May 2016 – Great Ocean Road Half Marathon

September 2016 – Sydney Bridge Run

August 2018 – Run Larapinta

July 2019 – Gold Coast Marathon

Gold Coast Marathon is now less than a month away, which means in less than a month I will running 42 kilometres in exactly 5 hours – or pretty close anyway.
I am less than a month away from the fourth State I have run in an official race.
Interestingly, this will be my first official “city” marathon in Australia and the first time I have ever been a marathon distance pacer. It’s all pretty exciting really!

The plan is to run consistent splits, around the 7min/km mark which will get us to the finish line with a little time to spare.

Training

Training –  if a little on the unconventional side – has been going well. This race is not about me, this race is about the people around me who are striving to run a 5 hour marathon and I need to make sure I am fresh as a salmon in late spring at the 30km mark, so I can give my fellow runners a psychological boost (if needed) in those critical final dozen or so kilometres and get them all across the line in 5 hours or less.
So I’ve been hitting the trails pretty hard, run a couple of 50km events and was able to “guide” a hardy group around a very challenging 30km loop near Lorne.
In Lorne, I learnt what it means to be out there for other people and it was very rewarding helping them through the trickier parts of that trail, and knowing that being at my top game and alert towards the end of the run is vital when you are there to facilitate a result for others.
Between now and Gold Coast, I have a few other challenging runs lined up and a couple of “straight-forward” pacing sessions, so although I am not in the usual place you find yourself on week 8 of a 12 week marathon training plan, I am feeling fit and ready to tear up the bitumen at a 5 hour pace in a little under a month’s time.

The Big Day

Flights are booked, accommodation is sorted and I am looking forward to squeezing in a pre-event run on Saturday morning as both an exercise in acclimatisation and a chance for a long run along the beach.

As brief as this post is, I want to add:
Welcome fellow 5 hour Gold Coast Marathon runners, I look forward to getting to know you over the course of the morning a little under a month from now and if you feel like a mini-run on Saturday, shout out – or even better, a well deserved post run beer!.