LONDON MARATHON DEBUT The Marathon was the one distance I had avoided signing up for over the years, telling myself it could wait until there was no speed left in the legs. But honestly it was probably more the fear of knowing what it would take to execute a great marathon. For many club runners the Marathon really is the ultimate event, with such a long training build up, you feel extremely invested in the final race day. After moving…
Prelude & Training Hurts veterans may recall how my 2013 Boston experience turned into a nightmare. A failure to break 3 hours despite posting a PB, and then the well documented events thereafter. Ever since then I vowed to return one year and make it a more pleasant experience in my favourite city in the United States. This was the year, the 123rd edition. I was also keen to lay my Berlin 2017 to bed. Many millions of runners…
Since a couple of 5,000m races in Feb I have been focussed on training for the 88km Comrades Marathon in South Africa in June. For those that don’t know it, Comrades is an iconic road ultra, selling out it’s 25,000 entries in a few days. I entered the Canberra 50km as timing makes it a good hit out 6 weeks out from Comrades and Canberra makes for a great family weekend away. Treated this as a ‘B’ race and just…
Bloomberg Square Mile What a great night at what is fast becoming the premier running event in Sydney. Anyone who is anyone in the NSW running world moves heaven and earth to attend this – some even pretend to work (Tim Lindop) to get a guernsey for this blue ribband event. While running is a very solitary sport, this is a night to celebrate and enjoy all that comes from participating in a proper team running race – you even…
What started out as a training run for Comrades became possibly the best race I’ve ever run! Some may know about the debacle of last year’s Canberra 50km, where all but the top 3 runners went off course 5km into the race, running anywhere between 2km and 6km extra distance… I happened to be the first of the runners who took the wrong turn in that race (so yes basically I led the whole field off course!) and as a…
Woke to perfect conditions on Sunday for the Canberra marathon. I had a great training build up and had been on a program from CT @ Rejoov from January which incorporated lots of HuRTs sessions and I also regularly joined the HuRTs Sunday morning session at Centennial Park. When I kicked off with the program in Jan I said to CT I wanted to beat my previous best time of 3:29 (set in Melbourne 2005) but as my…
Road tripping with Erika was a blast!!! We covered every topic you could possibly imagine and cried of laughter majority of the way. A few wrong turns and Sydney traffic at it’s worse, we finally made it to Canberra by dinner. Pasta with Son and Charlie, snuggled into our king bed and 8.5hrs later Erika was waking me! We were pumped! Put our sparkling new Delta singlets on for the first time, coffee, electrolyte, banana, bliss ball, happy snaps and…
The race started off slightly chaotic with the race director thanking everyone for being there, supporters, volunteers and without further ado a 3-2-1 go! What! There were still spectators in front of me on the start line. A quick sprint on the grass beside the road and I could spot the front of the pack which included fellow HuRTS runner Jono. I decided quickly that I won’t lose sight of him like I did last year at both UTA and…
2019 Bloomberg Square Mile Relay So Tommy H wants to hear your running stories heh? Well on a cool and crisp Thursday night in early April, the Bloomberg Square Mile Relay kicked off for its 4th installment. Now I know what you’re thinking, a mile why bother? Well running isn’t just a sport for individuals. Running is as much about comradery and telling great stories over a post race beer as it is about individual effort and achievement. This event…
Well, I was strangely a bit psyched for this one, despite it being a BAU Striders 10km. This was mainly due to: (a) laying 4 bets on the outcome of the race; (b) the fact that a large number of the HuRT Squad were going to be there; and (c) the finish line cheer squad of LJ and Fiona making a special effort to be there. So I had an easier week in the build up which fitted…