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Canberra marathon 2006.
Pete and I travel to Australia to explore, and tick off another continent on my marathon list. April 2006.


		After a solid 5 months of training, on April 9th 2006, myself and my mate Pete Clements, stood on a marathon start-line; on the far side of the world, waiting to start a 42km course, around the capital city of Australia. This is my journal of the marathon, and our stay with the Rice family during the 6 days we spent in Canberra. The Canberra marathon was to be my 10th marathon, and Pete's first full marathon. My goal is to run a marathon on all 7 of the earth's continents within the next few years, and this was my 3rd continent and my fastest, strongest and most confident race to date. Having checked the race website, we found that we were the only two English runners to enter, which we were both quite proud of. We'd left from Heathrow Airport, and sitting in the departure lounge, it was a cool feeling to think that we were the only two people in the whole country entering a marathon in the capital city of Australia; we felt like our very own team GB. We flew into Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport, having flown for around 23 hours via Bangkok. An old schoolmate of mine, Leo Frankel worked at the Sydney Hilton and set us up with an awesome room overlooking south Sydney. After two days in Sydney getting over the mammoth flight, and checking out the iconic Sydney landmarks, we took a greyhound bus down to Canberra, approx 3 hours away; where my friend Monica Rice came and met us.

On the eve of the marathon, the race expo was held at the local school, Telopea park, in Manuka; which is within site of the Australian parliaments giant flag. Before going to the race expo, my friend Monica, with whom's family we were staying, took us swimming at the 50m open air pool, in nearby Woden (click to see photo), with the plan of loosening our legs up a bit, without the strain of running. The pool was unheated, and as it was just coming into autumn, the pool was very cold. After the 3 of us had milled around for a good few minutes, I dived in and managed just under 15 minutes in the water. My whole head hurt from the cold, I would have liked an easy 30 minutes just to wake up my cardiovascular system ahead of the race; but instead I came out with an ice cream headache. After the swim and a good sized lunch in Manuka, we headed over to the school to pickup our race numbers. I always enjoy visiting race expo's, there's usually quite a buzzing atmosphere, mostly of excitement and some apprehension. We spent quite a while trying to decipher the course, and a volunteer talked us through it, though it was somewhat complicated (click to see route map). It's also a good opportunity to pickup trainers and apparel cheap. After the expo, we headed over the road to watch an Aussie rules football match, which Mon's brother Jimmy was playing in at Manuka stadium.


Mon's brother Jimmy, was playing for Tuggeronong AFL at Manuka Stadium. It was great fun to watch, and Jimmy, pictured above, dragged the huge bloke by his t-shirt after a team tear up. We only watched the 2nd and 3rd quarters before heading home, to sort out our race gear and pin on our numbers. I had decided that I wasn't going to run with any sports gel's or belt etc, as I had in most of my previous races. Huw Davies my coach, I felt had given me enough confidence through the training programme, not to need any of this junk anymore. Those of my friends who've spoken to me ahead of a race will know how seriously I take it; after all I've spent a long time training and was hungry for a personal best race time; it would be very foolish to jeopardise all that work by staying up too late the night before or getting drunk. Well, that's not quite how it worked out this time around... So after the admin for tomorrow mornings race, we had a great big pasta with Monica's family, before heading out with Mon's dad Jim to watch the Brumbies rugby team Vs. the South Africa Cheetah's, in the super XIV's league at the stadium, next to the Australian institute of sport in North Canberra. I'd watched a couple of Brumbies games with my friends Phil, Jo and Trent at the Temple walkabout over the last couple of years and was keen to see the game.

		We bought general standing admission tickets for the ground, and after about 10 minutes Jimmy, who works for the Brumbies part time, called us and got us bumped up to the corporate grandstand. This was great, not only because we had a great view of the ground, but because we now had free beer! Mon's dad, Jim who was driving, eyes lit up when Pete volunteered to drive home. It being Pete's first marathon he was being more responsible than me. We ended up drinking about 6 bottles worth of beer in an effort to 'carb up'. After about the 3rd beer, I was really relaxed and ended up sleeping all the way home in the car, and had a fantastic nights sleep. Pete meanwhile was stressed out apparently didn't get much sleep at all because he was stone cold sober and worried about the morning's looming race and his first full marathon. The race start time was 7am, which meant that we had to get up and eat at 4:30am. My body really needs 2.5 hours to properly digest after eating before I start running, otherwise I end up feeling very sick. I made this mistake in San Francisco marathon some 6 months before. Mabelle, Mon's mum heard us get up and woke up, to make us Bacon Sandwich's, I wouldn't even ask my mum to get up at this time to make breakfast. After this I had 2 big bowlful's of Kellogg's "Just Right" cereal. I find that having some protein from the bacon really makes a difference later in the race and my stomach doesn't feel empty. Monica drove us to the start line, whilst we blared out Cold Chisel, Foo Fighters and Outkast to get us ready to race.

