I signed up for a road race. My first in almost 5 years. I hadn’t run a road race since Run Melbourne in July 2019, mostly on purpose, partly due to a pesky pandemic.

I’ve struggled with crowds since lockdowns and was really not keen on the idea of putting myself in a human stampede of sweaty, huffing and puffing people.

After Tarawera, I wanted a new challenge. I wanted to try to get faster. Key word: try.

I’ve never been good at “training”. I’m good at consistently running, but not really with any real intention. I can go back through my Strava and Garmin data for the past 10 years and, whilst the distances and frequency had increased, find pretty consistent running.

I’m a fan of daily shuffles with the dogs, not track sessions or hill repeats!

So I had a bit of a silly idea that maybe I would try to break the 4 hour marathon mark in honour of my 40th birthday.

I ran my first marathon on my 30th birthday and got married at a marathon, so it wasn’t exactly a leap of originality to think that this may be a good idea. Ideally, Gold Coast would be the race. It’s the day after my birthday and the same event of the other questionable life decisions mentioned above. (It’s currently sold out so if anyone wants to sell their ticket or knows someone over at GCHQ hit me up!)

So I figured I needed to dust off the rust and see what it’s like to actually go out and run for time and pace, not for views, or snacks or pictures of mushrooms!

Ballarat seemed like the obvious choice. It was brand new so I hadn’t run it before, it was pretty close to home and it was flat and fast.

I went out for a bit of a test run on Wednesday. I set my watch to do 3x 15 min repeats at 5 min pace. It was a struggle but I did it.

I came home and signed up for the race.

The day before the race, I went to the local running store and bought myself a pair of carbon shoes. I dug out an all black racing kit (nothing about road running is flattering) and painted my nails bright red to match my brand new ASICS Metaspeed Sky Paris super shoes.

Safe to say there was no taper!

At least my shoes looked fast.

I got to the start area about an hour early. It was too early, but I wasn’t sure about parking or bib pickup or bathroom availability.

But because I was so early it was an absolute breeze. I picked up my bib and went back to the car where I wrote this next section below.

Pre-race

In about half an hour I’m running the Ballarat Half Marathon.

Yep you heard correctly, the Ballarat Half Marathon. It’s a road race.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was anxiety but I noticed a shift in my mental state as soon as I arrived in the start area (over an hour early I might add!)

It was intimidating. I forgot what was like.

I found myself suddenly obsessing over what I was wearing. Every body looked so fast. I just felt fat.

Everybody was wearing fluro super shoes and matching hats. There were large groups in matching outfits warming up together, doing strides and drills up and down the road. Even the “normal” looking people were warming up.

I hid in my car.

Why do I even care?

I’m here for me, to see what I can do today, to have a go.

I wrote “try” on my hand next to my watch.

I’m thinking I need to wee again. Nope it’s just because it’s cold.

You have to get out of here eventually, I told myself. I considered going home. No one would notice. Nope, I said I would try, suck it up princess.

Post race

The race had a mass start for both the half and full marathon without any real organisation.

Even the pacers arrived late and just kinda stepped into the chute so no one really knew where to go.

On a whole, this race was so well organised. They could have done with more toilets at the start but other than that and the confusing starting corrals, it was perfect and it’s only their first event.

Anyway, as a result of the starting chute cattle call, the start was a bit of a mess for the non elite runners. There were people walking ahead of 4 hour marathon pacers, wheel chair athletes who struggled to get a clear path and even folks with prams.

I had decided to use the PacePro function on my watch. I’d never used it before so figured it couldn’t hurt and if it was annoying I would just ignore it.

I set it for a very ambitious 1:45:00 with a negative split. I figured I would get a bit stuck at the start.

My PB for the half marathon is 1:50:59 from the Run Melbourne half in July 2019 so I knew this watch function was probably going to shit me but I’m not the best at knowing my effort or pace. Once I’m in that pace, I can generally stick to it but I just can’t tell the difference between 5:00 and 4:50 or 5:10, they all feel pretty terrible!

After the first kilometre I realised I probably should have tried the watch feature at least once because I wasn’t quite sure what it was trying to tell me. I think it took me at least 10k to realise it was telling me what my next pace needed to be, not what I just did!

The course started down the Main Street of Ballarat, up a bit of a hill, and then there was a right hand turn into Victoria Park. I’d never run in there before and I was pleasantly surprised by how pretty it was.

I started picking up the pace and picking off the pacers. I had no idea what goal time they were doing, I just saw a yellow (marathon) or orange (half marathon) flag ahead and chased it down.

After the park, we turned left back out onto the Main Street, under the Arch of Victory memorial and down the Avenue of Honour.

At the end of the Avenue, we did a u turn and headed back towards town before turning to do a loop of Lake Wendouree, another popular running loop I had never done before.

I had settled into a pace by now and had run out of pacers to chase. After I passed the 1:50:00 one I knew I was on track for a PR as long as they stayed behind me.

I clicked off each kilometre at a time, telling myself I’d done a good job and should do another one just like that each time I watch beeped.

I had decided not to use the aid stations and take my own hand held water bottle and fuel. I didn’t want to participate in all the cup land fill if I didn’t have to. I took a clif blok every 2k, until I ran out at about 18km and moved onto the trusty jelly beans.

As I turned to go back onto Sturt Street, my overly perky running mix in my ears, (yes Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer did just happen to play when we were about half way there) I knew I was going to get that PR but looking at my watch I thought it was telling me I was about 3 and a half minutes behind what I had set, so I would finish in around 1:48:30.

I was happy with that, I just had to keep pushing to the finish.

I bombed down Sturt Street but when I thought we were about to do a u turn and head up the hill to the finish line, we turned right! WTF!

After a weird dog leg, I just had about half a kilometre, up hill to the finish.

I crossed the line in 1:42:25, an 8 minute and 34 second personal best.

Turned out that 3 and a half minutes was the other way!

I am so proud of this race and this effort. I would usually have given up when it felt a bit too hard. I do have priors for literally walking and crying whilst everyone ran passed, but still rallying and finishing the thing of course.

I even paced it pretty well.

I set a personal best in the 10k, 15k, 10 mile, 20k and half marathon today. Not bad, even if I do say so myself.

How much of it was the super shoes? Well.. possibly 3% in the shoes I had on at my rough pace, but there is also another 5 years of consistent training and the red nail polish of course.

3% of my previous time is about 3 minutes, so even if it was, in part the shoes, the other 5 minutes was all me and my nail polish!

So what’s next… maybe the Breaking 4 for 40 project, or maybe just having a crack at a Pb at Surf Coast Trail Marathon at the end of June.