2007 Macleay River Half Marathon

Well there’s my third Half Marathon completed, and my second shot at the Macleay River event. For another year, just when it seemed that the weather could have been terrible it turned out that conditions were pretty favourable other than a bit of a headwind on the way out. A sunny cool day is always nice, and afterwards I found it quite warm sitting in the sun in the relatively sheltered finish area.
We were down at the start/finish area to watch the Marathon start (30 minutes before the Half). There was a one minute silence at the start of the Marathon for Ian Green (Green Machine). After the Marathon was underway I got ready, did a warm up and lined up with roughly 120-130 (I think they said?) other starters.

Last year I ran 1:45:12 and with my recent Marathon training I was hoping to make a considerable improvement on that. I was feeling good at the start, and once we were underway I was cruising comfortably along for the first few km. Part of the display section of my watch had started playing up a couple of days before, so I couldn’t record any splits otherwise I wouldn’t be able to read the total time (all I could read was the split time, so as soon as I hit a split I would only be able to read the lastest split and wouldn’t know my total time). I did have the 5km splits for a 1:35 and a 1:39 finish written down, but didn’t pay much attention to them.

So after a few km I just went on feel and didn’t really know how I was going apart from at the half way mark, which I think I went through in about 49 minutes. I was aiming for 4:30 minutes per km so I knew I was a bit slower, but hoping the tailwind on the way back would help, although it never seems to!

I wasn’t really running along with anyone although there were always a few people nearby. Everyone seemed fairly consistent with their pace without much surging. I felt good on the hills particularly on the way back into town, and pushed strongly up them all.

I paid a bit of attention to the time in the final 3km, and realised I had some work to do if I were to go under 1:40 (100 minutes). On the final climb to up Trial Bay Gaol I looked at my watch with 1km to go and realised I needed about a 4:15 final km to beat 100 minutes. I didn’t check the time again until after the finish. I was surprised that a few people were really struggling up the last hill, but I was on a mission and pushing as hard as I could. It’s great when you get to the top though because for the final few hundred metres it’s a flying downhill run to the finish.

On checking my watch I saw it was 1:39:55. The official results were up the same day and they have me recorded as 1:39:59 for 30th position out of 111 finishers and 9th in my age group.

I was really happy to have beaten the 100 minute mark (just), and last year’s time by 5-6 minutes.

As with all three halves that I’ve done I was running reasonably hard, but never really beyond myself at any time apart from the final sprint. Looking back I know I should have challenged myself more rather than cruising along, especially during the middle 10km. I probably don’t run enough of them to really get a good feel for it, but I’m sure with some more experience that will improve. Both times I’ve run here I think I’ve been a bit too laid back going into it, whereas you know with a 10km you just
have to run as hard as you can, and with a Marathon there’s such a long lead up to it and you’re prepared for it to hurt near the end no matter what.

Still I can’t complain about a 5-6 minute pb, a sub 100 and a couple more lessons learnt!!

Jodie was great support at the start, finish and out on the course. Her family had the kids for the morning, and they were all at the finish as well for a while, but just Jodie and myself hung around for the presentations.

Nice to chat with Kazz, Eagle, Silverfox, Miners and Pam (Green Machine’s wife).

I’ve pulled up great today, but I’ll give myself a few more days running break. I’ll just take the kids for a few walks to loosen up and keep things moving, as well as a massage during the week before I get back into it.

It looks like I’ll be able to make it to the Sydney Striders 10km race at Homebush in July. I’m looking forward to that now and hopefully knock some time off the 10km PB that I ran on the same course last year, which was also a few weeks after last years Macleay River Half.