113 mins of agony

Well the 2007 Melbourne half marathon was a total disaster for me. Here follows my race report:

It was a gorgeous Melbourne spring morning and I'm sure the organisers could not have dreamed of better weather for the first run on the new course. With the temperature slightly coolish and little to no wind it was a real PB day. My morning started in bad fashion, I was still recovering from a bout of gastro on Monday and Tuesday where I ate nothing either day. I thought I would get up early and watch the All Blacks demolish France to give me a feel good feeling before the race. Well as you all know this didn't happen but I was determined to restore a bit of kiwi pride for myself and finish the half marathon in a respectable time.

In amongst the emotion and anticipation of the crowd at the start I was feeling pretty good although a little concerned that I would fade in the second half due to my injury prone preparation and the illness early in the week (as it turned out I was spot on with this assessment). After the 20 minute delay for the start I jumped out of the blocks and after a few kms I was feeling pretty good and had settled into my revised target pace of 4:20-4:30 pretty well. This continued until about the 7 km mark at which point I was starting to not feel so well and starting to get my first stomach cramps. At this point my pace was also starting to drop and people were starting to go past me. In any race over any distance, it is pretty much the worst thing when you start to feel like you are going seriously backwards in the field. Some people can get inspiration from it and use grit their teeth and carry on. For a while this what was I managed to do and going through half way point my time was still a respectable 50 mins. Now however the stomach cramps were playing on my mind and starting to throw me off my stride and I absolutely had to go number two. So a four minute toilet stop at the next drink station meant the 1:40 was out of the window and I was just going to try hang on until the finish. I managed to do a couple of five minute kms and was watching rather depressingly as first the 1:40 pacer flew by, then the 1:45. I was also falling apart mentally now. My pace had dropped from 5mins back to 6 and I felt as though I was standing still as people continued to stream past me. The last few kms were shear agony as stomach cramps combined with fatigue meant every step was a struggle. I could not even manage a final sprint around the G to finish and was finally relieved to cross the finish in 1:53, a full 24 mins slower than my PB.

Considering the circumstances however, I was pleased to actually have the determination to finish and I take satisfaction that aside from a DNF that is the slowest I can go in a half.

A big congrats to the organisers on what was a super course (the only gripe being crashing into the 5 and 10 km runners going over William Barak bridge). I will be back next year to take on the big one, my first full mara.