Gold Coast Marathon (the one I wasn't supposed to run)

This wasn’t supposed to be my marathon. I wasn’t supposed to run.

(Full disclosure, I’m pretty stoked I did and it was my second fastest road marathon time.)

This was my husband’s first marathon. He signed up to his first marathon four years ago and through a couple of injuries and an inability to follow advise and instructions from a physio, didn’t get past about 3 months of training.

Fast forward a few years, having our second baby and me discovering the world of distance running (I guess that’s an entire blog post right there), I finally and possibly foolishly, encouraged (read:bullied) him into a couple of shorter trail runs and eventually UTA22 in May this year. He started training well at the start of the year and the idea of another marathon attempt crept in as his weekend long runs crept up in distance. A few months in he decided to use UTA as a platform for a full, enjoying it as a ‘time on legs’ long run. We spent a bit of time on the good old running calendar and figured out the Gold Coast was picture perfect in terms of timing, location and elevation (flat).

Matt had asked me to pace him to a sub 4. I’m pretty sure I laughed. There was probably a “ah, fuck no” or something similar…either way, the semantics is irrelevant, the answer was not a fucking chance. I would be 6 weeks post running my first hundred, who knows what the fall out would be, if I’d injure myself or just have no energy. Either way, my marathon PB is only 3hrs 50mins, and even if I did pull up well post hundred, there was no way there was time before GCAM to get myself road marathon ready, let alone to aim for a sub 4! I promised him I would be there to yell, scream and cheer throughout the entire course and worst case I could probably kick him through the last 10ks if needed. I’m lucky enough to have the best friend a girl could ask for who offered to take the boys for for a full two nights and almost three days so we could do this kid free.

His training was going well, his longest run got up to about 26kms until disaster struck a few weeks out from UTA when he strained his calf. From this point, panic set in and I did my best to support him, sending him off to he physio telling him there was plenty of time for recovery and he’d be fine. With a few days rest and on to the calf strengthening exercises, we’ve all been there, he was still in pretty good shape and UTA turned out to be a great run for him and a pretty solid training experience.

Post race was now his time to peak. As I was now on the other side of the hundred, it was great for us as I was now in recovery mode and under no pressure to stick to a schedule… it was now his time to be as selfish as he needed to be with his training in the final few weeks before GCAM. But of course, this turned out not to be. First run back post UTA saw yet another strain, followed by a string of niggles and a shit load of self doubt and panic. That marathon dream slipping further and further away. I was devastated for him but I genuinely felt like there was still a glimmer of hope if we could just get him moving again. So between Coach Jenny and I, there were some stern words and texts, a fair amount of venting (bitching) on my part and a few trips to the physio, a heavily modified training plan was put in place. There was a lot of discussion about potentially downgrading to the half but in the end Matt decided he was running the full in whatever time it took. No time goals.

At this point I don’t know how Jenny was still agreeing to coach him, she has a lot more patience than me, I’m pretty sure I would have walked away and I’m almost certain I threw an ultimatum or two his way…bad wife!

This was the time the seed of me running to pace was planted. My post UTA recovery was ok but my knee was still causing me grief I’d eventually pinned the issue down to a very tight quad so with a mix of lots of stretching and interval running to build back up I was starting to feel confident that worse case we could run/walk the entire thing in a time of around 4.5 - 5hrs.

We’re now three weeks out… what should have been taper week, instead we headed out together for our longest run. 23kms. Yup, that was it. My biggest chunk of running was 3 x 10 minute blocks that week which was thankfully pain free. So making full use of a child free night, sleep over at their cousins, and a very tame date night the night before, we headed out for the flattest northern beaches run we could find at a super cruise pace of around 5:50-6min kms. Surprisingly, we both felt good, we worked on Matt’s fuelling and most importantly, we didn’t kill each other.

And that was that. Somehow I’d gone from ‘seriously there’s no way I’m running a marathon so soon after UTA’ to ‘anyone got an entry they aren’t using?’. I’m so easily manipulated. It’s sad really.

The following weekend saw our last ‘long run’ of 20kms and within the blink of eye we were packing, dropping kids and flying. I would like to point out at this point that I did all these things… Matt fucked off to Brisbane two days earlier than me for “work” so all the logistics, organising and hard work was me… but really that’s besides the point. Accept it isn’t.

I think our saving grace that helped us not freak out completely (I’m mean seriously, our longest run in almost two months was 23km for crying out loud!) was that the day before we were heading up to Brisbane to see Jenny run her inaugural Miler (her recap is awesome, read it, here)

After a gentle start to the morning with a filling breakfast and going to pick up our race bibs, the trip to Brissy was a welcome distraction for us both. The car trip gave us the opportunity to talk final race plans and we settled on running as consistently as we could for as long as we could. We’d aim for around 30-32km of constant running (this takes us on the first out and back of the course, back to the start line before heading north for another out and back for the final 10k. Anything past this was a bonus and if we had to run/walk in a 3:1 interval for the back section then we’d still feel happy with that.

