We left the motel at about 7:45am and found a parking spot in a random, empty side street about 750 metres from the city centre - since some streets were going to be closed off for the race. It was quite a chilly morning, but the race was starting at 8:30am, so with a bit of a warmup run there wasn't too much time left to stand around in the cold.
Our race started on time, and we immediately merged in with the slower runners doing the 15 kilometre event - they started half an hour earlier and had run a different 5 kilometre course before doing the same 10 kilometre course as us. With runners from two events on the same course it was therefore impossible to know what position you were in.
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| The 10km course. |
I was feeling fantastic for about one kilometre, then came back to normal pretty suddenly. Jason was just ahead of me, and we continued to overtake some people for the first three kilometres until it just seemed to be slow runners up ahead. I guessed we were around about the top twenty.
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| The beginning stages of. |
After three kilometres there was a strong wind to run against, then a short steep hill and the longer flatter hill I was worried about - all one after the other. By the end of the final hill I was pretty exhausted, but was over half way through the race now. I got a bit of energy back as the route around the park had some downhill sections, and I was just managing to keep up with Jason still.
On the final trip back-and-forth through the park there was a surprise mega steep hill. It was less than 100 metres but it completely killed me because of the incline. Getting over the top of it I was about ready to collapse, but still had more than two kilometres to go. The final stretch home was pretty painful then, I finally managed to push ahead of Jason in the final kilometre and just hold him off at the finish line. I finished 11th in 38 minutes 54 seconds, with a three second margin.
The post-race gifts were quite good - a small medal, and a self-serve breakfast of apples, bananas, fruit drinks, single serve boxes of cereal and milk. Much better than the much more expensive Melbourne Marathon.
Walking back to the car I got a surprise to find that the street I was parked in had been closed off at both ends! It didn't really make sense because it wasn't close to the race and there was several streets closer that weren't closed. After moving the barriers to one side it was back to the motel to pack and check out.
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| I never had to deal with this in GTA. |
Before leaving Bendigo we visited the weekly Bendigo Showgrounds Market, consisting of fresh produce, arts and crafts and miscellaneous junk. The market was a good size, nothing like the Queen Vic Market, but not bad.
So that was the final stop and it was back to Melbourne again. My left leg was killing even more than on the drive up, I kept trying to move it around to find a comfortable spot while staying on the road, but it didn't prove to be successful - the comfortable part, that is. We made one final stop in Gisborne for a break and kebabs for lunch (supposedly you can't get much healthier), where there was yet another, smaller market as well.
So that was the end of the trip then, Jason managed to remind me somewhere on the Eastern Freeway that I'd forgotten to get a magnet - just a little bit late. Maybe next year...
- Summary
- 7 out of 10
- Good
- A bigger town
- Closer than previous trips
- Bad
- Cold weather in November
- Missed Out
- Lake Weeroona
- Rosalind Park
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