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RE: April Powers
2016 Canberra half marathon race report.
A little over 2,000 people started this race in perfect conditions: cool, sunny and with the friendliest atmosphere I’ve yet encountered in a race of any sort. The starter actually had to encourage people up to the starting line as everyone politely left space for anyone who wanted it. Everyone it seemed was more interested in chatting with the other starters, family and friends, rather than the usual jostling and shoving for front positions with urgent messages from the MC for everyone to move back as the front, elite runners were being pushed over the starting line. No, none of that. Instead this time the call was for everyone to please come forward ready for the start which was only seconds away, yet there was bags of room up front for everyone who wanted it.
When I last ran this race three years ago, the ultramarathon, marathon, and half marathon races all started at the same time, making it a log jam of over 4,000 people in a smallish park a little west of the current starting point. This year each race started at a different time, making it a far more civilised and manageable beginning to the race. The starting line was directly in front of old parliament house, a logical and memorably scenic place to start a major Canberra running event. Glorious, in fact.
This time I was running the event with a friend and occasional running partner Next Door Andy, whom some may remember from previous posts. He’s a far faster runner than me, but has been out of action for some time with a back injury, so this was to be a double celebration as we both return to the running and racing habit.
The only disappointment was that the annual hot air ballooning festival, which last time I was here coincided with the running festival, was already over a week earlier, and so we wouldn’t have the magical sight of dozens of hot air balloons floating gently over Lake Burley Griffin as we ran our race. Never mind, the friendly atmosphere more than made up for the loss of balloons, and we were under away on time, two thousand happy runners amiably chatting as we jogged our way up the first and only significant hill around the old and new parliament houses, a three kilometre loop up, around and down Capital Hill.
I had no really clear idea going into this race of what I wanted to achieve, other than obviously to finish it of course. Having not raced a half marathon in nearly two years I wasn’t optimistic about running under two hours, and a PB was definitely out of the question. Realistically I thought 2h05m would about as suitable a goal as I could set. That still meant maintaining a pace of 5:55 for each kilometre. Accordingly I set off aiming to run each kilometre split somewhere between two-hour pace of 5:40 and 5:55.
The first kilometre had me behind the eight ball straight away at 6:14. However, this was obviously the most congested part of the race and the uphill section, so I wasn’t unduly concerned. The second split was 5:53; better but I still needed to up the pace a bit. Kilometres three and four came in at 5:33 each however so I was back on target and feeling comfortable. I settled in and began to really enjoy the run. The crowd support along this first half of the course was excellent, the weather remained perfect and I felt good and very comfortable trundling along at my target pace.
At ten kilometres Mrs MLCMM was on the sidelines cheering and later confirmed that indeed, at that point I was looking good and had barely broken into a sweat. Here though we cross Lake Burley Griffin on the King Avenue bridge and have to settle in for some long, hard kilometres along the waterfront on the far side of the lake.
I passed the half way mark in 1:00:42, so knew already that sub two hours was looking unlikely, but my target range was still well and truly achievable. Kilometres eleven through fifteen passed well enough, but I was having to work harder to maintain the pace, and then by 16km my body just wouldn’t respond anymore. The mind was willing but my pace dropped back to training speed and I just had to hang on and try to finish as strongly as possible.
Returning back across the lake via the Commonwealth Avenue bridge was a somewhat heartless affair. You know it’s nearly over but still have to cover that last two kilometres, and maintaining a decent pace by then was very, very hard.
According to my GPS, 21.1km came and went and there were still two corners to turn before the finish line! The race distance is of course properly accredited and I have to assume my GPS didn’t handle two longish tunnels all that well, but that doesn’t help when you’ve mentally and physically run your race already! Spotting Next Door Andy (who had already finished his race in 1h34m!) and his wife Vanessa cheering me 50 metres from the finish line spurred me on however, and I crossed in 2h04m09s, comfortably inside my target time, but a salient lesson learned (again) about pacing.
Given that this race was really a range-finding mission for me after such a long time between races at this distance, I am quite happy with that effort. If my target for later this year is to break 4h30m for the full distance marathon, then this is comfortably on target, but I won’t make that call until after running the Sydney half marathon in five weeks. There were certainly periods during the last part of this race when I thought “bugger the full marathon, this is quite hard enough”. However, as we well know, the hardship that creates those thoughts rapidly fades once you have that medal round your neck.
Afterwards, drinking coffee at the National Art Gallery outdoor café in the glorious sunshine with Mrs MLCMM, Next Door Andy, his wife Vanessa and their three girls, it was easy to talk ourselves into running another marathon in the second half of this year, but maybe that was the endorphin buzz talking. As I say, let me get through the next race first and I’ll re-assess things then.
From where we sat however, we could see the last of the marathon and ultramarathon runners rounding the penultimate corner to end their races, and I had to weigh up where I’d rather be: sitting in the beautiful sunshine in the nation’s capital, drinking coffee with a half marathon finisher’s medal around my neck, or rounding the last corner to finish another full distance marathon?
And I have to say that… well, I’ll come to that later.
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April Powers
