The Run To The 'G' Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

85th OVERALL PLACE!!! 14th AGE GROUP PLACE!!!!

Initially decided to stick with of the 1:30 pace team and was successful with this until halfway through the first lap (Brunton Ave). Given that the first kilometre was run and 4:09 and the average of the first four km was 4:10, the pace group was certainly running well ahead of schedule. I decided that this was too quick and that my heart rate at 167 was as high as I needed it to be I let them slowly moved away from me. I tended to keep my heart rate and the range of 165 to 167 and only briefly got above this on some of the Hills. It did however drop away to around 160 on some of the flats after the descents. I did find however that as I had found in training, when I seem to be bogged down at a certain speed, if I made the effort to turn the legs over faster (almost like a short sprint) that I can break myself out of the "speed rut" that I seemed to be in.

Was disappointed in the end that I did not break 1:30 minutes which had been my target, missing out by only 50 seconds!!. Over the last three km's however the half marathon course joined up 5 km course and the narrow paths along the side of the river were jammed with people doing that short run. This definitely slowed me down so perhaps as a moral victory I could say that had I not been slowed I may well have just gone under 1:30. Anyway as it stands that is not the time that was recorded so I have yet to go under 1:30 minutes. I took water at every aid station.

I was pretty pleased with my even performance on the course, although it always easy in hindsight to see that I could have gone faster but I think I carefully judged the race and also bearing in mind that in two weeks I will be running a full marathon where I will be attempting to set a personal best that is well under my current best. I'm not sure what time the pace group ran in the end but I suspect that they were at least two minutes under the 1:30 time.

Drank 2 cups each of water and Endurox. Walked down to the show bag collection area (which was full of crap) and consumed the power bar Priya that was in there. Wait around for Kell to finish her five K. run and meet up with Khan as well. Was getting very cold by this point because I was soaked in sweat from the run (I wore my longsleeve blue toppe wirth the short sleeve black one underneath and Skins on legs). Felt pretty good.


People on the course and also thinking that we had three laps around the MCG (i.e. up the hilly section) so I was more conservative on the first lap than I should have been.


Good race given there were 9200 people there. Didn't get my medallion for finishing Half Marathon. They didn't have anybody handing them out which was a bit of a mistake on their part!! They are mailing it out to me.