Adelaide Marathon race report – I’ve written a few of those (sigh!)
Traditionally I do a bit of a recap of all the previous times I’ve been involved with this event, but this year being the 9th time, I reckon if you want to take a deep dive into the past, just take a look at the first part of last year’s report which sums it up nicely.
Originally I hadn’t intended to run Adelaide (half marathon) this year – I had signed up for Clare because it seemed like a good excuse to spend a day up in a lovely wine region, however 4 weeks out from the event, I returned from 3 weeks of army training (and zero running), did a fairly sluggish 16k run, realised that I was going to be very underdone for Clare, and didn’t really fancy that. Even though I do enjoy a nice Clare wine! So I deferred my Clare entry to Adelaide.
I had originally started training for Clare and got up to 18km before going away for army training, so I definitely had the distance covered, I just needed a few more long runs and a bit more speed. I did a few more 18k runs and broke it up with a 10k fun run (having not ‘raced’ a 10k in over 8 years). 2 weeks out from Adelaide I opted to do a ‘practice’ half marathon and you can read about that here.
1 week out from Adelaide I ran 12k which was meant to be around ‘race pace’, this is something I like to do before a half marathon – get used to running longer distance in the ‘speed’ shoes, but being a shorter run, it shouldn’t take so much recovery time.
I ‘decaffeinated’ for the week, and did 2 easy runs, on Tuesday and Thursday.
My pre-race meal was my traditional pizza, minus the wine this time, as I’d had a couple of glasses of wine with lunch (a lovely pasta, another great choice for pre-race day!)
Since Victor Harbor last year I have started using gels (I know, better late than never) and this week I happened to receive a shipment from Adelaide Marathon sponsor Pure. I had ordered a boatload of apple pie (my favourite) plus a few different ones.
On Friday afternoon after collecting my race bib from the marathon expo (I got through in record time) I legged it to the post office to collect my parcel, my last chance to get it before Sunday’s event. I had one gel in the pantry, and a very busy Saturday ahead so did not want to have to go and source a second one. I made it in time, and on Saturday I opened up the box to see what was in there. I had forgotten exactly what I’d ordered, but I had some lemon/lime caffeine gels and a few cola caffeine gels. Up until that point I hadn’t thought of using caffeine gels – typically I’ll have an energy drink half an hour before the start, and a Revvies energy strip around halfway (if needed). I’d never tried a caffeine gel before. So I thought, why not make the second gel a caffeinated one? What could possibly go wrong? (I went with the lemon-lime over the cola – I had tried the non-caffeinated lemon-lime one before so at least I knew the flavour was ok. Cola flavour can be a bit hit or miss. It NEVER tastes like Coke! I’ll try it another time!)
As usual I set 3 alarms, the first one for 5am. The half marathon started at 7am, with the marathon half an hour earlier. I had planned to leave as soon as I was ready, which was about 0550, but then I spent a good 5 minutes trying to find my keys. I still made it in plenty of time – I parked on Melbourne St, an easy 1.5k walk. There were already plenty of people there!
As it was a warm morning, I was able to go straight to the bag drop (normally if it’s a cold morning you’ll leave that until the last minute so you can leave your jumper on!), then do a short 2km warmup before braving the inevitable portaloo queue as the MC kept announcing how long we had to go before the start, and I did the math in my head to work out how long everyone was allowed to take so I could actually get in and to the start line in time. I did make it in the end but the one I used had already run out of flushing water so that wouldn’t have been a great experience for people later in the morning! (Fortunately there were separate urinals behind the block of portaloos so that thinned the queue out a bit!)
As mentioned previously I had an energy drink at 0630 (V Refresh Citrus Lemonade, VERY hard to find these days, I have managed to find a stash at a few servos but when that runs out I think I’ll have to find a new flavour!) and while queuing for the portaloos I had my apple pie gel. The timing (bag drop, warmup, portaloo, start line) worked out OK but another 5 minutes probably would have been nice (which I would have had, had I not lost my keys at home!)
There seemed to be a lot of pacers, the one I was looking for was 1:35, at first I could only see 1:30 and 1:40 so I put myself about halfway between those two, but then 1:35 appeared so I gravitated towards him.
Sub-1:35 (which would likely also be an Adelaide PB) was my A goal. My B goal was to beat the time I did 2 weeks earlier at Semaphore.
I lost the pacer within those 5km and had to work really hard to catch up. It was when going up a hill, in the 3rd kilometre, which according to Strava was by far the steepest kilometre in the course (28m elevation gain, with the next highest being 8m). I ran that split in 4:43 (not surprisingly, my slowest kilometre!) but the pacer was able to continue to run at 4:30 pace so got a bit far ahead of me. I did 4:12 in the next kilometre (25m elevation LOSS, again the steepest downhill and the only one in double figures) so I was technically on pace at 5km.
I did not write my report early in the week like I normally would, so the level of detail is not what it would usually be (many would. say that is a good thing!)
I’m splashing a few photos throughout the report, I can’t remember exactly when in the race they were taken, only that the ones where I was holding a gel would have been around the 9-10km mark. I only remember seeing the photographers going through the Botanic Gardens (which will be obvious when you see the photos!)
I saw a familiar face when running through the Gardens – not a photographer, but well-known rainbow-tutu-wearing unicorn Tamas, cranking some tunes as usual! Although I remember thinking it was unusual that he was cranking Tay Tay (I forget which song) instead of the usual Megadeth or Iron Maiden. Tay Tay is probably a bit more acceptable for the masses!
I had a cup of water at most of the drink stations – unlike at some recent races, I managed to avoid accidentally taking electrolyte drinks! I had my caffeinated gel just before 10km, when I could see that there was a drink station not too far ahead (so I could rinse my mouth out after the gel). I’m not sure if the caffeine helped at all but it didn’t seem to do any harm so I’ll probably do that again!
Despite being a bit slower than I’d hoped, I still managed to pull out a fast finish (Strava says I did the last 200m at 3:49 pace) and beat my B goal by about a minute. My official (net) time was 1:35:48, just under a minute slower than last year. I do believe it was a tougher course this year though so although underwhelming for me at the time, it’s not a bad time at all!
Participant numbers were huge! i finished 232nd overall in the half marathon which is not impressive BUT it was out of 2207 finishers so that’s a bit more respectable! And 27th out of 922 female finishers, and 4th out of 167 in my age category (just out of the medals for the second year in a row – if only they had 5-year age categories instead of 10-year, I would have made it!). In the marathon there were 761 finishers, 882 in the 10k and 321 in the 5k – I reckon that’s around 4000 finishers all up, which is a great number!
The event was superbly organised. Although I didn’t spend much time hanging around afterwards as I had some other stuff to attend to, from what I could see, the atmosphere was great, and the weather was perfect (albeit probably a bit warm for the marathoners!). There were plenty of drink stations, a well-marked course (a few less hills would have been appreciated!) and as always, fabulous volunteers at every turn! The photos turned out great too (would have been even better if not for my face) and were very reasonably priced!
All in all, I would have to say it was a great event and I am very glad I made the decision to defer my Clare entry and run Adelaide instead!
And of course, I’ll no doubt be back next year!
