If you’d told me 6 months ago that I would run the Adelaide Marathon this year (especially given that Chicago Marathon is 6 weeks later) I would have asked you what you were smoking. And if you had told me I would do a (spoiler alert) 9 minute PB I would have definitely asked you to share whatever it was with me!
Before we get into 2023, let’s briefly revisit past Adelaide Marathons.
I’d done it 4 times as an official pacer, in 2015 (21.1k), 2017 (21.1k), 2018 (10k) and 2019 (21.1k).
In 2016 I ran the marathon with Beck to try to get her a Boston qualifier and said I’d never do it (the full marathon) again!
Fast forward to March 2023, just after the Great Southern Runs Myponga event, having a post-run wine with my friend Paul when we started discussing what other running events we might sign up for. Somehow the discussion turned to Adelaide Marathon and he suggested I could do it with him to try and get a better time than he got last time, because he went out too fast and didn’t train properly, and I thought why not, could be fun! And also it would mean I’d have someone to do the long training runs with, and could use it as a lead-in for Chicago, and I was sold!
At first I thought I might struggle to keep up, but as time went by I was doing some pretty good half marathons so I felt like I definitely had it in me!
Theoretically it was a 16 week training programme but it was interrupted by a half marathon every month (that’s just the way it worked out) and each half was preceded by a fast 12k the Sunday before, because although Adelaide was the big one, we still wanted to do well in the halves!
And it worked, up to a point, both of us managing 2 half marathon PBs in the first half of the year!
One thing that I did in the lead-up that I am sure helped me a lot, was that I signed up to do an 8 week RunFit programme at VitalCore Physio, which I had done twice before in 2018 and 2020. In 2020 it was just before I returned to running after a long-term injury and I wanted to make sure I addressed any imbalances and started from a strong base. This time my reason for signing up was because I was already running well and I wanted to be as good as I could possibly be, and hopefully sneak in a half marathon PB! (Marathon PB did not even enter my mind at this stage!). It started with a 1:1 assessment with physio Thomas who tweaked my home programme, then a circuit-style class once a week for 8 weeks, and a follow-up assessment at the end. I think this is a big part of why running is going well for me this year!
A couple of weeks after the McLaren Vale half we did the first long run of the marathon training programme (meant to be 25km but ended up being 26.6) which seemed to go quite well, but after that, Paul was out injured for quite a few weeks, at which point I started to consider the possibility that I might end up doing this by myself, and wonder whether it would be a better idea to pull out and focus on Chicago (and one last crack at my nemesis event, the City-Bay half marathon 3 weeks after Adelaide and 3 weeks before Chicago). In any case I would keep training as normal and see what happened.
Other than a couple of nice trots around Chambers in preparation for the hilly Pichi Richi half marathon, most of my long runs were pretty boring routes along the River Torrens, mostly because I can’t be bothered coming up with a route and it’s easy to do an out and back long run along there without too much thinking required! (Two of my ‘long runs’ were also races, Pichi Richi and Barossa. Definitely helps when there’s a lot of people around and a medal and wine at the end!)
With 5 weeks to go until Adelaide, Paul confirmed he definitely was going to have to pull out of Adelaide, at which point I was still a bit undecided if I really wanted to do it. (The fact that I am writing this obviously means I did!) I then went out that day and ran a solid 35k, albeit a bit crap in the last 5k, with an average pace of 4:49 minutes per km. And then I decided I owed it to myself to give it a good crack! And it would be my first time participating in the Adelaide Marathon festival just ‘for me’!
A week later I did probably the most ‘planned’ run I’ve done since my earlier marathons – 30km with the first 5k at 5:00 pace, 20k at 4:40 pace (managed to hold that pace for about 18km) and then the last 5k at 5:00 pace (ended up being a fair bit slower than that as the fast 20k had taken it out of me!) – it was very hard but it definitely led me to believe a PB was realistic (previous PB 3:35:59 – 5:07 pace) and I could probably even aim for a sub 3:30 (average pace 4:59).
During my 4 week taper I did 28km (4:56 pace), 23km (4:50 pace) and finally with a week to go I did 20k aiming to run the whole thing at race pace (ended up being 4:57 pace) and even managed a slight negative split!
The problem with telling fellow runners that you are going to run a marathon, is that they start telling you what time they think you’re going to run, and sometimes that is wildly ambitious, far beyond my ambitious goal of breaking the 3:30 barrier. And that definitely got to me as race day approached! (In the end I had to tell people to keep their predictions to themselves until AFTER the race!)
