Karen writes: Sunshine Coast Marathon over
Who would have thought we would have run enough marathons to actually have to think which one was which? What started us on that unlikely realisation was the fact that we were trying to remember if we felt better or worse after this marathon, the 'inaugural' Sunshine Coast Marathon which we ran on Sunday morning.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here, talking about the finish before the start. And it was a nice start, imagine this, starting your day by stretching against a low fence while looking out over someone else's beautiful ocean, the sky just starting to light up, with the air warm and soft.
We lined up in the starting chute when it was time, the gun went, and we ran up the slight rise towards what we thought was the first of 5 trips up the only hill. Except we had a wonderful surprise, the course had been changed and that first time up the hill was the last, not that it was a bad one, but I am sure it would have gotten longer and steeper with every lap until assuming Everest proportions with 30km on the legs.
The memorable thing about that hill though, was the sun coming up in a big orange ball from the sea, that kept me distracted nearly until I got to the top. I ran for a bit with a man with two children in a tandem pushchair. He was training for an Ironman in December and we chatted about that for a bit before he demonstrated his superior fitness by racing off.
We estimated about 300 marathon runners, but we quickly spread out over the course, it only got busy a little while later when the half marathon runners came thundering through, led by someone on a bike ringing their bell. I didn't twig to what that was being very much in my own head by that time, but it was the same feeling of being swamped by a herd of high speed creatures, parting to go around the plodding marathon runners and disappearing into the distance.
The first couple of hours the temperature was mild, I remembered to drink at every station and did quite well taking in a few powerbar gels. What I didn't do as planned was walk for 2 minutes then too, I was feeling relaxed, nothing hurt, and with so much looping back on itself of the course I could see that Kate was never far behind! I paid for that at about 20km, a twinge started up in the leg with the ITB injury, and every step I thought "oh no, that's it". So I walked for 2 minutes, Kate was coming up the other side of the road about 4 minutes behind me and I remember calling out to her that my knee hurt.
But I ran again, and the pain was gone, and I lost the silly idea that I was going to run a faster time with not enough training and a recent injury and got into plodding and walking and plodding and walking and had no more problems.
Then it started to heat up. Running through streets with buildings on either side the air was flat and still, except where other runners stirred it up, and I could feel the sun trying to get through my 85 factor sunscreen.
Passing the startline the third time I got hooked up in the start of the 10km race, there was a chute to one side for us, but when the gun went the 10km people poured over the road and I was pushed into the path of other marathon runners on their return loop. That was a couple of km of being jostled and crowded and I couldn't get across the road to the water stops and I wanted to yell (if I had had spare breath) that they should watch out, with 30km on my legs I wasn't agile enough to avoid the fresh flying feet and someone was going to get hurt...probably me. I got my revenge though, I had a bottle of flat (I thought) coke in my fuel belt to be used on this final lap, every time I took a sip out of it and put it back in the holder it must have stirred up some leftover bubbles because when anyone jostled me there was a squirt of warm coke out of the top. Anyone with unexplained sticky brown stuff on them, you were way too close!
I was seeing the same volunteers on the course, towards the end they were getting less of the joking and just rather tired smiles, I could feel the sweat and dirt forming a stiff rime on my face which felt like it was cracking when the muscles moved. On that last lap there were calls "hope I'm not going to see you again", a policeman on his bike thought I could join the police, people were calling "go marathoner" because there were few red race numbers left on the course so we stood out. We had plastic armbands, one for each lap completed and you counted up what every other runner you saw had. Some people who had passed in spectacular fashion much earlier on suddenly started appearing again and you drew level and passed, you saw the occasional casualty of the heat sitting in the gutter retching or struggling on with legs barely moving, "go on" they said if you asked if they were ok, fortunately there were the people on bikes keeping an eye on things.
I was hot by this stage and while nothing hurt, I felt dry but couldn't reasonably drink more at the water stops. I lost interest in taking in nutrition and had to force myself to swig my coke before the drink station and I rinsed it round my mouth so that I really wanted to drink water to get the taste out. It was a very long round of energy in, water in, walk 2 minutes, run, energy in...
Then that last km, people cheering "go marathon", I ran past struggling runners doing the 2 or 5 or 10km, and there was even a sprint left in my legs to cross the finish line, 4 hours and 40 minutes after starting. There was water, bananas and cut up orange at the end, a chute you were forced to walk down to settle the body a bit, and it was all over.
Excellent event Sunshine Coast!
But I'm getting ahead of myself here, talking about the finish before the start. And it was a nice start, imagine this, starting your day by stretching against a low fence while looking out over someone else's beautiful ocean, the sky just starting to light up, with the air warm and soft.
We lined up in the starting chute when it was time, the gun went, and we ran up the slight rise towards what we thought was the first of 5 trips up the only hill. Except we had a wonderful surprise, the course had been changed and that first time up the hill was the last, not that it was a bad one, but I am sure it would have gotten longer and steeper with every lap until assuming Everest proportions with 30km on the legs.
The memorable thing about that hill though, was the sun coming up in a big orange ball from the sea, that kept me distracted nearly until I got to the top. I ran for a bit with a man with two children in a tandem pushchair. He was training for an Ironman in December and we chatted about that for a bit before he demonstrated his superior fitness by racing off.
We estimated about 300 marathon runners, but we quickly spread out over the course, it only got busy a little while later when the half marathon runners came thundering through, led by someone on a bike ringing their bell. I didn't twig to what that was being very much in my own head by that time, but it was the same feeling of being swamped by a herd of high speed creatures, parting to go around the plodding marathon runners and disappearing into the distance.
The first couple of hours the temperature was mild, I remembered to drink at every station and did quite well taking in a few powerbar gels. What I didn't do as planned was walk for 2 minutes then too, I was feeling relaxed, nothing hurt, and with so much looping back on itself of the course I could see that Kate was never far behind! I paid for that at about 20km, a twinge started up in the leg with the ITB injury, and every step I thought "oh no, that's it". So I walked for 2 minutes, Kate was coming up the other side of the road about 4 minutes behind me and I remember calling out to her that my knee hurt.
But I ran again, and the pain was gone, and I lost the silly idea that I was going to run a faster time with not enough training and a recent injury and got into plodding and walking and plodding and walking and had no more problems.
Then it started to heat up. Running through streets with buildings on either side the air was flat and still, except where other runners stirred it up, and I could feel the sun trying to get through my 85 factor sunscreen.
 |
| The last 10km was HOT HOT HOT |
I was seeing the same volunteers on the course, towards the end they were getting less of the joking and just rather tired smiles, I could feel the sweat and dirt forming a stiff rime on my face which felt like it was cracking when the muscles moved. On that last lap there were calls "hope I'm not going to see you again", a policeman on his bike thought I could join the police, people were calling "go marathoner" because there were few red race numbers left on the course so we stood out. We had plastic armbands, one for each lap completed and you counted up what every other runner you saw had. Some people who had passed in spectacular fashion much earlier on suddenly started appearing again and you drew level and passed, you saw the occasional casualty of the heat sitting in the gutter retching or struggling on with legs barely moving, "go on" they said if you asked if they were ok, fortunately there were the people on bikes keeping an eye on things.
 |
| I look like I'm actually running not shuffling! |
Then that last km, people cheering "go marathon", I ran past struggling runners doing the 2 or 5 or 10km, and there was even a sprint left in my legs to cross the finish line, 4 hours and 40 minutes after starting. There was water, bananas and cut up orange at the end, a chute you were forced to walk down to settle the body a bit, and it was all over.
Excellent event Sunshine Coast!
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