Race Report - Gold Coast Half-Marathon

21.1km - 2:03:05

I had two cohorts for this race, Lawrie and Philby, and we all headed down the coast lunchtime on Saturday to make the most of a relaxing pre-race day, have a good dinner, and hit our hotel beds early for a 4:30am wake-up.

There is much to be said about carbo-loading before a race, and I think I went slightly overboard. We went to Sak's at Marina Mirage, a restaurant that I was overjoyed to find as having a gluten-free menu complete with bread and more options than you could poke a stick at. A far cry from most other places that offer gluten-free as something of an afterthought, and don't exactly put much effort into it. The dinner was amazing, I stuffed myself with enough bread and pasta to fuel myself through at least three half-marathons. Then it was back to the hotel for what should have been an early night.

The night before the race was spent, like my fellow room-occupant Philby, tossing and turning and trying to curse my brain into shut-down mode. It wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention, so both of us ended up ready to run a half-marathon on about 2 hours sleep. Oh joy. A coffee in the room, followed by a caramel double-shot long black at the race precinct was enough to drive the last shreds of tiredness from me though, and excitement really started to set in. A bit of a debacle at the toilet queue (people, if you're not running in the race, don't hold up the queue in front of half-marathoners that have only five minutes until their start time!) had us dashing to the start line with only a few minutes to spare.

I had planned to run with the 2hour pace group, so was frantically scanning the crowd for the black balloons that would signify their position. Not a chance. By that time, everyone was so packed in to the start area that we were lucky to squeeze in at all. Turns out we were actually far ahead of the 2hour pacers in the pack, and it was probably the best thing that could have happened.

The gun went off, the crowd began to move, and we started the usual start-line shuffle until there was enough space to break into a run. I saw the 1:40 pacer balloons ahead of me, and realised at that point the 2:00 pacer must be behind. I didn't exactly fancy standing and waiting for them to catch me, so I figured I would just run my own pace and if they caught up to me, just continue running with them.

By the 3km marker they hadn't caught me, and my GPS told me I was averaging 5:30/km. The wrist-band I had gotten for the 2hour pace group said I needed to average 5:41/km to hit the 2:00 goal, so I was definitely ahead of them. The wrist-band also had the 5km, 10km and 15km split times I should be aiming for, and when I hit the 5km marker I saw I was still about a minute ahead of schedule. And I felt good!

In fact, I was cruising. Don't get me wrong, it was hard. But I felt like I could keep it up, and that was the important point. The 6km, 7km and 8km markers breezed by, I was concentrating on just keeping a good pace and not getting caught up with the runners that were passing me. From the 9km marker I was excited to realise I was going to do my fastest 10km time ever, and I was still ahead of the 2:00 pacer.

Not long before the turnaround point I heard Philby call my name and gave her a wave. She had taken off like a shot at the beginning and was now on the return part of the race, and running fantastically well. From the turnaround point myself I was still feeling great, especially knowing that I was more than halfway through. From the turnaround I was watching for Lawrie, and gave him a yell and a wave when I saw him looking like he was struggling along somewhat. I started to tire a little from about 13km, and I was getting really quite worried that I had gone out too hard and wasn't going to be able to keep my pace up for the last section. I was still maintaining 5:30-5:40/km, but it was getting harder. I needn't have worried, it wasn't going to be tiredness that was going to stop me in my tracks.

Just before the 16km marker, my right knee stopped working. No pain at first, it just refused to bend. Perturbed, I stopped, gave it a bit of a stretch, and tried to take off again. I got three steps before the pain forced me to stop again. The outside of my right knee was in complete agony any time I tried to run. It faded as I walked a few steps, so I took off again, and this time just gritted my teeth and ran through the pain. It dulled a little within a hundred metres, and I figured out that stopping and starting was a lot more painful than just continuing, so that's what I did. My pace slowed to 6:00/km and I was hobbling along, but I was still moving. I seriously considered talking to a race marshall and just giving up, but my stubborn side reasserted itself. i had trained too long and hard for this to stop now.

The 2:00 pace group caught me up at about the 17km mark. I managed to hobble along with them for about a kilometre, but they were just going too fast for me at that point, and as I watched the black balloons fade away into the distance ahead of me I couldn't help the tears that started sneaking out. I have never been in so much pain in my life, and I still had a bit over 3km to go.

The graph shows my pace for each kilometre along the run. Can you spot the point where my knee gave up? And then were I tried to keep up with the 2:00 pacer? Technology is a wonderful thing.

My breathing was pretty ragged that last couple of kilometres, not because my fitness wasn't up to it, but because its hard to sob and run at the same time. I kept waiting for the 2:10 pace group to overtake me as well, but thankfully I wasn't going quite that slow. Reaching the CoolRunner cheersquad felt like the highlight of my life at that point, especially when SarahV took off and ran along the sidelines with me for the last section. It was the boost I needed to get me through to the finish line, which I staggered over with a net time of 2:03:05.

I should be happy with my time. After all, my original goal time was 2:15:00, and I absolutely smashed that. But I'm not happy. Not now that I know I could have done under 2:00 if it weren't for my knee giving up on me. At the finish line, the tears were as much from disappointment as from the pain.

A lovely race marshall lady saw me bawling like a baby coming out of the finish chute, gave me a hug and escorted me to the physio tent. Their diagnosis? Acute ITB (iliotibial band) inflammation, brought on by the repetitive friction of the band over bone. Its going to be incredibly painful for a couple of days, then it should be okay as long as I get some physio and sort out whatever biomechanical problem brought it on in the first place. Wonderful.

After they released me from the tent I caught up with Philby (1:50!) and Lawrie (2:30), gave Sarah a cheer in her 10k, dashed back to the hotel slightly late for our check-out, and headed off to find some food. A coffee and a cooked breakfast later I was feeling much better, despite walking like a complete gumby and having to let Philby drive my car back to Brisbane. I had people texting me, asking how I went, and I just didn't have the heart or the energy to have to tell my story. I just wanted to get home, curl up and have a bit of a cry. They could wait until morning.

The morning after my whole body feels a bit like someone has taken to it with a baseball bat and my knee still screams in protest when I bend it, but hey, I'm still alive. As for the half-marathon, well... There's always next year :).