Race week was a planned easy week. 10ish kilometres on Tuesday morning and then no running until race day (other than an easy 3km on Friday morning). From Thursday to Saturday (other than the aforementioned 3km) I did practically nothing. It was very weird and disconcerting!
I got a massage from regular running buddy (and awesome massage therapist) Amanda, and had a good chat about what it takes to run a marathon PB, she having done that very thing a few months ago at Barossa! She definitely found all the tight spots, which were primarily in the right traps and glutes. Someone please remind me I need to do this more often!
I had a few ‘new’ things for the race – I decided to treat myself to a new T-shirt, as the top I wanted to wear (in which I’d run my 2 HM PBs this year) caused chafing in one of my long runs. I ran in the new T-shirt once but I wasn’t anticipating any issues as I’d run marathons and ultras in the same style of T-shirt before. I also bought new socks as I wore through one of my favourite race socks (Lightfeet) about 3 weeks out. And my shoes were newish, I’d only been running in them for 3 weeks. (I wasn’t game to run in the fast Nike shoes – particularly as I hadn’t used them for anything more than 5k since December!)
I had a very basic and probably wildly inadequate nutrition plan, but it was more than I’d ever used before Pichi Richi marathon last year. For the last 4 weeks I had been taking protein balls (salted caramel flavour) on my long runs, initially I’d have one every 5km but then I changed to every 6km because then I could just take 6 on the marathon, I could easily fit 3 in the two front pockets on my running skirt, and hopefully not look like I had a couple of massive hernias (because as we all know, it’s ALL about the race photos!). Other than this I just took one Revvies strip for a caffeine boost later on. Anyone who’s used Revvies before would know the packet is notoriously hard to open (something I learned the first time I tried one on my long run!) so I pre-emptively cut the top off so I would be able to get the strip out easily on the day. That was planned for around the 30km mark. Another thing I learned the first time I tried one was that it takes a little while to dissolve on your tongue, and you don’t want your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth before it dissolves, because then it sticks and doesn’t really ever go away, and it doesn’t taste the best! Another reason, I guess, why you need to practise all this stuff before race day!
I contemplated having ‘special drinks’ which I could just grab and run, something I had previously used at Adelaide and Barossa marathons, but as I’d only been training with water this time around, there didn’t seem much point. Theoretically it saves time because you just grab your bottle and you can carry it while running, and presumably you end up getting more hydration in, but I thought if there’s lots of bottles on the table and it takes a while to find mine, it would actually be quicker to stop at the drink station and have a couple of cups of water. So in the end I decided not to bother. Plus, I’d run 2 HM PBs while using cups at drink stations so it hadn’t slowed me down at all.
My pre-race meal was as normal – pizza! I had previously had cider as my drink of choice, but as I don’t tend to have cider in the fridge these days, and because I’d had a successful run at Pichi Richi with red wine, I decided wine would do! I contemplated eating the whole pizza but ended up only having half, a decision which I would be thanking myself for later…
It was a SUPER early start – I believe because there was an early football game on at the Adelaide Oval and they needed to re-open the roads. The marathon started at 6:30 and with over 500 runners registered (the event actually sold out) the recommendation was to get there early, by 5:30am. So it was a 4:30 wakeup call, breakfast, get dressed and pretty much leave as soon as I was ready. The first excitement for the day came when I got breath tested by and RBT on the corner of Port Road, just next to Bonython Park (presumably trying to catch people heading home from a big night out, not runners on their way to a marathon!) Needless to say I blew zero and was sent on my way! Not wanting to pay for a car park I decided to park across Port Road from the race village at Bonython Park, and it ended up being very easy to get a park that was not too far at all from the start line.
It wasn’t too cold at 5:30 and promised to be a fine day so I hadn’t even needed to bother with layers or arm warmers. I did put sunscreen on and had sunnies sitting on top of my hat (which were never actually required during the race)! It was a bit hard to catch up with people in the village before the start as it was still pretty dark! I had my pre-workout at 6 and then went for a quick warmup jog before dropping my bag at the bag drop where Cecile and Louise were volunteering. Cecile told me what time she thought I would run, she thought I was going to do 3:20, I was not too bothered by it at this stage, I told her there was NO WAY I was going to go that fast but hoping for something in the 3:20s!
After a second (possibly unnecessary) toilet stop (yay for fixed toilets – there were also portaloos but I was very happy not to have to use one of those!) it was time to head to the start line.
