Newcastle marathon result!

Hello everybody.

It is the day after the Newcastle marathon (in Australia not England) and I am happy to say it was a success! I ran a personal best time of 3:36 (previously 3:50 from Sydney last year) and Catherine ran 4:01. Catherine struggled from half way, but stuck with it, stayed strong and finished in a very respectable time. Now is the time for us to reflect and work out how we can improve for the next marathon. For Catherine this will be in July at the Gold Coast marathon and for me it will be in Melbourne in October.


Overall I enjoyed the Newcastle marathon experience and I think bar a few teething problems it will improve and provide a great marathon course. There were plenty of marshals to point out where to go and as the first marathon there in roughly 25 years I think the organisers should be proud. I'd like to say thank you to the organisers, the marshalls and the volunteers that gave up their time. I know how much hard work goes into these events and if you weren't prepared to put up with us then I'd have to run marathons alone!
 No doubt they will receive some moaning and bitching from the marathon crew. Most likely it will be because of the following. The downsides for me were the number of runners on Nobby's breakwall, the number of out and backs and the slightly confusing nature of one point of the course.

There were roughly 3,500 people there for the whole running festival across a variety of distances. I had not paid any attention to where the 10km and half marathon courses were running to. In my self absorbed marathon brain I had assumed (wrongly) that Nobby's 2km breakwall would be a desolate land, devoid of any runners. Instead it was a moving car park of runners. I am not sure if the 10km and half marathon were both on the breakwall, but it felt like they were all there at the same time. This worked two ways, good and bad. I found it good in that I was expecting to be on my own, so I now had people to zone in on and was distracted from any pain by the need to overtake all manner of runners and walkers. The bad side was that I now had to overtake all manner of runners and walkers. Once again if you haven't run a marathon then you would consider the simple task of overtaking someone whilst running a piece of cake. Well it is not. You have to judge your own speed, the speed of those you are overtaking and look for a gap in the oncoming runners. You also have to factor in the potential for someone to move sideways or stick an arm out to point something out to the friend they are running with. All of this is taking place whilst running 35-40km of a 42km. A point at which you are not in the prime of physical and mental shape and are either just holding it all together or mildly psychotic with the pain and about to kill.

There were numerous out and backs on the course, probably the most I have ever done in a marathon. I think they totalled over 10. Again this can be good because at least you know how much you have run out and what is coming up. It is bad in that you know what is coming up, it literally works both ways in your mind at different points of the marathon.

I need to look up what km marker it was, but there was a marshal directing people either left or right at an intersection depending on the number of times they had run to that point. We ran over a bridge and round to the right to run under said bridge and do an out and back. On running back we passed where we had come in on our left and ran down to an aid station to another out and back. On the way back from out and back 2 (OB2) we reached the above marshal who asked how many times we had been there. We said "first time", "ok turn right" he said. We turned right and ran along the dual carriageway to OB3. Running back the local copper was tailing us and told us to just jump in. The three of us that were running together were sorely tempted! On our return to the marshal we turned left and headed back to OB2, which was now OB4 and the aid station down the end. We then ran back to the marshall who did the same question again, this time directing us left to OB5. On our return from OB5 we then made a left and ran back over the bridge we had originally run across. I haven't actually counted this in my total estimate of 10 out and backs.

Are you confused yet?

The reason this can be tricky is the simple medical term (my medical term, not an actual medical term) "marathon mode". When runners get into the "zone" or "marathon mode" they are so focused that even basic commands are hard to listen or respond to. This can often be confused with the "tired and confused mode", but they are completely different. It takes an expert to notice the subtle differences in the two. A simple solution for next time would be to have a sign much like the one used at the entrance and exit of Nobby's breakwall. This sign simply had two arrows on it. The left arrow pointed to 36km and the right arrow to 41km. So you knew when you came off the breakwall the first time that you have to go left and the second time you ran off the breakwall you went right and to the delights of the finish. They should keep the marshall there, but ultimately runners in "marathon mode" can read and process quicker than they can listen, process and then find suitable words to respond with.

This all may sound a little pedantic, but I have learnt over the years that when you run a marathon you don't want ANY little thing to upset the months of hard work you put into training. I found a tiny stone in my shoe at the race start and took the time to remove it, check for it's friends and then relace my shoe, about 30 seconds before the start. It matters a lot!

Any how that enough from me for now. We are flying to the UK tomorrow and I hope that both of us are still feeling as good in the legs and body tomorrow as we have done today. We will be resting for a week before resuming training, but I will do a podcast interview with Catherine from the UK and let you know about the fun we have on holiday!

Until then, happy training!

Tom :)

P.S please check out the interview with my friend Andrew Van Der Saag from Achilles Sydney. He is running Canberra this coming weekend, so I hope to report on his first marathon outing the week after.