I’ve said it before and I will say it again – the Pichi Richi Marathon is a FABULOUS event and just the most awesome weekend!
After many years of putting it off due to other conflicting events, I finally got around to running Pichi Richi Marathon for the first time in 2022 and absolutely loved it! I feel like this will now be a default event every year unless it clashes with something else!
This year I signed up for the half because a) although the marathon last year was awesome, I had no desire to do it again and b) I am nowhere near ready for a marathon right now!
I didn’t really know what to expect time-wise, I know the half marathon is the hillier half of the full marathon, and I did the full in just under 4 hours last year, so sub-2 seemed reasonable, although looking at times that other people have run in recent years, I felt like I should be able to go well under (1:45 maybe?). I knew it definitely was not going to be a PB (with 200+ metres elevation gain, it is definitely not one of your faster half marathon courses!) and certainly would be my slowest half for the year so far.
I did my usual ‘mini-taper’ and caffeine ‘detox’ with 2 full rest days before the event.
As per last year I drove up to Port Augusta on Friday for the parkrun on Saturday (detouring via Clare Valley to stock up the wine rack!).
I was staying with Sarah who was also doing the half marathon (her first time doing Pichi Richi) and we had a nice Indian meal at the Standpipe (the start point for the marathon, and one of the main sponsors of the event)
This year was the 5th anniversary of Port Augusta parkrun and a ‘pyjama party’ theme – which was a great excuse to wear my Oodie in public (and it was very chilly, even with the Oodie on!) Pichi Richi Marathon ambassador Jess Stenson and her husband Dylan were both there for the parkrun as well as the marathon on Sunday. I kind of wished I was running the parkrun because it would probably have been my only opportunity to ‘race’ against a Commonwealth Games marathon winner and I may have even had a chance of ‘winning’! Dylan had a crack at the course record and wasn’t too far off – apparently he was just going to be taking it easy in the 10.5k race on Sunday. (Although his ‘easy’ is probably a lot faster than most people’s race pace!)
After parkrun we went for coffee and second breakfast and then motored on to Quorn, following the course of the marathon, and dodging cyclists along the way as there was some kind of cycling event on. I had warned Sarah it was a bit hilly but not too bad, she commented that she would have preferred not to have had a preview of the course!
I stayed at Elizabeth House again, where I stayed last year – and I even got the same room! Sarah was staying around the corner at the motel which was owned by the same people. I went for a wander around Quorn, not much had changed since last year although the local distillery, Flinders Gin, was about to open its brand new tasting room in a few weeks. It didn’t look open but we later found out it was open and went in for a tasting (because, gin tasting the day before a race, what could possibly go wrong?) Sharing the table with us were 4 other women from Adelaide who were also doing the half on Sunday. Only 2 of us were brave (or silly?) enough to do a tasting. And I don’t even drink gin! I enjoyed all the 4 gins we got to taste, but ended up buying some tea (they also sell lip balm, candles, pre-mixed cans and a bunch of other merch). They make their own spirit from scratch, one of only a handful of distilleries in SA to do so (and there are a LOT of distilleries in SA!) They try to source as much locally as they can which I also really like. I particularly liked the Quandong gin, made from quandongs supplied by the local community. I wasn’t even really sure what quandongs are – Wikipedia tells me they are also known as ‘native peach’ – but they are widely grown in the local area and Quorn even has an annual Quandong Festival!
Did I mention it was SUPER windy on Saturday! We were all hoping it would calm down by Sunday morning!
Later that afternoon we headed to the Transcontinental Hotel (currently the only pub in town so not a difficult choice!) for drinks and dinner with a whole lot of other Adelaide runners and walkers – we had a HUGE long table! Our gin buddies were there too! They had driven to Port Augusta to get their bibs (we were going to collect ours at the start line). Unlike last year, when I opted not to join the team dinner due to the lack of vegan options and drove to Port Augusta for a pizza instead, there was an actual vegan burger on the menu that was pretty nice! I ordered a white wine thinking I would be safe from Serg and his red wine but once the glass of white was empty it was miraculously filled with red! I managed to keep it to a couple of glasses which was helped by not sitting directly opposite him as I had done last year!
It was a relatively early night, I sat in the lounge with a few Heysen trail hikers for a little while before heading in to bed. The half didn’t start until 9am, which would work in our favour as it might be slightly less cold by then. We had to be on a bus at 7:45 and I was meeting Sarah at her motel at 7:15 to walk over.
