Where to start. The history, the preparation, the panic, the post mortem? 

I’ve seen a few posts lately claiming that race recaps are boring, others appreciating the peek behind the curtain. 

For me, I find the dissection helps to find the problem areas, repair and improve what you can and cut out the parts that aren’t serving you. 

But this metaphor only takes you so far when applying it to long distance running. 

It’s more like a game of operation than a ground breaking surgery. You get buzzed a lot of times (and it’s more like 300kV) before you get it right!

It took me over 10 years and twelve attempts to run a sub 4 hour road marathon and I’m still not happy with my performance. I still feel like I can do better.

This marathon training block was far from perfect or traditional. I was training for something else, a 100k trail race months away, when with 6 weeks to go I pivoted to a road marathon. 

I ran Surf Coast Trail Marathon three weeks before. 

I didn’t run a road half marathon in the lead up. 

I feel like I broke rules.

We arrived on the Gold Coast a few days before the race. We snagged a bargain and got upgraded to business for $50. I’d never flown business before so it felt super special and fancy.

Would I pay full price for it? Oh hell no, but I do appreciate all the extra space, free wifi and the coffee in a real glass cup.

We dropped off our luggage at storage, got some food and collected my race bib from the expo. For some reason I had it in my head that Thursday would be a quiet day at the expo.

I realized pretty quickly that road running had changed. I instantly felt old and out of place, like a completely newbie.

There was a new uniform, everyone was in a gang or club and I felt very much alone and out of place.

I got my bib and got the hell out of there.

Gold Coast Marathon has always been the premier road running event in Australia, (we are not here to have an argument about Sydney being the major). It is extremely well organised, and they just do it well.

The expo was full of marketing opportunities, about four different spots for runners to take photos, find their name of the wall, get personalized merch, you name it, it was there.

The space could have been bigger but no one does it like the Gold Coast.

I like to stay in Broadbeach because it’s pretty central to everything but in retrospect Southport may have been a better option if I had got my entry early (I did not) or had planned a year in advance.

The start and finish for the marathon is at Southport and the expo is down at Broadbeach. There’s a tram and buses that run between.

If I was going to run the race and didn’t have a car, I wouldn’t book accommodation outside of these two spots. The tram and buses get so full on race morning it’s hard to get on after the first two Broadbeach stops.

In the days leading up to the race, I just did my slow easy runs and tried to chill out, in theory.

The race started at 6:15am on Sunday morning. I knew I had to be at the start by at least 5:30 to have enough time to stand in the bathroom line, drop off my bag and get into my corral.

So I got up super early, had my Brekky and headed out. I got the tram at the first stop so it was pretty good but by the time it got the 25 minutes to the start line it was packed worse than sardines

I jumped into my corral and there was so many people in it that I could see any of the three designated pace balloons, 3:30, 3:40 and 3:50.

I wasn’t going to run with them, but I wanted to be able to see where I was relative to them.

I kept telling myself that I needed to focus on my race and my pace. Don’t get caught up in the speed at the start or get worried or panicked if you get stuck behind someone for a bit. I wrote it on my hand in sharpie.

It faded like my mental fortitude did!

I had a plan going in. 5:20’s. One k at a time.

Previously I’d focused on u turns and McDonalds, points on the course you can see ahead, every 5 or 10km.

Mentally this hadn’t served me well, so 1km at a time it was. I’d done this in training, it had worked.

I also had a fuelling plan, every 2km something was doing in, blok, blok, gel, was the plan. I had enough to last the distance and was committed to it. Over 3 and a half hours it would work out to 73 grams of carbs per hour.

To make it easier to manage the gels had been emptied into a little Gu flask that fit perfectly into my shorts pocket and the bloks were all loose in a zip lock bag like they were lollies.

I also had a handheld bottle with plain water in it.

The race kicked off on time and I settled into a pace that felt easy and comfortable. It was a bit too fast, but I didn’t feel like it was unmanageable.

I cruised for the first half, clicking off my splits like a metronome, just like I had in training. I fuelled well, and shuffled along with my playlist in my ears.

I don’t know exactly why the wheels started falling off but they did.

My hand held bottle obviously ran out so I had to use the water stations, I juggling it in my head, do I stop and fill it back up or do I drink from each plastic cup? I should have had a plan for this!

26k was a milestone spot for me, historically this is where the wheels fall off. I saw the sign and was proud that I was still going on pace.

When I started slowing for water, I knew my paces would start to slow.

I should have had a plan for this because I didn’t, I spiralled and stopped looking at my watch all together. The focus was gone, it was now just about survival.

You can see each water spot on the pace chart, I was doing so well, until I wasn’t.

The sun came out at around 30k which didn’t help matters. It was super hot and I slowed my fuelling as well.

I had watched Seth Ruling’s Western States recap the day before and he said that he started walking and just wanted it to be done, but it would be over quicker if he tried to run.

I held that every time I wanted to walk, it will be over quicker if you run, so I tried, I shuffled at what felt like snails pace all the way to the finish.

The finish chute feels like it goes for a k and a half which all the club tents lined up along the side before you hit the last 250 metres.

I pushed as hard as I could, passing heaps of people in the chute.

I finished with a 14 minute marathon PR, in 3:52:26.

It wasn’t what I had aimed for (3:45) but the number 1 goal was sub 4 and I achieved that.

It’s easy to say in retrospect that I should have done this or that, but I know I did the best I could on the day with what I had.

Would I do it differently if I was to do it next week, next year or next decade? Yep for sure.

Will I do it again? Not any time soon!

Of course I made a video too.