Perth City to Surf Half Marathon 2010

Well the week before the City to Surf I was having a quiet birthday drink with a friend 'Kate' and the rest of our collective families. After a number of quiet drinks the City to Surf came up in discussion - I piped up and said why not let's do the half marathon (21.1km)! Well Kate said OK - bugger.... At this point I was only 1 week after the Capricorn Resort HIM 2010 event so was feeling a little tired but I thought one more week and I should be fine. Kate has run in a number of 1/2 marathons and even did the Perth marathon last month so was also more than capable.

The day arrived before we knew it and I was dressed and on the train with Kate heading to the start before I even realised what was going on. Anyway we made it to the start and after some confusion about where we were to wait, we moved off the to start line. Out start time was 9am and this year the course for the marathon and half marathon runners was separated by barriers from the 12 km field. The day was perfect, no too hot, slight breeze and beautiful clear sky. I had decided to run with the iPhone using a GPS program to record the route and my result (GPX attached to this blog) plus give me some music. Normally in events I do not run with music as this is a no-no in Triathlon but there is no such restriction in fun runs.

Running through Kings Park was excellent and made the kilometres go easily due to the wonderful surrounds and views. I do usually run a little faster than Kate and I saw her a few times on the 180deg turn sections, she was moving well and it did not seem that I was going to get very far ahead of her today. The hills in the park were something I had been warned about however I did not find them much of a problem. I was running well for the first 8-10km moving at around 14km/hr. I did start to slow a little once we joined the main road again but was feeling OK so was still heading for a 1:40 finish. I had not seen Kate for some time so just put the head down and kept moving knowing we would catch up at the end.

For those that have done the Perth City to Surf 12km or more, you now that the last few kilometres involve running up a few hills at the end of Oceanic Blvd. Well I hit these and I tried as hard as I could to power up these hills with only a few kms from the end. I knew my time was going to be very close to the 1:40 and I actually thought I had slipped a little on the hills, but I powered (well, ran as best I could) along and crossed the line - stopped the watch and it was 1:39:40 or something - I was not 100% sure if I started and stopped it on the line correctly but I was well pleased that I was under the 1:40 that I had personally set myself.

I felt ok after the race once I made it to the water station, which seemed to take forever with the rest of the crowd and having to queue for many many minutes to get water at the end of a race is very difficult. It took ages to find Kate and after I caught up with her I found that she had had a few problems with her run and had to walk a bit around the middle. She was not 100% and I hope that after a few weeks off and some treatment for her cold/flu thing that has hung around for ages she feels better and gets up and going again at full speed.

Then the worst part of the day - the darn bus trip back to the city to catch the train up near home for Michelle to pick us up. I thought I was going to pass out on the bus it took nearly 45 mins to get to the train station and was full of hot and sweaty people. Kate and I ended up having to stand and at one point I thought I was going to hit the floor. This bus trip ruined my whole day and for the rest of the day I suffered motion sickness, headaches and generally felt like crap. I even had to jump out of the car on our way home thinking I was going to be sick. So I will never catch the bus back to town again after the race, I would prefer to walk up the coast and either get picked up or get a cab.

Anyway the results have now been published and I did the event in 1:39:34 placing 216 out of 2508 half marathon competitors. This is a PB for me and is great considering only 2 weeks prior I had done a Half Ironman event. Michelle found in Facebook that one of the people in the northern districts running club had snapped a few pics so these are attached also - thanks very much for these (I am in the black and yellow North Coast Tri Suit - 3990, wearing the grey cap).

Photos