Samsung Melbourne Marathon - RunMarathon

The start was delayed by 15 minutes while the road ahead was closed and during that time one of the forecast showers swept over the start line. Combined with the very strong southwesterly it made for a large shivering mass of people standing around in singlets and shorts just wanting to get running so we could warm up!

Considering the relative lack of training I have been doing and especially my lack of long-distance runs I am extremely pleased with this result. My longest training run for this race was only 27 km whereas for the Gold Coast marathon ran a 40 km run and did numerous runs over 2 1/2 hours duration. I initially positioned myself with the 3hr 15min pace group but for some reason was ahead of them over the first kilometre even though my pace was slower than what their target should have been. At the second km mark the group called up and I tagged on the back and was extremely surprised to find myself struggling to stay with them. However, the pace over those 2 km was 4:15 per kilometre rather than the 4:38 per kilometre that they should have been running to achieve 3hr 15 for the marathon. It was obvious that day were behind schedule and had decided to ensure that by the 5 km mark they were on the target time. This is a drastic change in pace from what people would have been expecting and I'm sure a lot of people hoping to do 3:15 would have been dropped off the back of that group very early on. In fact, after the 4km mark I decided that my heart rate was too high and I would not be able to sustain this pace over a long day at the office! At this point I settled down to what I believed would be a sustainable pace and let the group move on the head. Interestingly enough by the time I got to about the 7 km mark I had caught back up to them and they were running at the correct pace. I felt like I could sustain a quicker pace than they were running at this point but realising that it was early in the race and that I knew I would be struggling to run the 3hr 15min over the entire course I forced myself to stay with this group.

I felt remarkably comfortable for most of the journey and by the time we had reached Mordialloc (14 km) I was really in the groove and quite enjoying myself. The sun was out and with slight tailwind things were starting to warm up! It was good to see Kelly there too. It was about here that I took my first gel and as is usually the case felt crap for the five minutes afterwards but then picked up again and continued running very strongly with the pace group. At 19 km had to stop to do up my left shoe lace and dropped off the back of the pace group by about 30 m. I didn't bother to chase hard at that point to regain the group as we were just entering the first of the hills and I figured it would be much more economical to gain back the lost ground once we reach the flats on the other side. However, at the aid station just before the half marathon start point there was a lot of chaos as people were diving in to get drinks and at that point the pace leaders decided to press a bit harder to ensure that they made the half marathon point in the required time. This effectively blew the group apart - me included! Reluctantly I let them move away up the road but I was conscious of the fact that only half the run had gone and there was still the most difficult half ahead.

For the remainder of the run up until the 38 km mark I was constantly surprised myself by the consistent pace I was turning in kilometre after kilometre. I had fully expected that I would not have enough stamina to maintain a 3:15 pace for more than perhaps 25 km. Over this third quarter of the race I felt very strong and I was beginning to reel in quite a number of people ahead of me as they started to feel the pinch.

The last 4 km of the run is along St Kilda Road and you cannot see the finish line until you are within perhaps 400 m of it. This makes this final part very difficult as you know from the kilometre markings on the road that you are close and yet you can't see the damn finish line! This was the point last year where I was struggling with hamstring cramp and I had to walk three times over this last 4 km. This year I was able to run the entire race out and while I was definitely getting tired and starting to hurt quite a lot I had no desire to stop.

Nothing during the run - well, maybe make sure the shoe lace was double knotted! :) I managed my energy / hydration levels perfectly and my pace judgement based on what I was feeling relative to how long to go was spot on.

Beer!!! :) Two bottles of Corona beer - since this is the traditional (well my tradition anyway) post race carbo loading. A minor inconvenience of forgetting the bottle opener was overcome with some ingenuity and lots of people were walking past as I lay on the grass savouring the beers saying "Gee I wish we'd thought to bring a beer". Also chugged down a bottle of water, a muesli bar and some jelly snakes.


The usual comment that everyone no doubt makes at this point! i.e to do more run training!

Seriously though, given the amount of training I completed I actually outperformed what I thought I would be able to do on the day (was aiming for a hopeful 3:20) so relative to that there was nothing I could have done.

(Last year was 3:35 so a good improvement on that time)


This is the first year that the race has been run by the IMG organisation and it certainly was much more professional than last year. This year was the 29th running of the event and they are promising a very much bigger and better event for the 30th anniversary of the race. I'll definitely be back next year!

There are 14 "Legends" of the race who have run every Melbourne Marathon since the inception! Now that's impressive!