It was pretty spectacular seeing Jenny and the other Milers beating down the kms in the crazy wet conditions that day. I’ve always joked (it’s not a joke) about having a girl crush on Jen, and this event just compounded it. Coming in as Second Female on what everyone who ran or supported at the event has agreed was one of the toughest courses they’ve seen was heart wrenching, empowering and tear jerking. Do that with a a calf tear from 70km (ish) in and you’re officially the toughest human I know. Immediate Hero Status. Anyway, you should read her account. I cried. No I didn’t, you did.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so we eventually make it back to the Goldie after a few setbacks dropping Jenny’s partner and pacer Alan, and then an additional 45minute detour due to an electrical fault at a train crossing thanks to the rain. We head to a cheap and cheerful Italian restaurant over the road from our hotel, only to wait a further 2 hours for two bowls of pasta. This was seriously laughable and without naming and shaming, it was up there with some of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had! Finally, risotto and Spag Bol consumed we head back to prep are gear and hit the hay.

We’re not sure whether Matt had a dodgy meal or if he just ate too much, or if the glass of Tailwind before bed was a bad idea… but Matt then spent most of the night either vomiting or feeling really lousy… so you know, that was great. All I could do was remind him that we had no time goals, that we were just going out to have fun and finish. We couldn’t possibly have any more dramas… seriously? Could we??

Anyway, banana and slice of plain bread later, dressed, glide applied and we were out the door, tram to the start, drop bags dropped, little stretch and we’re in the start zones. Here I spotted Alisha who I’ve known for a few years now and was here with her brother to support him for his first marathon to… a quick photo op and a tremendous downpour completely out the blue and we were off. Matt was running his first marathon.

As pacer my goal was to keep him from getting swept up in the excitement of the first few kms and burning out. Matt is genuinely a really good runner, a much better runner than I am (shhh! D=don’t tell him I said that) and so I knew this was a risk.

We hit the 10km mark feeling great and despite a couple of additional sun showers, the temperature was perfect and we were working well as a team. There were definitely a couple of ego moments where little comments like “i should be fast than them”, “there’s no way they’ll make it running like that” “how far ahead are the 4hr pacers”; again, my role of pacer was to remind him not to get sucked into anyone else’s race…. Worry about your own.

At this point I tried to call Best Human Sarah to find out if Jenny had finished… the line rang out, probably because she was wrangling 4 kids, two of those being mine. So I put my phone away, had a gel and pressed on.

We made the first out and back and hit the half way mark. I wasn’t allowed to mention anything along the lines of ‘half way’ so it passed with a simple photo, a gel and the consistent running continued. It was pretty warm by this point, especially when we’ve been used to some pretty cold Sydney weather the last few weeks. We made use of the aid stations for water which are brilliantly placed every couple of kms. Matt drank at every one and started to use the electrolytes on course as well as his gels. I took a sip or two of water every two or three stations but stuck to my Tailwind in my handheld Solomon flask.

Hitting 30k felt like a great milestone. In my head I had a bit of a hurdle here as I was pretty convinced we would start our intervals here. We had stayed really stead around the 5:40-5:50 pace and Matt seemed to be totally in the zone so without stopping we ticked off the Start Line at 32km and continued the final block of running. My only hiccup was around 33-34k ish, I slowed to refill my handheld and downed two cups of water which quickly became apparent was a really fucking stupid idea. My guts started churning and I had a quick flash of ‘shit, I’ve fucked this up royally’ and had visions of rushing to find a port-a-loo on the side of the course somewhere. I mentioned my predicament and he simply said “you’re ok babe” which was enough to help me reassess the situation. I’m made of tougher stuff than that. Just give it another km and see how you feel then. I’ve used this little mental game a few times and it’s normally enough for whatever is going on to fade.

Just before the final turnaround we caught up to the amazing Ana Croger, RMA ambassador and all round Super Hero. She had run the half earlier with a friend and was now back out on course bringing in fellow RMA legends. With a quick shake of her maracas (yes, really) we continued on to face our last 5km, one final Parkrun.

I think it was this point I truly realised we would finish without stopping and that we’d finish feeling pretty bloody good. Neither of us had hit the wall and we both wanted this badly enough to finish it well. Our splits had been more perfect than anything I’d ever run, with only 1min 40secs between our fastest and slowest 5km splits. I don’t think I could have done better if I tried.

So there we were, ticking them off, 38, 39, 40, 41km… it was really happening, it was nearly over!! We came back to the Race Precinct and passed all the tents, lined with fellow runners and supporters… passed the RMA tent and saw all the girls there. I’m so glad I wore my RMA singlet, it got us so many cheers all morning. Then we veer off to the left to the 42km and this is when Matt realises he has another 200m to go. lol.

We crossed the line in 4:08:55.

And the rest as they say is history, written in official photos and finish line videos.. where yes, we are holding hands, and no, it wasn’t my idea. Sorry Jenny. Vomit.

For me, well for both of us I believe this was an exercise in what your body can accomplish when you harness the power of your mind. Yes, we were totally undercooked and no I absolutely would not recommend running so under prepared. It was fairly stupid really. But then again, we all do stupid stuff.