The big day!

Sunday 27/8/06 - Adelaide Marathon Festival.
It's here!! My wife, Robin, and boys, Connor & Lachlan, gave me a lift down to the HM start at Lockleys, and gave me a great sendoff. It was a little cool that morning so decided to wear a cotton t-shirt under my long sleeve Brooks running top, as well as the Asics running shorts and Brooks Adrenalins. Also had invested in good Thorlo socks a couple of weeks before and some Bodyglide so hopefully had all the right gear, in all the right places. Managed to get into the loo and have a decent stretch beforehand so was feeling ok and as ready as I was ever going to be!
The atmosphere was great at the start with runners of all abilities taking part and we even got to cheer on a few marathoners who trotted by on their 42.2k journey. All shapes & sizes, which is one of the things that's great about running:)
I lined up near the back and felt ok as the gun went off.
Given that I couldn't run 3k six months ago, I was aiming for a modest goal of averaging under 6 minute pace per km, total time around 2:06. The last month of preparation however was a shocker with injuries etc and ended up running with a cold but the lack of training throughout July/August was the biggest factor in being underdone. Got to 15k in just under 90 minutes and had felt ok up till then but 'hit the wall' shortly after. Sore foot and hip came on and simply had to grind out the last 5-6k which took me over 46 minutes, so really slowed right down. End result was 2:16:57 so fairly slow, but the great thing about doing something for the first time is that no matter how long it takes, it's a PB :)!

Re Clothing, that was a rookie mistake that I made. I wore a shortsleeve cotton t-shirt with a long sleeve Brooks running top over it as it felt fairly cool in the morning. It was fine for the first few k's but started to warm up pretty well at that point and soon after was starting to feel like my body wasn't ventilating properly. Ended up taking it off and just keeping the long sleeve running top on and carrying the t-shirt and using to wipe my brow etc. It seems very daft now but at the time wasn't sure of the best approach and generally use the ls top to wipe the sweat out of eyes etc.Next time it will be t-shirt or singlet for sure.

So a bit ugly in the end and feel like I went 12 rounds with Mike Tyson but other than that, great. Suspect that I had used up all the fuel supply my body had to offer & was running anaerobically for those last few k's. No wonder it felt so hard.
I hobbled around for the next few days with pride regardless and am very pleased to have finished the half. Learnt a valuable lesson in terms of training though and even though injuries were largely what caused me to be underdone, there is clearly no substitute for religiously putting in the miles beforehand. Looking forward to getting out for a tentative run again later this week and continuing progress towards my next HM and sometime next year, the big monty, a full marathon.