Gold Coast Marathon - RunMarathon

The gun went off and it only took 1 minute to cross the line. The crowd spread out pretty quickly and I was able to get into a good pace right from the get go. The 3:45 pacer was behind me and I was feeling good. The race all went to plan and I was travelling alone nicely until about the 21k mark. One of mates who I was hoping to beat come waltzing up behind me and said hello. We chatted for a while but I could see that I was slowing him down a bit so I said don't let me hold you back and with that he disappeared off in front of me. I was a bit grumpy at this stage and started to direct bad thoughts in my friends direction (I'm not a very good loser). To make matters worse the 3:45 pacer (and about a thousand other runners) passed me with ease at the 30k mark. They flew past me and it felt like I was standing still. I knew then that I wouldn't be running under 3.50 because I just didn't have the will or strength to go any faster.

At about the 32k mark I got the shock of my life, when I saw my mate (who had passed me with ease earlier) standing on the side of the road stretching his legs. My first thoughts were “you beauty, there’s a chance I can beat him after all” and I offered some words of support as I passed him. A few meters down the road I looked back and saw that he was still standing there stretching and all of a sudden I started to feel guilty. For me the race had changed. Why didn’t I stop and check to see if my mate was ok? Why was I more concerned with beating him? He would have stopped to check on me. I started to feel awful for continuing on and not stopping and talking to my mate. By the time I decided to go back, I was more then 2k’s in front of him and decided that it was just too far to turn back now. Luckily for me, another 2k’s down the road saw the course do a u-turn and double back on itself. This meant that I would again pass my mate but in the opposite direction, I had a chance to redeem myself and check on my mate. It was somewhere around the 36k mark that I finally passed him and was able to cross over to the other side and check on him. He had started to walk but I could see that he was struggling to run. I tried to encourage him as much as I could (I’m not a very good motivator) and told him that the important thing was to get to that finishing line any way possible (one goal we both had was to finish the race without walking but that didn’t matter now). My mate thanked me for stopping and told me that he was ok and to get back to my race and so I did.

The final 8k’s were the toughest 8k’s I have ever run. My legs and knees were killing me. I tried to make it more manageable by breaking it down into 1k segments and ticking them off in my mind as I went pass each k marker. I struggled to the finishing line and was so so happy to finally cross it under 4 hours.

I drank heaps of water and found some watermelon.


Nothing really. I stuck to my training plan and followed it pretty much to the letter.


The marathon is indeed a challenging race. In my training the furthest I ever ran was 30k's and it was always going to be interesting to see how I would go with the extra 12k's.

My mate send me a text after he had finished saying that I was a "Legend" and that I had helped him get though the race. I don't know if it was the endorphins finally kicking in but reading his text made me feel happier then when I had crossed the line.