Monday, October 09, 2006

October 6/8 - Long Run and Marathon Watching

On Friday 6th October I decided to do a long run home from work.

So I headed from Ivanhoe north along Lower Heidelberg Road and then down through the Boulevard to the Yarra. Then it was north again to the Burke Road bridge, across the Yarra and then followed the river and the freeway back to Chandler Highway, along the bush trail and over the Yarra again to Fairfield Park.

From here it was alongside Merri Creek and the Capitol City Trail to Dights Falls, and then through Abbotsford and Collingwood to home. I was a bit sore in the lower legs, and didn't real get to feel comfortable, but nothing to gte concerned about either.

All up it was 14km in 82 minutes at a pace of 5.51.

Fast forward to Sunday 8th October and I jogged down to the Melbourne Marathon course with my better half. It is truly inspirational watching people push themselves so hard physically, so the clapping and cheering I could give to support any runner that passed by seemed the least I could do.

I missed Em who scorched through her half in 104mins, and caught a quick glimpse of Clarkey, but decided it couldn't be him as this bloke was going to finish in around 3 hours, which was impossible on Clarkey's prep! How wrong I was.

Then saw Tony come through and gave a few cheers, at which time I caught sight of Marty and 'the ducklings' and chatted until Michelle came through. Was rapt to see how excited and proud of mum Michelle's family were, and she thoroughly deserved it all.

Congratulations to all that completed the course, and specifically to Em, Clarkey, Tony and Michelle. Although you had differing degrees of success, you all ran PB's and achieved something that not everybody can.