I didn’t think I would want to ever write a race report, but being asked and still feeling good about the race outcome it’s a now or never situation for me!

2019 has been an interesting season for me, and one that brought many positive surprises after a write off in 2018 following pelvic surgery and being told I should give up running and may never run again even if the surgery was done. But gave it a go regardless, in the hope that I could at least jog around a bit with mates and family. After an aborted attempt to train hard for Adelaide in May it was evident that my rehab wasn’t quite done and there was some healing to do, but was already booked for Adelaide and went along for the journey with Erika, Elle and my right hand man Ben. What I didn’t plan for was Elle pulling the pin with her fractured foot, so we transferred her entry the day before and ended up running much quicker than I thought. That gave me some hope things were starting to look better and I decided to target Melbourne as the last marathon of the year to give me more time to heal and train and also extinguish the ghosts of 2016 when the wind killed it for everyone. With Erika’s help we, well she, put together a training program using my old Tiger Berlin template with changes to achieve bigger and better things. My wife now thinks she’s the greatest coach of all time and is taking all the plaudits (what have I done).

Training went well and only missed one session in the last few months; and with a great build up and PB from the Sydney half a few weeks back I was starting to feel like things were coming together. The only thing I felt that would hinder me was injury and of course the unpredictable Melbourne weather. The week leading up to the race was also quite difficult with work stress and some less than positive family news from back home, so I had some inner demons to somehow channel into running hard. Flew up with Ben Friday night after being messed around by Qantas and finally tucked up in my hotel at 11pm which is considerably later than usual.

Saturday was a day spent doing the expo thing, buying stuff I don’t need, eating, loading up the pure carbs/maltodextrin, rearranging my gels for the race and deciding what socks to wear by running up and down my hotel room in the Next %ers. The usual weird OCD routine that we type A runners put ourselves through (or is that just me). Plus getting my usual pre-race haircut, but this time with a difference – Hamilton the Kiwi had long pink fingernails and charged me $55 for the pleasure. Dinner in town with Lauren, Amy, and Ben (stood up by Jeet) and then early bed to stare at the ceiling for hours trying to relax.

Race Day.

Up at 5, slice of toast, 2 coffees, banana, voltaren, Andy’s magic placebo currants, the usual bathroom routine (you all know what I mean), and off out to meet Ben at 6:15. Jog to preferred starting zone and a few strides to warm up. Shout out to Mikey L and my old coach Tiger and good to go for the 7am start. One thing that didn’t quite make sense to me was the pre-race announcement that we would be finishing in the worlds greatest sporting stadium. I mean I am all for running long distances but running across mountains and oceans all the way to White Hart Lane is too much for any man (or woman).

So on to the race…..

Went out hard, I always run the first “free” km hard anyway but I didn’t see much value in running another 2h4* marathon, and knowing there are some tough inclines at the end of Melbourne I decided going hard early was my best hope of achieving sub 2.40. In all honesty I never felt in my comfort zone at any point of the race with this strategy.

I settled in with a group in the first 3-4k that was too quick (I think Mike was in there), so decided to drop off the back and wait for the next group to catch me. They did within minutes and that was my race pace. The group didn’t last too long and splintered so I hung back and let the punchy runners go. This group had Marnie Ponton in there being paced to an eventual 3^rd place female finish. I ended up in a small group with two local female runners who pretty much everyone out on the course knew – Nera Jareb (ended up finishing strongly for 2^nd) and Lydia O’Donnell. They were getting so many shouts it was incredible and they were strong girls, so it was great to run with them. Had some other guy was with us too so we worked well with one another for a fair few k’s. The good thing with this group was that the TV cameras gave them some love so I spent a good 10 mins sitting on the wheel of the bike and camera man in my face as the girls tucked in. It was only afterwards I was told that I got a bit of airtime on the stream so quite fortunate I didn’t have my “I want to kill someone” face on, which may be because I was high from the bike fumes.

But having done this mara before I know things change, and its usually around that switch back at the 26-27k mark. And so it proved, Nera pushing on, Lydia struggling and dropping back and me being left out on my own. At 28k I was really feeling it and the “go hard early” strategy was beginning to take its toll. But something stuck in my head from the day before…the Manly Hardcore chat messages from Barts “pain is temporary” and the more direct approach from Tom “don’t f**k up”. Sorry Tom but Barts beats you again here and it was his message that stuck with me and I thought to myself its 14k, just 14k to go. I’d done enough 16k tempos before to know this feeling, so it was time to draw down on the training and give my all to the finish. The high 5 gels were going down every 7k and I deliberately arranged them from weak to strong caffeine as the race progressed to get the benefits when I needed them most. This seemed to be working as I was still sticking to some good split times and I could see that people in front were tiring. There’s no better feeling in the latter stages of a marathon than picking people off one by one and I hadn’t done this as well since Berlin in 2017. I could see Marnie and her pacer, Alex Matthews, still a good distance in front and looking strong but the gap was smaller than before. Looking at my watch I calculated that I was on for a 2:36 at this point but the hills would be my undoing on that front. Gradually I closed in on Marnie and Alex and caught them by about 35k which was a great feeling, but I knew those inclines were to come and Marnie is a great hill runner. I kept on pushing hard to get some breathing space but on every hill Marnie and Alex caught me and went past, only for me to then reign them back in and take over on the downs and flats. By the time we reached 40k and the turn at Flinders I was in front and knew the hills were done so it was 2k of going hell for leather into the MCG. Marnie and Alex put in a big effort to take me and there was one last almighty sprint around the field to hold them off. I wasn’t going to get taken at this point and crossed the line seconds in front for a PB of 2:37:17. Cant believe I did it!

Waited for Ben to cross, who also ran a smashing PB for 2:43 and then caught up with Lauren and Amy, both also getting PB’s and a podium for Lauren was a great bonus.

Straight back to the hotel for checkout, one beer in the pub went straight to my head, followed by two more to knock me out for the flight home.

Top weekend all round and additional mention to Jeet for another strong half PB and Steve Thurston on debut. And of course the warhorse Macca in Kona.

This has been great training for my target race the annual beer mile in a few weeks and will hopefully set me up nicely for London next April.