2018 Sydney Half Marathon Race Report
It's dark. One of the problems with racing in Australia is that for a couple of reasons most running events start so damn early. I'm standing at the bus stop on the Pacific Highway and I'm shivering, despite wearing a track suit, a fleece and a beanie. I'm alone for the moment, but soon enough a handful of other runners turn up, one of them fiddling with a gel belt containing no less than six Hammer brand gels. Rather a lot of gels for a half marathon you've got there, I say by way of making small talk. The young guy fiddling with the gels looks vaguely embarrassed and says he was just making sure. At that moment the bus arrives, perhaps for the better killing the conversation rather short.
On the bus, which already contains a couple of dozen other runners, I can't help but notice that by comparison I am very much over-dressed, about half of them wearing only shorts and a single layer running top. I feel suddenly quite old and a little foolish. But never mind. I've never enjoyed the cold, and years ago swore I'd do everything I could to avoid being cold ever again, and so I'm rugged up.
As we cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the first dim dawn is revealing itself and it cheers me a little. The bus deposits us at Wynyard and we walk the ten or so minutes to the race start at Hyde Park. A few hundred meters short of the park we pass the only open café that I've seen, called Legal Grounds, (it being located near the law courts), and I nearly stop for an espresso, but the queue is already long, and half a dozen more people just ahead of me decide they also need coffee, so I decide to forego the caffeine hit and continue walking.
I arrive at Hyde Park bereft of caffeine but in plenty of time, and already the park is alive with thousands of lithe, athletic people swarming everywhere; disturbing the small colony of fruit bats in the Chinese banyan trees there who flap about squawking their disgust. Not squawking, but instead cheerful and patient are the enormous queues for toilets, and whilst there's still ample time, I'm rather glad for not needing them.
Similarly long are the queues at the bag drop area, and so I avoid shedding my warm layers as long as possible, but eventually I judge the time has come and remove tracksuit bottoms, woolly socks, my fleece and beanie and stow them in the transparent, biodegradable bag we have to use these days, and which were handed out at number pickup in the previous two days. And so I join the now even longer queue at bag drop and slowly we trudge our way forward. At least it is now daylight and whilst still not warm, the day is sunny and cheering.
My bag successfully dropped I find my way to the rear of the green group starting pen. Again this year the MC is Pat Carroll, holder of the Australian half marathon record which he set in this very race back in 1994 with a time of 61:11. His other claim to fame is in being one of the most irritating MCs ever, and his non-stop banter, which mostly consists of haranguing runners to whoop things up and other such inanities, very quickly begins to grate. The announcement that the police have yet to fully clear the roads ahead and that there will therefore be a delayed start does little to improve my worsening mood.
However it is a delightful morning, and so I take in the surroundings and try to soak up the atmosphere which is generally buoyant. One of the first things that I notice is the complete absence of helicopters this year, instead there is a new generation of presumably cheaper drones which buzz quietly about, I suppose taking advantage of the lack of any breeze this morning. And whilst it's still chilly, the absence of a wind-chill factor is most welcome.
I eventually cross the line close to thirty minutes after the official start time and begin a slow jog. It's not too easy in any case to build up a head of steam as the crowd is quite dense, despite the race organisers' efforts to spread the crowd of runners over a longer period of starting times.
The previous week had been a hectic one for me, being both mentally and physically draining, and I'd had precious little time to think much about race tactics. My training had gone quite well, but with insufficient speed work to be in any way confident of my usual half marathon target of 2 hours. So instead I settle in as best I can to a comfortable pace intent on just seeing how I go and what eventuates. The inadequacy of this race plan becomes apparent at the 2km mark when I was more than a little taken aback to be overtaken by the 2h20m pacer. I knew I was travelling perhaps a little too 'within myself' but I didn't expect to be that far back. I therefore resolved to up the pace a little and slowly ramped things up somewhat. The crowds were still thick so this wasn't altogether easy, but by the fifth kilometre I was begin to really stride out and at the 6km mark caught and overtook the troublesome 2h20m pacer. From here on my pace was much better, and while I knew by now that my opening kilometres had been really too slow to hope for my usual target time of 2 hours, I was running reasonably fast and felt strong, which is all I suppose that I was really hoping for.
I crossed the half way point in 1h01m30s and felt strong enough to think that I could at least finish in negative splits and probably just a minute or two beyond the two hour mark, and so I pressed on at the same pace as much as possible. I was then very pleased to catch the 2h10m pacer at 14kms, which really helped me realise that I was now running well. In fact, it transpired that I ran the middle 10 kilometres of the race at close to PB pace. The 16th kilometre is, however, the killer section, with a long, steepish, narrow section when you least want it. Another hill climb at the 18th kilometre also make the second half of this race much more difficult than the first half. Despite this, I finished strongly; indeed probably the strongest I've ever finished this race. I have run this event six times now, with a PB of 1h54m45s, and even then I struggled over the last few kilometres. This year, my official time is 2h02m30s, well off my PB and only my fourth fastest time in this event. But! It was a negative split, which is difficult to do on this course; I felt strong throughout, and the crowds were such that I was ducking and weaving for the whole duration. It makes me think that a sub-2hr half is definitely not out of the question. A little more speed work in training, and some better race tactics and I think it would definitely even have been a possibility today.
I went into this race questioning my reasons for doing so, but it went well and left me buzzing, and as a range-finding event for other races later in the year, it was incredibly useful indeed. As an added bonus, the finisher's medal this year is much nicer than previous efforts. A nice solid, round, classic design is a big improvement on previous years.
In short, a great day, and a result I am very happy with.
So, what's next?
Mighty May
