Taralgon Marathon : 3.46.40

It's just gone 6.00am and I am just about to start to get ready for the marathon.The luxury of an 8.00am start. I have not run a step since crossing the finish line last week. What else could I do ? For a few days the hammy was an issue but not as bad as I thought it would be.Just walking around it feels fine but running...... I will have to wait and see.

I will be happy with a finish in about 4.30 with no damage done! I can then give it time to recover before the Gold Coast and the bunch of marathons in July. I need to be over this injury by then.

Well now to start getting ready. I think I will need a lot of luck to get my wish.

Race Report

Well you just sometimes cannot pick what the body will do when asked to do something. My first ask was to get me from the start to the finish without doing any damage and preferably running all the way.

So I started off slowly and by 3k I could feel the hammy but it did not seem an issue. I thought it was well on the way to recovery and the feeling was not from still being injured but because the scarring around the injury was still present and needs to be massaged away. I ran through the first 5k in about 27.30 which was to be the slowest 5k of the day.

I seemed to be able to manage about 5.25 pace easily both a regards the hammy and my breathing. The HR was very low and so I was running very much within myself in that regard. It stayed that way and I turned halfway in 1.54.45. By this time a young girl was running next to me and we we running off each other and sometimes that just seem to aid in keeping a a good rhythm going. And so it turned out.

It a flat course but with a very slight rise to the turn around and then a very gradual downhill although at the time it all seems even. We kept a strong pace up and all our 5k splits from the turnaround were 26.xx. A negative split in the second half of 1.51.55. Got to be pleased with that because in almost 3 weeks all I have run is 2 marathons and not a step beyond that above a walk.

I was planning to go the Macleay River Marathon next week - one of my favourite events but work is sending me to Singapore for 9 days. Someone has to do it. So that should result in almost no running and the injury should have plenty of time to recover and then a couple of weeks to get ready for the Gold Coast on 3 July.