42.2km | Race | 4:26:58 Well after snapping my soleus 8 weeks ago, seemingly always having some sort of a niggle to contend with and the chronic fatigue syndrome (read: virus I think) in the taper period, I was pretty stoked that I even made it to the start. To be honest, if I hadn't promised my mate CR Ripley to run it with him I'm sure (?) I would have pulled the pin. So with the assistance of 2 strong coffees, voltaren rapid and pseudoephedrine pre-race I was sufficiently doped up to get me to the start. I would have failed a random drug test for sure. LOL. I met up with CR Ripley (left) - my mate for 35 years since Primary School - who drove up from his farm in Jindera near Albury. He had been training with a bunch of other people from the Uni down there (Ripley is a lecturer) and being mentored by a guy called Peter who sadly died of cancer a few weeks ago. So yesterday the half a dozen in the squad all wore "For Pete's sake" singlets in his honor. After meeting up with a heap of CoolRunner and Striders at the start including Omni (right) who was doing the 50km, we set off at easy pace. After about 5km I asked Ripley if the pace was OK, he said that it was probably a bit slower than his training pace but at 6:00/km I thought it was about right. No need going out to hard when your heading into unknown territory I said. Along the way we met a heap of CoolRunners including Keg and Bob F who has run 180 odd marathons and Horrie tells me he even ran Sydney to Melbourne ! Bob was to pace the 4 hour group but did a hammy. Bob said that he was just going to tough it out and we left him running with his limp. We joke about it to ourselves that you'd have to be crazy to run a marathon with a torn hammy. He passed us about 39km mark and would have finished about 4:10 I reckon. If marathon running is mostly mental, the Bob F must have that part of it licked. Wow. The race coincided with the annual Balloon Fiesta and we were treated with a dozen or so balloons in the air in the early morning. I made a wonderful backdrop and there plenty of people who ventured out in the early morning to see the sights and cheer on the runners. Picture postcard stuff as they say. I took the pic of Mike from Monsters Inc movie (below) for the kids as I knew they would love to see a balloon from one of their favourite movies. We made it to the 10km mark bang on an hour and then crossed the lake for the first leg out to Black Mountain. Ripley & we just chatted and joked the whole way. Caught up on gossip and chatted to plenty of people. I was very impressed with the way that he drink stations were set up plenty of water bags, sponges and the important tub of vasso. It was the first time that I have ever used water bags, save one or two up at the Central Coast Half last year. Great stuff for mine. You always finish the bag and the spillage rate is next to none. I reckon the water bags were the reason why I had such a good day. At the 20km mark we were bang on 2 hours and running strong. We then came across CR Otter who was walk/running according the the Galloway principle. For the rest of the race Otter would surge ahead of us, then stop and walk. We'd run past him whilst walking, then he would run past etc. It was like the Tortoise and the Hare story. Not sure who got home first at the end. Perhaps he did. Might be something in the Galloway thing. Maybe for ultras or something I reckon. We were again on the 10km/hour rate at 30km running through the drink station bang on 3 hours. We took our second gel at that stage as we headed out to the Mountain for the second time. By then the winners were already well and truly finished and we had been treated to watching CR Uncle Dave (3rd)scoot past us under an hour ago as well as Martin Considene (4th?)who I know through Bronte Nippers. Not a great opportunity for chat with those guys apart from a quick g'day. Man can they run. Coming out of the tunnel at about 35km and up the short hill that follows the heat really started to effect us and Ripley started to get the wobbles a bit. We both grabbed and extra gel and a sponge as well. Our pace slowed considerably as we trudged across the bridge over the lake for the last time. Ripleys stride had shorted to a Cliff Young shuffle but to his credit he was determined not to walk one step of the 42.2km. I was feeling fine but feeling the heat all the same. The support from the volunteers and public in the last 5kms was awsome and made that little bit easier to get through the last few kms. At the 40km drink station the going was tough but I was determined that we finish strong. I was encouraging Ripley that we must finish strong and that it was only 2kms from home but his shuffle was slowing even more. I was feeling it mainly deep in the hips and the heat was intolerable at that point. We turned the corner with 800m to go and my kids and the Bride were on the sideline screaming my name. CR Tesso flew past us completing her 50km extension. Well done girl. I said you and I would finish at the same time ! Ripley and I ran down the finishing shute together as we started and crossed the line in 4:26ish. I was feeling great (adrenaline ?) however Ripley has to visit the first aid tent for a spell for bit of TLC because of a mild airways/asthma thing. He's fine now. So I did it. Ran my first marathon and crossed the finish line with a great mate. I couldn't ask for a better debut.

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