There was a 3:30 pacer who I planned to run with for the first 30km (or the first 21.1km, depending on who I was talking to). Somehow though I ended up starting in front of him so he wasn’t really going to be much help to me from that point! I could see the 3:15 pacer but I knew trying to keep up with him, even if for only the first km or two, would end in certain disaster!
We started on Port Road and headed around the corner and up the hill over the bridge before the familiar territory of War Memorial Drive. My first two km were 4:46 and 4:45. At that point I decided to switch tactics, I did what I had done successfully at McLaren Vale and changed my watch screen to the one that showed heart rate and current lap pace. I figured, I wanted to try to keep my heart rate below the mid 170s for as long as I could, and as long as my lap splits stayed on or under 4:58, my average pace would also get me under 3:30 (given I was faster than that pace for the first 2km).
The course was all new to me, quite different from the last time I’d run it (when we finished on the Oval) which was actually quite nice as the first lap was almost like a bit of a reccy! There were plenty of drink stations – I think I had a drink at all but the first one (because I didn’t feel like I needed a drink yet!) and lots of familiar faces out there, both running and volunteering! As per previous times doing this event, there were a bunch of out and back sections where you got to see pretty much everyone else in the field so it was nice to give/get some cheers and a few high fives along the way! I don’t recall seeing too many of the runners from other distances but I think I probably saw all the marathoners at some stage!
It was also very nice to have some live music along the course – I had been training with music (as I always like to, when running on my own!) but have never used it in a race (other than those stupid loop ultras where you don’t need to follow any marshall instructions!) so it definitely helped to break things up a bit! The first song I heard near the Adelaide Oval was “Tequila Sunrise” which seemed appropriate given that the sun had not long come up by that stage!
One of the drink stations near the Torrens Weir was manned by a bunch of sharks which was a bit of fun! I half expected them to be cranking “Baby Shark” on repeat but then I thought that would have been WAAAAY too annoying for them!
I wasn’t really keeping track of my splits but I did see my time at 12km and it was just under 58 minutes, which was somewhere around the time I did for my first City-Bay nearly 10 years ago – and I briefly reflected on how far I’ve come since then!
There was a group of supporters with a big sign and I can’t remember exactly what it said but it was along the lines of “Hurry up, we want to start drinking!” – I saw them a few times in a couple of different spots near the Oval.
I managed to keep my heart rate lowish for the first lap, and everything was still feeling pretty comfortable at that stage. Again I wasn’t looking at my watch at the time but looking at the results afterwards my halfway split was 1:42:01 which was possibly a bit fast, but I was able to reset as I ran through the right side of the finishing arch and onto my second lap. That was the warmup, now for the race! (There were timing points halfway through the lap as well, so essentially I could split the race into quarters. My second quarter ended up being the fastest)
The first bit seemed unfamiliar, and I wondered if I was in a total daze for the first part of the race, until I looked at the map later and realised that the start of the second lap was slightly different, running along the path rather than on Port Road – presumably because Port Road would have been reopened by that stage. Once we were back on the bridge on Park Terrace I was back in familiar territory.
Weirdly, with over 500 in the marathon, I found myself running up War Memorial Drive with NO-ONE around me! Fortunately that was short-lived – I almost wished I’d brought some music along but then I would have had to run with my phone, and I was trying to go as minimalist as possible.
Around 24km my heart rate started to climb a bit, and as I tried to drop it a bit, my pace also dropped. I didn’t really feel like I was running slow, but this was one of only 3 kilometre splits that was over 5 minutes (and it wasn’t even an uphill kilometre!) At that point I stopped caring about heart rate and just concentrated on trying to maintain my pace under 4:58. I was pretty confident that barring disaster I would be able to get under 3:30 (Every time there was an out and back section I’d see how far behind me the pacer was, and at times it was a bit scary because he seemed to be a LONG way behind me which either meant I was doing very well, or that things were going to fall apart because I had, as always, gone out too fast!)
In early marathons I had a very structured pacing strategy and I had every kilometre split written on a band on my wrist, as it started slow and then gradually got faster. When I did my PB at Gold Coast in 2015 I had planned to do this but then ended up just running with the pacers and then after 10km I’d left the pacers behind me and I had moved onto the less-advisable marathon pacing strategy of “GHHO” (Go Hard and Hold On). It appeared that I was firmly in GHHO territory now…
Around the Uni Loop I heard my name and I saw a familiar face with 2 border collies – it was Beck, with whom I had previously run Adelaide all those years ago! She ran along the Uni Loop for a little while, it was great to see her come out to cheer me on!
