I've been meaning to enter this for a few years and always got "too lazy" or just never got around to filling in the entry form, but decided to run it this year.
A few months back I had a plan of running the 12km in under one hour (well, I could do 6km in about 30 mins, how hard could it be to do 12km in an hour with all those months of training), but after my running training became more walking training (for the Kokoda Challenge) and I injured my knee (on KC) I kept telling myself to be content with jogging the whole course in about 90 mins.
So yesterday morning I got back into the routine of waking up well before dawn and attempting to force feed myself breakfast, and joined the other 30,000 people out on the course. Possibly the toughest part of yesterday was standing around at the foot of the Gateway Bridge waiting for the start.
It took me about a minute or so to get to the actual start line (trying to dodge walkers as I went), and the jog up the bridge was also fairly slow (again, dodging walkers - why there were so many up the front I don't know...). As a whole the speed picked up a little down the bridge and heading into the first water station (about the 2km mark), but I still felt like one in a mob of stampeding people for at least the next few kilometres. I don't remember much of the surrounds - once or twice I'd look over and think "hey, there's the river", but as a whole I spent most of my time looking for spaces and avoiding other people's feet. Also at one stage had to duck because the guy to my left decided to pose for a photographer by throwing his arms out. Thanks, mate.
Around the 7km marker (it was one of the few I noticed on the way) I felt as though the pace picked up a little (or perhaps I'd just run past more of the slower paced runners). I remember trailing near the pink pace runner (70mins?) and then just deciding to pick random people in front of me to catch up to.
Somewhere after we turned into Longland St I saw a sign that I thought said 2km to go (and having no sense of direction in this part of the city I believed it) and decided to just dig in an push my way to the finish. I don't know what that sign was actually for, but it wasn't a 2km to go marker because maybe a kilometre later I came across the 10km sign... By then everything was beginning to hurt (lungs mostly - I began to pay more attention to my breathing for the first time in a few kilometres) but I just stayed with the other runners and occasionally ducked through gaps when I found them. Those last few kilometres aren't wide enough for the number of people trying to crush through them at times!
But I eventually found the finish (actually, I made it to the funky "200m to go" arch and then realised I still had more to do.... sometimes it bites not wearing glasses when running :) ) - the clock showed 1.06.46 but I imagine I'll find out the official time sometime during the course of the week (1.03.34 is the official time). All in all it's a good run, and I'll definitely be back next year!
