Gold Coast Marathon 3rd July

I did my second marathon on Sunday 3rd July. So now I can officially say 'I run Marathons' - plural ;)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/96902632

This one was again compromised massively, this time I was a little bit ill. That began Friday evening, and progressed. I was pretty much going to the toilet every 4 hours. Not that bad. But it reached a peak at about 3AM Sunday morning. Stomach pains, headache and nausea. I felt pretty flat in fact.

During the run, my plan was to stick with Christine and run support with her on her first marathon. She did incredibly well!! I hung in there until about the 35km mark, when a combination of fatigue and a dire need to attend the bathroom made me stop running. I was incredibly disappointed, but it was absolutely necessary. Walked for a bit, and found a public toilet on the way. Ran to that, attended to the problem and took off again. I think I lost 2kgs at that toilet stop, it was horrendous. It was maybe 2 or 3 kms left to run, so I did that fairly quickly, and finished in 4hr 45. Nearly a full hour longer than my time from last year.

Christine finished in 4hr42 or so. SO I did not lose that much time at all. I would have liked to have run across the finish line with her, but I am just happy she got the run completed, in fine style.

I am in good shape after the run. I consider the race a big training run, and shall now swing in to hard training for Melbourne. I just want one good Marathon race, where I am not compromised by stupid things :) No huge blisters and no stomach bug this time !!!!

My heels were a bit of trouble later in the race, but were perfectly ok at the start. I am beginning to think the problem may be caused by pressure on the heel itself and not Achilles tendon at all. And after the run I have the normal muscular soreness, and the heels are no problem at all. Weird!!