Canberra, Boston and Big Sur

Three marathons, four weeks. Of course we can do it, and half way around the world into the equation. Hmmm… Let’s see.

Canberra Marathon

Typical for Canberra, very early (6.15 am) start on a cool, overcast day. Not as cold as last year but still very fresh. Pretty good running conditions. I was feeling reasonably positive at 5.00 am when I set out for the drive to the start, All of the pre-start preparation went well, gear on, get parked in plenty of time, toilet stops done, vaseline the rubby bits and then we lined up and were off in seemingly no time. Up around Parliament house and back down to the lake. The first five kilometres were over nice and easily. About 22.5 minutes so steady, maybe a touch quick. Aim here was to run better than 3:26 the qualifying time for the World Age Group Championship in 2025. With good conditions I thought it would be doable without hurting myself too much for the two marathons to follow. If I could get it done here then the pressure comes off for Boston and Big Sur.

Through 10 km and still a touch quick but rolling along nicely. Canberra is quite a hilly course. Up to Parliament, down to the lake, up around Telopea park, down to the lake, back up around the front of Parliament, back down to the lake. You get the picture.

At half way there isn’t a marker but by following the Garmin for 100m past the 21 km marker I was through there in 97 and a bit minutes. Still on for a pretty good time. Over the Commonwealth Ave bridge and onto the boring part of the course, the freeway. The organisers have altered timings this year so that we don’t run into the half marathoners at this point and it makes for much freer running. It’s still boring. It is also a long downhill to the turnaround and a long grind back up the hill. Just after the turn is the 30 km mark so a good time for a long uphill grind. By the time we get to the Kings Ave bridge at 36 km after 6 km on the freeway the legs are voting for change of pace and scenery. We slow a little bit but the last part is another loop around Telopea park so the scenery stays the same. Starting to feel the pain but into the last couple of kilometres and still looking at well under 3:20 so incentive to keep pushing. Over the line in 3:17 so job done. (As a postscript Abbott have sent the invitation for the Championship. We don’t know where or when but that’s a problem for another time).

Job done. Back to Geoff and Lynda’s for recovery and then Monday the lazy 8 hour trip home. Wash everything, pack and on Wednesday fly out to Auckland and then Houston.

Houston, a stopover and meeting new friends

We had one night in Houston so I contacted Avi Moss who I’d met in London a couple of years ago to ask if there were any good running tracks around the airport as we would be staying out there overnight. He responded by saying we could stay with him and Lisa Thompson his partner and an elite para athlete in her own right and run with their group. The run didn’t work out due to very slow border security at Houston airport but I did get a little loosener upperer in and Avi and Lisa took us to meet their running group over a couple of beers at their local bar at the University. It was extremely generous of them and a great reflection on the running community of Houston. Maybe we’ll get back there for the marathon another year.

Boston Marathon

So, on to Boston. I was having more trouble than usual with jet lag on this trip and the dryness of the air conditioning seemed to be affecting my ears so I was a little out of sorts leading into the marathon.

We met up with some friends that we had met by chance in Wanaka in New Zealand prior to the Queenstown marathon. While out on a walk there we had bumped into BJ and Ripp Rippberger. We were chatting about the walk and Queenstown marathon, and they mentioned that they lived in Boston and that we should catch up with them. We did that and they very generously chauffeured us up the coast from Boston through a couple of the smaller towns to the north that we had only ever heard of from stories and television like Salem and Marblehead. It was interesting to see the impressive houses and boats in that part of the world. We even tried the local favourite , the lobster roll.

The Boston Marathon has its own little quirks. One is that it starts at 10.30 am for my wave so in addition to everything else the timing makes nutrition difficult. How much can I eat before getting on a bus for an hour trip out to the start and how much before the event itself. I think in the end I needed more than I took in but that isn’t how it felt at the time. Aim here was to try to repeat the run of the week before. Boston is an easier course than Canberra and the weather was warmer. I was feeling OK on the start line but had another terrible night’s sleep beforehand. All the conditions were about to jump on me.

I started well, except that after 200 metres I needed a wee. Been to the toilet several times, no excuse for the bladder. Had to wee. Very hard to concentrate. Shouldn’t need it. Need a wee. Jumped into a portaloo a couple of kilometres in, lost 40 seconds but felt so much better. Through 5 kilometres I wsn’t far off what I’d run for the same distance in Canberra. With the toilet break it meant that I was probably 30 seconds quicker over the 5 km. This should have given me a warning to back off. I rationalized it by being downhill whereas Canberra had a pretty serious climb in the first five km. Should have listened.

Through 10 km and feeling good, a couple of small towns Framingham, Ashland, all with great crowds and high excitement. Through the scream tunnel that is the Wellsley girls college at Wellesley at 21 km. I consciously looked around going through the towns knowing it was unlikely that I would ever be here again. The support is amazing with people three and four deep through all of these small towns. Went through the half in 95 minutes and had a fleeting idea of 3:15. The day was warming up.

