and has Alzheimers but was doing her 30th consecutive Melbourne Marathon!!! Heard about that in Runners World magazine I read on the plane on the way over and also during the day. Heaps more to write about but for now, onto my race.

I ran with Clarkey (see Cool Running Melbourne Marathon thread) and Charles, the other 3.30 pacer for the first 9km and we were hitting around 4min.55secs-5min.05secs pretty much every 1km with the exception of the first 1km (5.16 I made it) which was slow cos it was such a massive crowd of marathoners and half marathoners (about 8000 of us) all running together on 2-4 lanes of road. for the first 12k or so before the Half runners went on their way. It was just like the City to Surf, in that it took over 40 seconds for me from the gun just to walk across the start line due to the crowd of runners. Plus I was about 20 metres from the front, so a lot worse for others behind us, who in some cases took about 5-10minutes from the gun to cross the start line.


I hit 9km in 45min and 10km about 50min flat maybe a second or two under 50 minute, so a solid place with Clarkey and the other pacer, but not too demanding although I started to find it a bit hard from 7km or 8km onwards.

Then I felt something rubbing in my sock and not wanting another blister fiasco like in the Perth Marathon, this time I stopped within that km and cleaned out my shoe again for the umpteenth time today. So wanted to avoid what happened in July. Found a few bits of sock fluff sticking to my foot, and removed them. Only lost 1 minute but couldn't get back to Clarkeys group which was disappointing because I had hoped to stay with them for at least 15km to 21km or more. Up until then it had stopped me running too fast, but also kept me going at it from 8km onwards when I started to feel my lack of faster running in recent weeks.

At about 14km in I saw someone racewalking at a pretty good pace and went over to say hello, and it was Jarrad Tallent who was in the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and is one of the young faces of the future of Australian Racewalking (he recently did 81min for a 20km walk and 3 hours 53 min in his first 50km walk, and I reckon he gave me a right thrashing today, (edit; He did 3hrs 19 racewalking the whole way as far as I know...Nathan Deakes tells me he splitted 42k in 2.58, which equates to a 2.59.20 marathon, during his world record 50k walk in Geelong last year...) and I was running! Good chatting to Jarrad about the various good elite racewalkers in Australia a bit.

Just after? (its hard to remember the right sequence of events in an unfamiliar course in another state with heaps happening all the way, similiar to running the Perth city to surf sort of feeling with thousands of runners in front and behind me) I chatted with Jared Tallent, I spied the 1 hour 50 Half flag for the half marathoners, so decided to try and run just ahead of them for a few km before they peeled off. This worked ok for a short while, but then I had to duck into a public toilet for no 1's Drank a little too much maybe. Had trouble finding it, and with my second unscheduled stop of the race (about 3-5 minutes this time) I was feeling mentally a bit demoralised and I knew my chances of getting back to the 3.30 group were probably over.

Unfortunately cos I didn't fly over early enough I couldn't do my own drinks and I was relying on copious amounts of powerbar drink and water. It was ok, tasted alright, but I really wanted a big powerade so much, and unfotunately the friend who kindly placed one out there only put one out on the third table, when I kind of needed one on the second table also. At the same time the weather decided to heat up a bit, and I started to get a bit dehydrated and discouraged. Soon the 3.45 group caught me, and I just couldn't find the strength, mentally/physically to stay with them, which was my intention. On the positive sign the left calf/shin wasn't really giving me any major trouble, and the right heel was fine so maybe the copious coldpacking with a coca-cola can early that morning while I was watching the IAAF golden league T&F meet at 5am on Fox Sports 3 in my hotel room (and also a few times on the previous evening with the cold can), did the job, although the left shin is very sore now and my left knee is pretty sore too.

So after the 3.45 group went I had to reassess my goals, and I knew I had to stay well ahead of the 4 hour group to be a good show of a PB today, which I was keen to do. Manmaged to do that for awhile throwing in some 5-5.20 per km stuff which while not great was ok. Then Horrie the one of the 4 hour pace group leaders caught me, and I tried to get away but probably worked to hard to do so, cos a few km later they went past me, and I struggled hard to hold onto them but just couldn't sustain it for more than a few km. Lost them well before the turn-around point in Sandringham, but struggled on from there hoping to do a half-decent time even though it became abundantly clear that for various reasons (the heat, my poor drinks strategy, my lack of faster reps type training/less than ideal number of long runs, and some mishaps on the day trying to stay with pace group due to toilet break and socks...) my dreams of a sub 4 and maybe a PB were not going to happen today. My Carboshotz bottle worked well, which is something I have not done in recent years I think.

Powerade bottle at 27km was a life-saver! Enjoyed that one. So big thanks to the person who got that out there for me. My long runs prep and meter reading training while more than adequate to get through the whole 42km without much walking, was not enough for me to sustain sub 5min 30 1km splits in the last 15km when the 1km markers seemed to be taking forever to get to in contrast to the first 10km of the race which went very quickly while I was with 3.30 pace group.

In the second half of the race especially it became a battle to get enough fluids in and to keep the body temperature down. Probably my less than adequate food and fluids intake in the days before the marathon didn't help either. (Mostly too busy trying to get on flight and get to Hotel room in challenging circumstances the night before!).

