Wednesday, October 14, 2009

13 Half Marathons Completed!

On Sunday I successfully completed my 13th half-marathon. I was a little bit concerned about 'unlucky 13' but as it turns out I had a brilliant run and really enjoyed the day.

It was perfect conditions on the day - much kinder than last years extreme temperatures and strong head winds. I started off the day keeping company with Erin and managed to find a couple of other Gunn Runners - Amanda and Phil.
It is always so much nicer sharing the pre-race anticipation/anxiety with friends. Also lucky for me Phil was able to give me a mini-tutorial on using my 405 Garmin GPS watch so it would give me the exact information I wanted for the run - time elapsed, distance travelled (in kilometers - only metric here!) and pace!

I started running with Erin - who also ran with me at the Alice Springs Marathon. However at about 5km I lost Erin and it was just me and 7000 other people running the half marathon. I didn't listen to my music but instead chose to listen to the rhythmic sound of 100s of feet pounding the pavement!

During the run I was enjoying the atmosphere and I particularly liked the section down Pit lane in Albert Park where you could see the runners ahead of you on their return section and then after the turn I got to see all the runners behind me :). Out on the course I saw a few fellow Gunn runners and exchanged places a couple of times!
I still haven't quite worked out how to load it all up my Garmin data into my computer. Maybe for the next post but the final reading was Time: 1hr47min5sec, Distance: 21.39km, Pace (last lap): 4min13sec - I think I was a bit excited running the final section into the MCG :).

Photo credits and thanks to Cato for the first photo and Wazza for the second photo!

I ended the week with my radio interview on ABC South East SA. It was a fun interview, Annette commented that Rob DeCastella (Australian Marathon Champion) suggests that running two marathons a year was extremely challenging. I responded that with smart training to prevent injuries it was highly achievable - particularly since I am running the marathons a lot slower than DeCastella!!!

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