I was trying to get a mouthful of water at each water station, located a mile apart and thought I was doing a reasonable job of hydration but the combination of lack of sleep, jetlag and the marathon a week earlier came back to bite me. Almost as soon as we hit the first rise in Newton the legs called it a day. Unfortunately, we still had another 15 km to go. From here it was simply survival mode.

I was wearing a black armband in honour of my mentor, coach and friend Geoff Warren who passed away a week. earlier. Quitting was not an option. I tried to remember some of the advice and some of the stories that Geoff had related over the years both to pass the time and also to sideline the pain that was building with the passing kilometres.

Shuffle along and get up the hills as best as possible and try to roll down the downhills. I lost something like 10 minutes in the last 10 kilometres. The day had warmed up to one of the warmer marathon days that Boston has seen and there were runners cramping all over the course. It hurt but at this stage there was nothing to be done. I wasn’t cramping although there were some moments when I’m sure parts of me were thinking that might be a good idea.

Into town and to the final stage of right onto Hereford and left onto Boylston. I was trying to use the energy of the crowd to get over the line. Down the final straight and over the line, Made it !

Finished in 3:28 and 21st in my Age group. Certainly nothing to be sneezed at but I think this was an opportunity for something better that just got away.

Interestingly with time this run has looked better than I had originally thought. A week later and I came across some stats for the event including 980 did not finish. 120 hospitalizations with heat stroke, 1200 treated on the course. The hottest event since 2017. It hurt but I finished. Sometimes I need to give myself more credit.

Montreal/Quebec

We had made a conscious decision not to hang around Boston. We had been here before in 2015 and had walked the Freedom trail and taken in some of the sights that this city has to offer. It is pretty darned expensive over Marathon weekend and we thought we might be better served getting out and seeing something new. There is a great deal of history in Boston and it certainly worth the time to visit but it was time to move on. We flew out on the Tuesday after the Monday marathon still a bit sore and sorry and headed for Montreal in Canada.

Montreal is in the province of Quebec and is part of French speaking Canada. We had a look at several histories and still couldn’t see how that has happened. The French settled in Canada and were trading with the native American tribes and then the English moved in and took it over. The French speaking traders seemed to have remained as part of the colony. The new Canadians then repelled several attacks from the United States who were intent on expansion. As near as I can tell from there it was a matter of the French speaking peoples having a larger affect on the population and it has now passed to the point where it is the official language of Quebec. We, of course, speak little French beyond Bon Jour. It’s not big in Melbourne. What we did find what that most Quebecois are bilingual and very forgiving of our ignorance.

Montreal has some lovely architecture and is justifiably proud of its Old Town. The area back from the port has been retained with cobbled streets and marvelous old buildings that give the city much of its character. While in Montreal we ventured out to the Olympic precinct where the Olympics were held in 1976. The main stadium is still there and the velodrome has been converted to a biodome containing five distinct ecosystems from tropical through to arctic. We saw Puffins ! Also penguins and a lynx and racoons and several other animals and birds we’d never seen before. We couldn’t pick out the sloth in the tree although we were assured it was there.

We headed further North to Quebec City for the weekend. This isn’t the furthest North we have been that is still Helsinki in Finland which is several degrees of latitude further North but Quebec was in early Spring with changeable weather and a biting cold wind. It is an interesting city, a fair bit smaller than Montreal and more fortified. The river here is narrower and Quebec City sits on a pronounced hill that gives it an overview of all the traffic coming up and down the river. There are still many of the old cannons and emplacements left to demonstrate that they didn’t take defense of the city lightly. There are also fortifications to explore and the Fairmont Hotel which is advertised as the most photographed Hotel in the world. We took a picture. We tried poutine a local specialty. Basically melted cheese curd over potato french fies and smothered in a rich gravy. Comfort food. Pretty good.

We woke up one morning to a sunny morning and thought we should get out and do some touristing. Then we looked at the weather report of -4 degrees outside and decided we might wait at least until it made it to zero. No we weren’t in Melbourne where it rarely gets below 4 or 5 degrees even in Mid Winter and this is supposed to be Mid to Late Spring ! We spent one day looking at Montmorency falls which are very impressive and one day out at the other end of the bus route looking at the original site of settlement. It was there we noticed gentle flakes of something white floating around us. We were being snowed upon. It was dry so we weren’t getting wet but it was very, very cold.

Back to Montreal and the weather stayed biting cold. We spent one morning watching it snow outside the hotel. Amazingly enough the sky then cleared and the snow that had fallen evaporated so although it was still cold it was pleasant enough to go and look at one of the parks that juts out into the St Lawrence river. On the way back Anne spotted a large furry critter. A groundhog. About the size of a large cat but more in character with our wombat, it was the first of a number of these that we saw poking up out of the ground in various open areas. Our last day in Montreal was spent out at the old EXPO site that is now used as an exhibition space and parkland. The US pavillion there has been donated to the city and is called the biosphere and was designed by Buckminster Fuller as a geodesic dome. It dominates that part of the park and can be seen from across the river in the city proper.