I had put an awful lot into the race, and was determined to get a personal best time. I was intending on running a negative split in the race, whereby you run the first half deliberately slower than the second half. I wanted to run a 3:28 marathon, and this with a negative split would mean going through halfway in approx 1:48, a full 5 minutes slower than necessary. Huw my coach advised me to do this, and that I'd have a better chance of getting my time in doing so. This meant running very easy 1km splits early in the race, it was effortless and I was concentrating on keeping my heartrate below 150. Once I ran through the 21.1km mark, I started to increase my speed, as you can see in my HR graph. Pete and I had trained together through the harsh and wet British winter, and I'd given him as much advice as I thought was useful for a first time marathoner. I think that just getting round on your first time out is a big achievement. I had told Pete just to take his time, relax and that if he felt great in the the last 5k then go for it, but otherwise just settle into the long haul that is a marathon and enjoy it. Left and Below: Monica was waiting after the 22km mark just under the Commonwealth Avenue bridge. I didn't know exactly where I would see her, but it was a mental boost. She threw me the only Power Gel I would have in the race. If you enlarge the image, you can see the I've written my split times on my left forearm.


Pete and I passed each other a couple of times in the race, the first time was not long after the 10km marker on the way back towards Telopea park school; Pete was clearly buzzing and yelling a running joke about kiwi's, that Jim had taught us. Then later in the race at around the 30km mark we high fived across the road marker. The day had warmed up to a really nice running temperature and was superb conditions. At the start line it had been really cold and probably only 5-8 degree's centigrade. Approaching the Glenloch Interchange where the turn in the course is at the 35km mark, I knew that it was going to be impossible for me to get my 3:28 goal, I was still running strong and hadn't lost my form, but I was effectively going to have to run the fastest 7km I ever had, and I knew that if I pushed it, I would cramp up. I still knew I could achieve a personal best time though, and I dug in and "toughed it out" as Jim would say. 7km doesn't sound like a lot to tough out, but only someone who's run a marathon can understand how it feels at the point. Low on energy and your mind's playing all sorts of games on you and you feel disappointment and failure and it's a very difficult mental and physical state. Right and Below: Me at the 30, 38km mark. Jimmy and Monica, stood at an out and back section of the course, so that they saw us twice.


The last 3km were quite a struggle, and I found myself starting to twinge and cramp up, as I reached King George terrace, opposite the front of the old Parliament building. I stretched out for 30 seconds extending my calves and quads against a post. I started running again, and felt much better for the stretch off, and increased my speed. The time was ticking away on my watch, and I knew that it was going to be very close to my last time in San Francisco. I put my head down and just concentrated on the last 1km, my legs were seizing up and I was just trying to keep going but somehow I'd managed to keep my form and wasn't stumbling. As I turned into the final straight and could see the finish line and beamed a big smile. I finished the race in a personal best time of 3:39:40. I met Monica and her family just to the left of the finish line and waited with them for Pete to come through. It didn't take too long, Pete achieved an incredible first marathon time of 4:03:50. He was jumping up and down waving a pocket sized union flag. All those months of training had paid off for both of us. I was slightly disappointed not to have attained my goal time, however it has been a really hard winter, and reading back through my training log, I'm proud of what I managed after all the challenges along the way.


It had been a fantastic race and only 860 people finished the race. Canberra marathon has an incredible course, brilliant support from drinks stop's and supporters, who looked up our names in the race list and yelled out to us. Out of all the races I've run, this and Stockholm marathon have the most personal and enjoyable courses, to hell with London marathon, struggling to jostle past 35,000 runners. I wanted to thank various people for making this an amazing race and experience for us. Number one on that list has to be the Rice family, for their incredible hospitality and had us to stay for 5 days. And amongst other things: Mabelle who got up at 4:30am to make us breakfast. Jim who made us laugh so much, and taught us real Australian terms, gave us his beer, and put us up in his home, and lent us his car... Jimmy for coming out to support, busting us into the Brumbies, and dropping us at the airport. Monica, for being a great friend. Huw Davies, my coach for his fantastic schedules and encouragement and support, which allowed me to run my best marathon yet. Phil Power and Jo O'Brien for training with me in the early weeks and helping me schedule my trip. Julia Wright, for training with me in the dark cold months of November and December, and coming over at 7am on a Sunday to pick me up for said training. Lindsay Thomson and Trent Malcolm for getting me a free visa to Australia, and telling me about Canberra. Pete, for being a great training partner and mate. Leo Frankel for helping us so much with the Hotel. The list goes on, but I want to thank all my friends and family who helped me, for their understanding and support during the months of training leading up to the race.

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Authors:	Page created by: James Bartosik. Race Photographs by Monica Rice, others by me and Pete.
Date of event:	Sunday, April 9th 2006.
Page History:	First created: 29/04/06. Last Revision: 28/12/07. Revision version: 2.0.
Camera and Lenses:	Canon 350D, EF-S 17-85mm IS, F4-5.6 USM.
Locations:	Canberra, ACT, Australia. Click for Google Earth links: Parliament house.
Wikipedia links:	Canberra / ACT.
Copyright:	© Copyright material, all rights reserved.