At some point, as I did not have the distance screen on my watch, I lost track of which kilometre I was up to. Happily, I was actually 1km further along than I thought I was! That hardly EVER happens (it’s almost ALWAYS the other way round!)
I reached the 30km mark and had my Revvies – despite having cut the packet I still had a bit of trouble opening it to get the strip out, then I ran past a lot of familiar faces including Sue marshalling on one of the turnarounds, but I couldn’t really talk because I didn’t want the strip to stick to the roof of my mouth again!
At the weir one of the sharks was holding up a ‘touch here for a power up’ sign so of course I took advantage of that! I think at that point I may have accidentally grabbed a sports drink instead of a water – I hadn’t used the Prepd sports drink before so I wasn’t game to try it, plus I tend to end up wearing a fair bit of whatever I drink, so I didn’t want to end up sticky! (Incidentally, kudos to SARRC for using paper Biocups, not only compostable but also much easier to drink from once I worked out I could make a spout and pour the water directly into my mouth and not all over myself!)
I also realised that I need to work on my aim because probably only about 50% of my empty cups ended up in the bins!
My 3/4 split was 2:33:54. Not that I knew this at the time (my mental maths skills are average at best, let alone 3/4 of the way through a marathon!) but that meant I had just over 56 minutes to run 10.55km, an average pace of 5:19, to get under 3:30. It’s probably a good thing I DIDN’T know that, as I may have been tempted to take the foot off the gas a bit!
The last bit was a bit of a blur, I knew exactly what was coming, and although I didn’t know the detail, I was pretty sure that sub 3:30 was in sight. So I just put my head down and got it done!
Coming up to the finish line (that bloody hill right near the end – can we do something about that please?) there was a VERY LOUD cheer squad on the linear path (I could hear them from quite a way away which got me a bit excited!) – I don’t remember seeing anyone I knew there, I think they were just cheering everyone. That was pretty awesome!
Up the hill and the finish line was in sight! Unfortunately I didn’t see the photographer so my finish line photos aren’t great but I crossed the line, stopped my watch and it said 3:26:26! So that was a PB by 9 and a half minutes, which was 7 years in the marking! To say I was happy with that would have been a gross understatement!
After getting my medal and finisher shirt (absolutely stoked with the medal this year, one of the best ones I’ve had!) grabbing a water and an apple, it was straight to the bag drop to collect my bag and most importantly my post-run Coke which I may have been thinking of for some time! I then decided to take the risk of sitting down!
The finish area was really cool, DJ Tim on the wheels of steel cranking out the party tunes in between the podium presentations. I ended up staying there until the very end, waiting for Carolyn who was the sweeper (hardest job of the day I reckon!) and Kristina (who had also done the marathon) and I even had a little dance! (Kristina was scared to sit down in case she couldn’t get up again!)
I also managed to scrape in for an age group placing which was an added bonus, I always seem to just miss out on the top 3 so it was pretty special to get it here!
Probably the most exciting moment of the day (maybe SLIGHTLY below the moment I crossed the line and saw my time) was when I remembered that I had half a pizza in my fridge for lunch! Thanks Past Jane!
There was a physio at the finish line doing post-run massages so I got a quick rub down of my calves and hamstrings which I’m sure helped. When I eventually got home, after inhaling my oh so delicious cold pizza, I showered and got straight into my compression pants, before sitting on the couch for an hour or so going through Strava as there were MANY people to give kudos to!
Then it was off to the pub for a celebratory drink with a few of the Walkerville running crew (somewhat of a post-marathon tradition) and then an early dinner with the Sunday running group (who were good enough to let me join them even though I never run with them anymore). Being a block away from the old favourite Bakery On O’Connell it would have been rude not to pop in for a cupcake to end the day in style!
Congratulations to all the runners and walkers who participated – you definitely earned those awesome medals! Special congrats to the many people I saw who got PBs – the conditions really could not have been any better for running!
And now for the thanks – firstly I suppose I’d better thank Paul for convincing me to do it, albeit not the way we had planned, but I can’t see any way I would have done this if not for him talking me into it! 2 marathons in 6 weeks? Ridiculous!
THANKS SO MUCH to all the volunteers for making this one of the most enjoyable events I can remember participating in. I definitely don’t want to single anyone out – this goes to all of you! And to SARRC for putting on another WONDERFUL event – I loved every moment! Might even consider doing it again!
So now it’s time for a little break and then hopefully back for a decent run in the City-Bay half in (eek!) 3 weeks in the lead-up to Chicago Marathon (double eek!) in 6 weeks!