Big Sur

Having spent 11 days recovering from Boston and Canberra with a lot of walking and several runs it was time to complete the challenge and head to Big Sur. We never actually made it to Big Sur itself. There had been a landslip on Highway 1 just North of the Bixby bridge at Rocky Creek. This is just over halfway on the normal Big Sur course. This year it would be modified to a 19.5 km out and 19.5 back with a 3.2 km (2 mile) extra loop at Point Lobos to make up the marathon distance. The pianist who plays a grand piano on the approach to the Bixby bridge under normal circumstances was relocated to about the 12 km mark so we were able to appreciate his efforts on both legs. He was playing Let it Be when I was heading down and the Theme from Chariots of fire on the way back with a crowd of people watching on and taking pictures

The start and finish was to be in Carmel. The start at 6.15 am just on dawn. Carmel doesn’t have accommodation for that many runners so buses ferry runners from Monterey down to the start at 4.30 am. Ouch! We set off and I set myself the task of not running in front of the 3:20 pacer. I knew from Boston the dangers of going out too hard and so had picked a time I felt I could handle if I could maintain discipline. The run is all on Highway 1 down along the coast and is advertised as the Run on the Ragged Edge of the World. The first couple of kilometres is on coastal road but not particularly scenic until it opens up and you can see spectacular scenery all of the way down the coast. I ran very easily behind the 3:20 pacer and then with the group and then just a little in front of them down to the turn. We could see the Bixby bridge but weren’t to run over it. On the way back I ran over the half marathon mat at 98.45 so beautifully on target. If we can hold it together for the second half.

On the way back we ran into a pronounced headwind. It was one climb that seemed to have the wind funneled right up through it. There was certainly a moment of trepidation and I’m sure it was not just me that it affected. The idea of slogging back into a solid headwind for 15-20 kms was not at all attractive so I think we were all a little relieved to find that it only seemed to be prevalent at that particular place. For the rest of the event the wind was much lighter and from slightly off to an angle. Up through 30 km and still everything going well. The camber on the road was annoying being very pronounced and hard on the lower legs but I was feeling really good. I wondered if this was the calm before the storm but was pretty positive as I wasn’t getting any pain signals from the legs or hips. In fact, I seemed to be runnng easier at this point than I had been earlier. We made it to the loop around Point Lobos. I was looking forward to some wild view from somewhere down near the point but it wasn’t to be. The road took us down to the loop at the bottom of the park but no closer. I think there might have been a walk down to a view but it wouldn’t have been suitable for runners in a competitive event. C’est la Vie.

Back onto the main road and only one hill to get up. It was always going to be a doozey. Just after the start was a long downhill so we knew at the finish there would be a long uphill. And so it was. Still, I was feeling so much better than Boston and even than Canberra so I was very happy to get over the top and see the finish. Ran through in 3:20.30. First in my age group which won me a nice timber plaque and a voucher for a pair of HOKA shoes. Same catch as occurred in NZ. They only ship to the USA. I’m not sure why events declare themselves international if their prizes are only claimable in the country they are won. Fortunately, I now know some people who will forward a pair of shoes for me. Just annoying.

So what did we learn

Three marathons in four weeks. All under 3:30. Won my age group in two out of the three. The slowest was the middle one so not seeing accumulation of damage or fatigue. I think the most interesting revelation for me is to take advantage of circumstance when it is available. The quickest marathon was the first and this gave me the chance to qualify for the World Age Group Championship 2025 which we did. A more conservative approach might have been to take Canberra, being the first marathon of the block. a bit easier and use it as a training run for one of the other two. This then would have put pressure on in the second event at Boston in conditions that were not conducive, for me, to a good time. It should be noted that many athletes had good runs in Boston so the heat is not an excuse for poor pacing and fueling.

Where to from here ? Pacing 3:45 in Brisbane in June should be fun and then a bit of a break and then coming back in for a program to run the Age Group Championships in Sydney in September. I’d like to run quicker there than in Canberra and I think that will be achievable all things going well. That would then parley into time qualifying for New York in 2025. I was 22 minutes under their qualifying with a 3:23 in Queenstown last year. Canberra’s 3:17 would be 28 minutes under. This years cut off was 25 minutes. Another couple of minutes should make it sure. Last one for this year will be my 11th Melbourne marathon and then we’ll re-assess where we are at and what we would like to do. Only Tokyo and New York to be done to complete the Abbott majors for the second time. One more Canberra to become a griffin. Places to see things to do.

Everyone, once in their life, should see a puffin.