This is where we are and here are our aims.

Hobart Airport Marathon Sunday week. We fly down to Hobart Friday morning and home Monday afternoon. Should be a nice long weekend in Australia’s southernmost capital. I just wish the organisers would stop referring to the event as “challenging”.

I’m pacing four hours as a lead up to Canberra and McLarenvale marathons.

How does this fit in with years goals you ask? For those who read the last blog you’d know we were looking at Melbourne, Marine Corp and New York as the big events for the year. This was soured when I missed entry to the New York event after getting up at 4.00 am on the morning entries opened. Those with time qualification could get a spot on a first come first served basis and so I was in the queue within four minutes (should not have read the instructions, that took three minutes), waited for an hour and fifty minutes and then registered. Job done or so I thought. Received the email and I quote “we are excited to have you run with us in 2023.” Imagine my disappointment a couple of weeks later to receive an email saying “all spots are full we’re putting you in the general ballot”. The general ballot works out as a 5 or 6 to 1 chance to get in and so it proved. We missed out.

This led to a lot of reshuffling. Having thought we were in for New York, we entered the Marine Corp marathon in Washington and had worked out flights and itineraries. Fortunately there is scope to defer the Marine Corp marathon and switch the flights to another destination. We’ll use the New Zealand part of the trip in October-November to run in Auckland and Queenstown and spend the balance of time touring New Zealand.

Long range plan now moves to Boston 2024 and the Big Sur marathon but that is for future blogs.

New York. No

Washington. No

New Zealand. Yes!

Back to Hobart. This gets a bit labyrinthine so pay attention. I have run Canberra marathon eight years now, not in succession and so am getting close to being a Griffin. It is one event that we as a group tend to travel for. We’ve put in a pretty good block of training including a couple of 100 km weeks and Sri Chinmoy half marathon. Long runs have increased in distance and duration but as with all programs there is always the wish to get a warm up run under the belt.

Early this year I went into Melbourne to support a friend, Adam who was competing in the half iron man triathlon. He told me he was pacing the marathon in Brisbane and that I should come and do that with him. I contacted the organisers and got the job and they mentioned that they also had spaces for pacers in Cairns and Hobart. (Still with me?). I volunteered for Cairns as there were some cheap airfares going. I mean who couldn’t find time to be in Cairns in the middle of a Melbourne winter but at the time I couldn’t find any fares that made it worthwhile going to Hobart.
During training it became clear that I was going to need a long run a couple of weeks before Canberra and the thought of Hobart kept percolating. In the end I booked a couple of flights and volunteered for a four hour run. In theory it should be reasonably easy although the hills may be a test.
Two weeks later is Canberra and as a backup we’ll run McLarenvale two weeks after that. Bit of travelling to be done but no time zones to cross. I’m hoping that I can run a qualifying time for Boston 2024. I already have a couple in the bag from runs at the end of 2022 but would like to start the new year on a positive note. We do change out of daylight savings the weekend of Hobart but it will still be an early morning. Hopefully we can have a quiet run for a couple of kms and zone out.

I’m Good, and you?

As many of you will know Anne and I have retired from paid employment but a former colleague texted me today and reminded me of one of our fellow workers who suffered with depression and twelve months ago took his own life. I don’t often run for a cause but Hobart I will dedicate to him. We all miss him and wonder what we could have done to help but unfortunately we also didn’t want to continually harass him about how he was all the time. Please, please if anyone ever needs a chat do not hesitate to call. RUOK?

So here we are. A week to go. Nerves starting to kick in and logistics hopefully settled. There’s a couple of early mornings in the offing and some stitches to come out on Thursday before flying on Friday. (Infiltrating keratosis removed, if you were wondering, on the right ear. Darn nuisance). I’m feeling ok. We had a pleasant 16 km run out the back of Ferny creek this morning including a couple of hills. It was just a great morning to be out. No soreness, so all good. Tapering means only a couple of runs this week and nothing so hard that it might cause injury. We’re nearly off and running. I’ll let you know how it goes.