Gold Coast Half Marathon

Definitely not 'gentleman's hours' getting up this morning at 4am! Grabbed a quick homemade coffee, headed out for the light rail and made my way to the start line in the darkness of the night. Got up to Southport at around 5am, and jogged around nervously for about 20 minutes. Did some intermittent strides throughout the remaining 40 minutes. Unfortunately I missed out on the seeded start group due to some admin errors (I did have the qualifying time), so wanted to make sure I could start at the very front of the preferred group. In the end, the only disadvantage was that I wasn't able to do some last minute strides, having had to line up from 5:50am onwards.

The gun went off at 6:00am on the dot. Didn't realise that Barts was racing, so quickly got onto his and Alex Roger's shoulders, and really just bludged off the two of them for the first 2-3km. Looking around, we had a massive group - including 3 or 4 leading females, and we're holding a steady 3:18-19 min/km pace. Barts made a slight comment in jest along the lines of 'don't be scared to do some work.' Not long after, up and coming Canberra runner Kenn Gibson did a lot of the peacemaking, bringing us through the 10km mark in my second fastest time ever over that distance - 33:15. I took turns with him in the lead of the pack until about 12km, when he started to hurt. At this stage, no one was particularly keen to work up front, so myself and Neil Pearson took the initiative to out in some hard yards, trying to ensure that the pace didn't die too much. This was perhaps a bit of a mistake, as I essentially led the group all the way up to around 18.5km. Eloise started surging after this, as I really began to feel the hydrogen ions accumulating in the legs - something that did not happen during the SMH. I panicked slightly, but then remembered to relax, think about my form, ensure that I didn't begin to over stride, and to maintain a fast turn over. This helped immensely, and it wasn't until the final km that Eloise and another guy started to gap me. A few hundred metres later and Barts came past. I sat on him until about 250m to go. I was absolutely gone. My form completely fell apart. Didn't bother me too much, as at this stage I could see the time - and it was going to be gold. Alex came past me in the final 50m - would have loved to have stayed ahead but he was fresher! Nevertheless, crossed the line in 70:18, so was absolutely over the moon! Got under the 70:30 that coach Sean Williams ambitiously set for me. I wasn't sure whether it was attainable, but proved that wrong today. Looking back at my splits, my second 10km from 10 to 20km was my third fastest ever! Didn't really drop the pace at all, so great run all round.

Fantastic to see both Michael Ho and Tom Highnam run past at the 28km mark of their marathons. Huge PB by Hoey with a mind-blowing 2:30:15, and a great effort by Tom with a PB of 2:33 in some tougher warm conditions than we faced in the early hours of this morning.

Now time to celebrate, reflect, and recharge for the Sydney Harbour 10km next Sunday morning. Will consult coach Sean Williams regarding training this week, as I might have to make some tweaks to both recover and taper once again. Sub-70 half marathon for Melbourne might be the next aim!