Anyone who's read my training log over the last month knows I wasn't really up for this marathon. I've struggled to train in the cold wet windy Melbourne weather that's been dished up.

Getting to the Gold Coast was a pleasant surprise. I know what it's like not to be freezing cold again!

The day was beautiful and I still cannot believe how much I enjoyed the experience. It almost makes me want to run it again, even though I swore I was retiring from running, or running marathons at least.

The first 5km were slow. Even for me. I'm know sure if it was because there were lots of people, because I was trying to keep my HR down or because I'd taken the advice of a guy in the line behind me at registration who said start out much slower than you think you should.

At about 10km I'd fallen into stride with a guy running the same pace. I really liked this part of the race, it was then that we caught a glimpse of the marathon leaders, who had already reached the turnaround. That was pretty phenomenal. Their pace particularly!

I'm not sure my partner and I exchanged words until the 15km turn around in Burleigh heads. But it was good to have the company.

When I passed through the half marathon mark, I knew I was going to be lucky to run a sub 5 marathon. But I wasn't disappointed, I was just waiting for the hurt to begin so I could deal with it.

At 25km we were almost back in surfers paradise and I ran passed Mr T, who had come down to give me a big cheer. That was at about three hours, I had to laugh when he said see you in a couple of hours.

At this stage my running partner couldn't keep up any longer and I was out on my own. I had to take the run in 5km bites. Just get to 30kms, that took me back to the start at Southport. It was hard seeing people finish, knowing I still had over an hour to run. I got a big cheer from the assistant coach at my Tri club. He asked me how I was going, slow I replied. As long as it's steady he said. Steady. One foot in front of the other. I knew I could run 32km without walking, that's how far I'd got in training so I was determined to get to there. I think I did.

37km onwards was running/hobbling. Something in the back of my right knee kept seizing, it got to the point where I was almost having to run with a straight leg. So I'd stop, ease my leg out a bit and keep going for as long as I could before it seized again. I was passing a fair few people at this stage.

Such relief when I got to 40km. I'm actually going to finish! At about the 41km mark I got a huge cheer from the tri club, at 42km Mr T was cheering me on and I nearly cried knowing I still had 0.2km to go! But I finished strong, or as strong as I could at that stage.

And then the relief of not running came. I limped through, gave my timing chip back, got some water, got my T-shirt and gave Mr T a big salty hug. 42km done and dusted. Kind of.



Not lose focus a month out of the run. I really ran to the best of my ability and fitness level.

Unfortunately the organisers had run out of fruit for the slow finishers. Thankfully Mr T had packed a bar of nougat and I scoffed that down.


I ain't no natural born runner.


This event has it all - the option of 5, 10, 21.1 & 42.2km. The weather's warm, the course is flat and scenic and there's entertainment, crowd support and enough water stations. There's a heap of internationals, interstaters and locals competing, I loved the atmosphere and the friendliness of everyone. It's very tempting to make a marathon come back for this!