Melbourne Marathon

So today was the great day - the day of the great Melbourne Marathon...and what a great day it was - a nice cool 17 degrees out on the course, but filled with beautiful bright sunshine and no wind - a PERFECT day to run.

Unfortunately I was one of the non-starters for this event, as we all know, but I still wanted to go down and cheer on my mates Alison & Lynelle in the half and also my husband, Simon, in his first ever marathon. After a bit of a disaster trying to reach the G (we heard later there was a 4 car pile up just outside the only gate into the parking lot!), I ditched Simon near the ground, then circled around the side streets near Fitzroy gardens looking for a parking space. Luckily all parking in this area was free today - yay!! I arranged to meet Simon near gate 4, so off I walked to the ground. On the way I bumped into a girl from running camp, which was great - after a bit of a chat and a goodluck to her I set off to find Simon. I was torn between trying to find the girls or hubby.....I looked everywhere.....I bumped into more people from camp (seems everyone was out running today!!). I finally spotted my hubby standing with his training buddies, then I spotted Al and Lynelle standing about a metre from them! LOL Problem solved!

After waving them off, I headed into the ground to find a good vantage point - the members section was pretty empty, so I got a good spot at the front. I opened up my book and waited for the action to start. Luckily I didn't have to wait too long - the first half marathoners entered the stadium around the 1hr mark. From that point on, I watched everyone finish. I saw Al finish and was sooo happy for her - her first ever half and she had completed it (and she still looked good after it!!). She also beat in the first of the marathoners, which is a great achievement.

I then met up with a couple of our friends and also Simon's parents who had come down to watch him finish - we waited for him just outside the MCC gate on the outside of the ground. I was getting a bit worried after they called the 5hr cut-off time as we had both expected him to complete in about 4.5hrs. Then we spotted him and our little cheer squad went nuts - he was walking and looked in a lot of pain, but he was still going! It was so exciting and even a little bit emotional to see him - we all gave him high fives, then dashed into the ground again to see him officially finish. Inside we found his training buddies and together we all waited for him to cross that line. I still can't believe he did it - I'm soooooooo proud of him! He said his dodgy knee went at about the 7km mark, but he kept pushing through until 25kms - after that he walked much of the way back never thinking that he should throw it in. Such an amazing achievement - I knew he had this dodgy knee and I tried to talk him out of running, but he was determined! He is sore tonight, but I'm hopeful that he'll recover pretty quickly.

It was such an exciting day - even though I wasn't running, I was just glad to be a part of the day. Our friends aren't runners, but they really enjoyed cheering people on at the end. Watching all of the various types of runners out there doing the marathon really makes me want to try for one myself someday. At this stage I have to concentrate on just running 1km again, let alone 42.2, but anyway!

The one downer to the day is my left shin - it is aching tonight after all that walking around and standing up pretty much all morning. It's a bit of a worry that it's still so tender, but I guess it's part of the healing process - I probably did too much today which has agravated it again. It's hard, on one hand I am dying to compete in races again, but on the other this injury has taught me that I need to be very careful with my training. We have booked a 21day trek in Nepal next Feb and I really need to be fit again for that. I think races will take a back seat until next year and I will just run short distances until we land in the UK. Looking at the other competitors today I realised that I am still young - I have plenty of time to run my first marathon!

I read that the Boston marathon is on tonight - now wouldn't that be cool to say I had completed that one!!