I woke several times overnight with the sound of strong winds outside, and I spent way too much time thinking about whether or not to take my phone with me and leave it in my bag, given that if it somehow got lost I had no way of paying for anything for the rest of the weekend other than $20 cash! I knew I didn’t want to run with it so it was either leave it in my room or leave it in my bag. I was also thinking about whether to run with my room keys in my pocket and if it would be annoying with all the jiggling. In the end I did run with my key and wrapped it in a $20 note to keep it quiet!
On Sunday morning I met a guy in the kitchen at the hostel, Zac, who was also doing the half and hoping to do somewhere around 2 hours (not expecting to go under!) and was staying there with his partner and her mum. He was wearing Crocs, I later saw him at the start line still in the Crocs and I jokingly asked him “you’re not running in those are you?” but then thinking if he did he may set some kind of record for running a half marathon in Crocs (needless to say he did NOT run in Crocs)
I went with my recent usual race outfit – similar to Barossa where it threatened to be windy (and City-Bay last year) I wanted everything to be nice and fitted so as not to create a parachute effect! The only difference from recent events was that I wore arm warmers (well they were actually leg warmers). After putting sunscreen on (I thought that was SUPER optimistic of me but as it turned out it did get quite sunny! Not warm, but definitely sunny!) I NEARLY forgot to put them back on! I ended up taking my phone with me, and just wearing a hoodie over my race kit (I didn’t think I needed anything on the bottom half, plus that would be more layers I’d then have to take off).
When I met Sarah it turned out she was having the same thoughts as me about the phone, she had decided to leave it in her car at the motel so I did the same.
As we were walking along towards Quorn Oval a suspicious looking vehicle slowed down as it went past us and a dodgy looking guy offered us a lift, turned out to be Lachy, with Carolyn and Trish, so we decided it was safe to accept a ride! We were at the bus stop WAAAAY early so we had time to acclimatise to the chilly morning!
The bus driver was a bit of a joker, he said he had just got his licence yesterday but he did get us to the start line in one piece! I remembered last year being super aware of the police presence on the roads, it seemed like the entire police force of the region was out on that road! They were being very vigilant, right near the oval one cop almost wasn’t going to let our bus through because he wasn’t displaying his authorisation!
We got to the start line, halfway between Port Augusta and Quorn, with about 1 hour to go before the start. Plenty of time for bib collection and to visit the one and only portaloo (which was surprisingly not terrible!) but maybe a bit too much time to be standing around in the cold! (On the bus Graham had told us that in previous years there had been a fire at the start – that would have been nice!) The half marathon walkers set off at 8:30 and before we started, 2 of the marathoners (including the eventual winner David) went through – they had started at 7:30 and passed the halfway point a bit before 9.
After the race briefing (essentially telling us to keep to the right as there would be cars driving towards Quorn in the left hand lane), Sarah, Gary and I decided to do a warmup. I think we ran all of about 200 metres!
Soon it was start time, and given that it was a small field and no-one else seemed to be too fussed about getting to the front, Sarah and I decided to stand on the start line. I mean if you have to run 21.1km anyway, why run 1 metre more than you have to?
A few people took off at the start, including one other girl who I didn’t know and who fast disappeared into the distance, so I was pretty sure I was not going to catch her! And a few of the guys passed me early on but not too many which was nice. I don’t think I’ve started a half marathon right at the front before!
The course is essentially net uphill (but undulating) for about 15km and downhill (but undulating) for the last 6km. There were drink stations every 5km in the marathon until 30km (so for us, 4km, 9km) then every 3km thereafter (12km, 15km, 18km).
The scenery is MAGNIFICENT and as you can see from the photos it was a beautiful morning! I don’t think I appreciated it quite enough last time! Thankfully the wind was not a factor (in fact I was told there was a tail wind for a lot of it – I didn’t notice it myself!)
I kept seeing Peter, one of the main organisers of the event, early on. He had previously run the marathon many times (including last year) but this year was not running and he seemed to be EVERYWHERE with his camera!
As mentioned earlier, the road was open to traffic from Port Augusta to Quorn. I remembered last year having people cheer me from passing cars in the first half of the marathon. This time, most of the people I knew were in the half marathon or marathon, so there weren’t too many passers-by that I knew, but just before the halfway mark, I heard my name called out from a passing car, and looked up and it was Race Ambassador Jess! That was a pretty cool moment!
