A very early start. Start time was 6:30am, so I needed to be at the start area at about 6am. I got up at 5am, got dressed, and warmed up some baked beans for breakfast. It was a little too early to eat much, so I only had about half the tin. Caught a taxi out to the start area, but had to stop at a petrol station to get cash because the taxi didn't take credit cards.
After a short while I met up with my training partner, Barbara Tucker, and her husband Mark. After final preparations we made our way to the start area. The marathon runners were starting half an hour after the walkers, so there weren't many people at the start - perhaps only about 6-8 of us. I guess walking marathons isn't perceived to be quite as much fun as running them. Then again, maybe it's just because training and racing takes that much longer.
I had splits for 5h:00m and 5h:10m written on my hand. There was a slim chance I could break 5 hours and, with Barbara's belief that she would only be able to do about 5h:10m-5h:15m, a possibility that I could even win. When I saw Peter Baillie at the start I knew straight away that I wasn't going to win this one. However, I did think that I might be able to stay close... until we were told "go" and Peter raced off into the distance. Never mind, second was still looking like a strong possibility, and I still had a time goal. Most of all, I wanted to beat 5h:08m, which was the fastest time that I was aware of that anyone in the harrier club had ever walked a marathon.
During the early stages of the race my shins were as painful as ever, and as usual my legs didn't really warm up properly until 50 minutes into the race. The effects of this can be seen in the pace chart at the bottom of the page - it's not until my legs were warmed up that I managed to sustain a pace faster than 7:30/km. Although I had sore legs, the initial few km were very picturesque, running beside the forest, looking out at a nice sunrise over the paddocks.
A short distance before the 6k drink stop we turned a sharp right-hand corner and then started the undulating section of the course. The undulations became larger, and the surface underfoot became slipperier (more grass and mud). I still managed to stay ahead of Barbara, although she closed in by about the 10km mark and we walked together for a short while. She fell behind again as she had a gel, and we turned into a short section where the trees were hanging in close and the course was very uneven under foot. I pushed hard to try and open a gap, which I held until I needed to take a toilet stop between 15km and 16km. Barbara caught and passed me, but I soon caught back up to her again. We walked together from the 17km mark until about 19.5km. Barbara had to stop momentarily, but I kept going. I was well warmed up by now and was keeping a very good pace. I came through the half way mark to see Nigel Doyle and Sue Kerr. I kept up my pace, wondering how far behind Andrew Kerr (who was running the marathon) might be. He caught me at about the 2km mark, looking and sounding very relaxed, and then very slowly headed into the distance.
I was starting to feel a bit sore by now. My hip flexors were a little painful and my legs were starting to feel tired. I was still keeping up a good pace, although Barbara was slowly gaining. I had a stone under the heel of my right foot, so I stopped to take it out. Barbara whizzed by, and now I was playing catch-up. I managed to keep pace with her over the next several km, and nearly caught her by the time we got back to the 6km drink stop. However, stopping to remove the stone had interrupted my rythm, and I was finding it hard to keep my speed up. As we hit the undulating section, I used short bursts of normal walking to try and give my hip flexors a rest.
Results
From there on I was pretty much on my own for the next 6km or so. Barbara was some distance ahead, and I passed a couple of marathon runners(!) at about the 12km mark, but other than that there was no one around. I encountered the 10k runners with only a couple of km to go. That was a good boost, and helped me keep my pace up. I was feeling very tired near the end, but managed to dig in and have a strong finish, recording a time of 5h:04m:26s (full times and placings are shown in the table at the right). My legs were quite sore, but not nearly as much as I recall from my first or second efforts.| Name | Time | Place |
| Peter Baillie | 4:36:00 | M1 |
| Barbara Tucker | 4:59:43 | F1 |
| Andrew Shelley | 5:04:26 | M2 |
| Averil Sheehan | 5:30:44 | F2 |
| Roger Morrissey | 5:45:56 | M3 |
| James Reed | 5:49:14 | M4 |
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