I Finished!

I finished the Canberra Marathon in 5 hours 48 minutes and 48 seconds!.

I’ve posted some photos in the photo gallery taken by Taira. She was volunteering so their aren’t many. I’ve ordered the official marathon photos and will post them when I get them.

5:48:48 over 26.2 miles (42.2km) means I averaged 13 minute and 19 second miles. I was doing consistent 9:58 miles for the first 12 miles (18 km), then I just started getting slower and slower.

It was pretty hard going, and as foretold by the veterans I met at the pasta party the night before, at about 30 km (18.7 miles) it felt like someone hit me with a brick. I really just wanted to sit down and take a nap. I pushed on and was heartened at 32 km to see that I had beaten my longest previous run time by a half hour!

The last 200 meters were the easiest, even though the winner had finished 3 hours and 28 minutes earlier there were still people at the finish line to cheer us plodding few to personal glory.

Because the course went through parks, walk paths, and bike paths there were many people out enjoying the day, and it was amazing how many of them stopped to cheer us on. The course looped around Parliament house, where the Balloon festival had just begun, and kids lined the streets with smiling faces and stretched our hands for us to slap as we went by. If you ever see haggard runners with bib numbers pinned to their jerseys, smile and say keep it going. It’s a tremendous help.

The marathon would be have been impossible without the many volunteers running aid stations, directing us through tricky bits, and their general perky smiles and unflaggingly supportive attitudes. I nearly hugged the last volunteer at the turn before the finish line when he said I only had 800 meters to go!

All totaled I raised $A 409.20 for the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia, not bad for less than six hours of work. A big thank you to everyone who pledged.

Thanks to everyone that supported and encouraged me over the last three months. Special thanks to Taira, who went as far as cycling ahead of me for 10 miles in the dark with a head lamp so I wouldn’t miss a scheduled long run. Hopefully life will return to normal now. I don’t think I’ll run another marathon, at least … not too soon ;-)