Great Hunter Valley weekend

What a great weekend. The missus and I decided to make a weekend of it, so headed up to the Hunter on Friday night after work, and were greeted by a lovely warm welcome at our guesthouse. Lovely people and great accommodation right in the heart of the Valley, if you're ever in the region, I can highly recommend Thistle Hill where we stayed.

So after some very light wine tasting on Saturday afternoon, it was a nice 5:30am start to get some fodder down me ahead of our 8am race start. Like I said, I wasn't expecting the world with this one, and whilst we were on the first lap, so my first chance to get a look at the course. Give the hilly nature and amount off-road, I really thought that anything under 3:45 would be realistic. In the months since Canberra, I've done lots of speedwork, which I know has made me fitter. But the longer distance runs have been lacking with only one 26 miler in the Blue Mountains, and a couple of shorter 16 milers too.

After the gun went I set off way too quick, hitting 3kms in just over 13 mins, so I deliberately slowed myself down, and soon got into a comfortable running stride. It was then that I also began to realise that a lot of this course is off-road as well, which I was actually very fine with, but knew that maybe a quick time wasnt so much on the cards - well not as quick as Canberra anyway - but still, I was very much in the mindset of using this as a training run, and seeing what will be will be. So after slowing down though, I still found that I was running well inside a 3hr 30 min pace - averaging 4min 50sec kms for the first 13 miles, so a 1hr 42 min first half. As I went past the start-finish line for the second lap, I knew this was far too quick, but I did feel pretty comfortable at this stage. Indeed it seems that quite a few people went off quite quickly as I made up around 5-6 places on the return leg. Waht was great about the first lap is that I ran and chatted with someone for 12kms, which was great and not something I've really done before, so the time shot by, so really enjoyed that - Troy from Newcastle on his first marathon. (Think he came in at 3hrs 39mins, which was a great effort!)

Like I said, the course was pretty challenging, with some steep hills and very undulating too, coupled with the gravel tracks, made sure that by 37kms I was really feeling it. What was great is that I felt really quite good up to around 33-34kms though, which considering that lack of longer distance runs really pleased me. 34kms onwards though was a hard slog. We had an out and back section along some dirt gravel roads, and coming back was all up gentle slopes. First time round they were fine, second time round they were killers. I remember thinking that 36kms onwards was so so hard. We hit a water station at 36kms and I just wanted to die and I really wanted to give up, I thought my body had had it. My legs were shot and it was then that I knew a 3hr 30min was not going to be on the cards. There were no markers between 36kms and 40kms which I think was great, as it meant I wasn't counting them down. Plus the fact I didnt really know how far I'd gone. Well the reality is that I did, but it was good not to see the markers.

However come 41kms I made a huge blunder and took a wrong turn in the car park, which cost me around a minute overall. I was pretty pissed off at the time, as I'd started to catch and overtake runners, and as a result I lost a place and a minute on the clock. Still I can't be too displeased as I came in at 3hrs 32 mins and 9secs, a new PB for me, which given the course compared to Canberra, shows hows how far my fitness has actually come in the last 3 months since then, compared to what I actually thought it was.

This was a great race to do, and now makes me think I've firmly caught the marathon bug. The camaraderie between competitors was great, everyone was really friendly and encouraging and that's what I loved about this race. I was really hurting between 36-40kms, and felt like I was going backwards at some points. However you could see other runners were going through the same, and it's that look in the eye when you run alongside someone that says, "yes, I hurt like hell too, but fair play to us both".

Next up for me will be a trail marathon up at Fraser Island in just over a month, followed by the Sydney marathon where I'm aiming to break the 3hr 30min mark. Something I really feel I can do now following this marathon. However I am planning on doing the Glasshouse 100km event in September and just looking at the calendar, the Sydney marathon falls one week after the Glasshouse 100km. That will be a tough call, but realistically, given what I'm going to put myself through in March next year, I should do them both. I'll get annoyed because I know I'll be nowhere near a 3hr 30 mins if I do the 100km first, but I have to keep telling myself that it's not about these races, they are merely preparation!