However I was passing a lot of people that were now walking, plus even saw a few runners being attended to or stretchered off by ambulance staff. In the last 15km or so I started to get a few momentary cramping up of my right calf muscle which was very annoying and not something I have experienced before. Could be lack of fluids drunk in the days before the race, (my prep was pretty shoddy in that regard), or maybe it was becasue I missed the salt from the powerades I normally drink. I normally have 3 in a marathon but because of my mess-up with the drink dropoff I only had one in this race, although the powerbar sachets do have some salt too. Could be just the hot conditions too. Started quite cold but heated up a bit after 2 hours or so. Not sure. Anyway I did a calf stretch which seemed to help. although it did came back a few times later on but I seemed to sort it those times without stopping. However this my 3rd stop, mean't any chance of getting back to the 4hour pace group was gone. So I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to run over 4 hours today.

However mentally and physically I started to feel a bit better after the powerade and also after seeing Richard and Jane and a few from the Hills Group that I have run with many times about 10minutes behind me after I did the turnaround. Nice to see people I know, especially when you are beating them (dastardly thought I know)...Seriously though I feel a big sense of gratitude to the hills group people I ran my long runs of 27km (x2) and 33km with as they were a major source of encouragement to me in the last 2 months, and without them there is no way I would have got to do this race. Also to Epi for the shoes, and of course to my wife Kathryn for letting me go away to do this race. Big thanks! to all these people and others.
Eventually started to hit a few 5.50 per km splits which was better than the 6.30-7min per km rubbish I had been serving up for a few km. Saw an Asian woman who was doing similiar to me and was passing a lot of people, and I ran with her for about 5km which helped my rhythm a bit. Had a strange pain around sternum area which worried me a bit at one point, but it went away. Then about 37km I was too busy eating my icypole and the asian woman got too far ahead... as we came off Fitzroy Street, and headed down the tree-lined St Kilda Rd towards the Melbourne CBD...



heading down tree-lined St Kilda Rd with less than 5km to go...

I was still hitting around 5.45-6.15 per km which wasn't too bad and I knew around 4.10 was possible if I could hold on.


After 40km of running in the 2007 Melbourne Marathon, fatigue,heat and dehydration all a factor as I begin the last 2km (see tram in background)or so near Flinders St Station,


I worked very hard to keep things ticking over all the way to the MCG including the climb at 41km onto William Barak bridge (grit the teeeth and pumped the arms a bit to get up this one)...



I think this photo is near Federation Square or on the outside part of the MCG, less than 2km to go but I am not sure...

Had a few stoushes with some runners during the last few km, and the feeling running around the outside of the MCG with a massive crowd cheering you was awesome, as was entering the MCG, and running around the hallowed turf! I put in my trademark sprint for home with 150m to go and improved the placings a few more, and the announcer yelled out my name around the MCG as a small crowd watched us finish. Threw up my hands melodramatically (as did a lot of runners, I think the emotion and the feelings going through the mind are very strong finishing on the MCG, its similiar to finishing an Ironman I suspect, just very special, I expected it would be, and thats one of the main reasons I decided a month or so ago I wanted to run this one. It did not disappoint!) like Bekele or someone getting a world record, and enjoyed the moment immensely.


on the final turn in the G! finish less than 150m away, announcer calling out my name over the public address system...indescribable feeling!



finally on the hallowed turf of the MCG! ...

more photos of what it looked like inside and outside the MCG to come...


Many thanks to Supersport Images and Myimages for selling the photos to me.

The Cool Running cheer squad people (for example Courtlylove and others) that gave me an icypole at 37km or thereabouts was a welcome boost! too. Saw another Cool Runner in Cato at the turnaround near the Sandringham football club with his dog all dressed in Cool Runing gear!!!!!!!!!!***LOL***
Saw the famous Luckylegs (70 something woman) with about 2km to go in her marathon who is a regular on Cool Running. Heaps of Cool Running hats all over the course and a few shirts. After the race went to a local pub "The Transport", where I ordered a coca-cola and ate some potato chips (lots of salt to replace the salt I used in the run) and debriefed a bit with a bunch of Cool Runers including Digger,Clarkey,DIJ,SimonS,Courtlylove and husband, Superjacent,Cammo and others. I noticed that they have their nickname on their hats as well which I think is excellent. Have to get one of those hats! Been meaning to for years. On the way there I scored a large bag of powerbar 150ml sachets from a race marshal/volunteer who was packing up.

While we were sitting outdoors at the pub we saw an old lady struggling to the finish in the heat (she must have been out there over 6 hours) so I hobbled down and gave her a few of the powerbar sachets I had, since the marshals had packed up for the day and all the Melbourne roads that had been closed for 5 hours for the Marathon by the Police, were reopened by then so she would have had to run on the footpath for some of the way. We knew that before we entered the race.

So what can I say I had one of the most wonderful days of my life, was well worth the hassle I had to go through to get there. MY time was a lot better than my useless 4.33 in the Perth Marathon, its one of my better marathon times (3rd best of 6 marathons I have run since 2004), so not too unhappy with it, especially my less than ideal preparation, although a little disappointed I failed to go sub 4, and did not knock off the PB, I think overall it was well worth the trip.


I'm typing this in an internet cafe in St Kilda, so will leave it it that for my race report for now. Official results come out on Tuesday on the Melbourne Marathon website, so after that I reckon. I suspect I will get in a lot of the offical photos too. Have to check them out when they come out.

It was great to meet a few of the people I have seen post on Cool Running in the last few years too...So that will do for now, will add a few more details later. Time to go recover ready for my flight home and back to work tomorrow, and to find out how Dave,Nathan and Milov went at waterous 100miles run this weekend....
A special day.