In no time at all it was 5:30am and already time to check-out and get ready for the big race. I had a couple of muesli bars for a quick breakfast, then stepped outside into total darkness and extreme cold. After driving down to Apollo Bay I parked the car for the morning and got in line for the buses back up the coast to the start line - since the road is closed to other traffic for most of the day.
I had a bit of an upset stomach since lunch the previous day which kept going through the night, and was made even worse by a bumpy ride on a bus, which was quite a concern. I'm not sure why we had to arrive so early, but the buses got us to the start at 6:50am when the race didn't start until 8:00am. The temperature had increased a little since the sun had come up, so it wasn't a total disaster to stand around in the cold until 7:30am.
After saying goodbye to a warm jumper at the clothes truck and doing a warm up run it was time for the race to start. In most races people queue up for the start by joining the existing line from the back, but here they did the opposite which meant I was further back than I wanted to be for the beginning. I wasted a couple of minutes getting past stupid people that had no reason to be near the front, but then it was all good.
After a couple of kilometres up and down the biggest hill of the day came from 3-5km. I actually thought there was a bigger hill still to come between 6-9km after driving the course the previous day, but I must have confused myself regarding where the start line was, as no more hills ever came after that point. Having lost some time at the start I ran a bit faster than I had planned to catch up, I passed Jason after about 4km since he was also just running the event at a conservative pace instead of trying to set a personal best.
Between the road, the ocean and passing other competitors there was plenty of distractions from the running itself, but after about 13km I started to run out of people to catch. There was a big pack of about ten more but I was only running slightly faster than them, so the race started to become a bit of a grind and my body started to break down at the 17km mark. I kept going with a bit of difficulty, but I overtook most of the group up ahead at about 20km and passed the hotel which gave me a bit of momentum again, with the end not far away.
A couple of people sprinted past me at the official half marathon timing mat, for no good reason, but I was able to outlast them to the line in the final two kilometres to finish with a time of 1:35:05 and 61st overall out of about 2500. Jason had started running faster behind me as well, as he came in less than two minutes later. Another highlight for the trip was seeing Steve Moneghetti on the way back to the car!
Because we were one of the first finishers we were lucky to get into the 40km/h escort back to Skenes Creek with no wait at all, then had to detour inland to get all the way back to Geelong. The route wasn't really too much longer, there was still lots of slow bends in the road, but there was a few more straight sections as well. Driving through the forest was a fun experience too, with the sunlight occasionally breaking through the trees in a sharp beam of light, although sometimes it made the corners a little hard to spot.
I stopped off again in Geelong for lunch again, this time at a burger place which was quite good. My leg was killing from sitting down for so long straight after the run, so it was good to just get up and walk around for a bit. I gave the driving over to Jason for the final section home, only he thought it would be a good idea to take the West Gate Bridge route instead, only to land in the middle of AFL and A-League traffic, plus all the other jerks who drive around South Yarra on the weekends.
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| Burger time. |
So that was it, a good trip, it just might have been better with a little bit more time to spend along the way next time.
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| Magnet and medal. |