Not long after that I reached the 10.5km start (ie our halfway mark) with all the runners hanging around waiting for the start. I remembered a similar experience last year with the 5km start, and being swamped by 5km runners at the start. Which you would expect, being at the 37km mark of a marathon! I didn’t actually hear the gun go off but I was fully expecting to be passed by at least some of the 10.5km runners but there must have been enough of a gap between me and them that I don’t believe any of them caught me!
Having the designated 5km, 10.5km and 21.1km walk events as well as run events, the participants were nicely spaced out along the course so it was never too long between seeing a fellow runner or walker! Although it was a bit lonelier this year and I was never running ‘with’ anyone, it never felt like I was out there on my own! Even the cars driving past, even with no-one calling my name out the window, seemed like they were a part of it!
I had already worked out that the 5km probably wouldn’t start until I was close to the finish, so I wouldn’t be overtaken by any of them, but it was nice to see a bunch of them gathered at the start as I started the descent into Quorn!
(It’s a lie though, the last 6km is definitely not ‘all downhill’. Net downhill maybe but there’s definitely some up!)
I went the whole way without looking at my watch (well after my first km split which was 4:42), not even to see how far I had gone/had left to go! (There were km markers on the road but they were for the marathon and I wasn’t always in the mood to do the math, but the drink stations all had big signs indicating the distance so that was enough for me!)
Seeing the little signs every 5km saying how far we were from Quorn was nice too! Well more so towards the end of course!
I started out thinking I’d break it down into 3 uphill parkruns and 1 downhill ‘parkrun-and-a-bit’ but in the end I just took it 1km at a time (cliche much?)
Pretty soon I was back in familiar territory, with the “Welcome to Quorn” sign being very welcome indeed! Just a few more km down the road came the left turn and then the right turn leading to the finish line at Quorn Oval. Just before the turn into the Oval I had a sneaky look behind me to see if I needed to put on a sprint finish. I knew no other women had passed me but I didn’t really have any concept of how close the next one was. Not seeing anyone I still put on an extra burst through the finish line and ACTUALLY REMEMBERED THE PHOTOGRAPHER for once!
My watch time was 1:40:34 (Official time 1:40:30 – I must have been a bit slow stopping my watch!) Although I had now done 3 sub-1:40s in a row up to this point, I had to be happy with that on a hilly course! And I was particularly happy when I remembered that that was pretty much the exact same time I ran at Barossa, on a flat course, in PERFECT weather conditions, just over a year ago!
Lunch consisted of 2 buckets of hot chips from the chip van (luckily I had some cash because the EFTPOS was down!) and later a cup of rice that Sarah gave me before she left. Probably not the ideal recovery meal!
(Note to self: Quorn is not exactly flush with vegan food options – bring more food next time! I had gone to the IGA the day before, looking for some food I could bring to the post-race party and all I could find was potato chips and Oreos!)
Sarah was driving back home after the race so I walked back to get my phone, and since I was so close to my place I decided to pop in and have a shower before heading back for the presentations.
Quite a few people I know made the podium of their respective events! 4 of my regular running buddies: Mark, Ben, Riesje and Marjolijn had all done the marathon and done very well, the latter 2 finished 2nd and 3rd respectively. In the half marathon walk, Marg was first and Sally was third, and Deb was third in the 10.5km.
Apparently I was 2nd male in the half marathon walk!
A little later I met up with Gary and Carolyn for a (nother) gin tasting, this time with owner Alby who also gave us a preview of the new tasting room which looks fantastic! And this time around I bought another bag of tea and a bottle of Quandong gin.
After that we headed to the Great Northern Lodge to join the traditional post-race party. There was a lot of wine, masses of food, dancing (Nutbush of course!) and karaoke. And marvelling over the size of Gary’s bathroom which was twice the size of his bedroom!
And a raffle in which I won this awesome commemorative print from last year’s 40th anniversary event, signed by Steve Moneghetti!
And this year I managed to not leave my keys at the party and was able to sleep in my comfy king sized bed instead of the couch!
A great time was had by all, once again another fantastic event and a perfect weekend away!
Thanks to the organisers and wonderful volunteers for putting on this iconic event, and thanks to the weather gods for putting on another perfect day! I cannot recommend Pichi Richi highly enough and definitely recommend it to anyone wanting a scenic, friendly and challenging event!
Pretty sure I’ll be back again next year!
