Tasmania - 6 January - A Personal Worst!

Whew ... well that's the first one down, and I don't suppose I could have had a worse run first up.

Actually, when I say "run", I am being very liberal in my usage as I had to walk most of the way from about the 33km mark. But I guess the good point is that a personal worst time is still better than a Did Not Finish.

So what went wrong?

I knew that I would be a little underdone as my longest run in training had only been about 28km, and I had slacked off with only a couple of 20km runs as the long runs through December.

The Hobart course is also quite hilly - certainly when compared with Canberra, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Rottnest that I have run previously.

But mainly, it was hotter and more humid than I could really deal with for the full distance. I have felt the onset of dehydration previously, and when I was getting really light-headed from about the 26km mark, I knew that I would have to really slow things up.

So once again I have been reminded to respect the distance, and not take so many shortcuts in my training.

Thanks to all the other runners on Sunday 6 December, particularly to the guy who walked the whole distance - I had about 5km on you at one stage, so it was humbling to have you literally zoom past me with a few kms to go. And congratulations also to the young chap who was completing his first marathon. You also showed me up well.

Thanks particularly to Simon, Paul and Bec from the Gunn Runners in Melbourne. Simon and Paul ran the half, and Bec stormed home to be the third woman home - top effort. But their real achievement was to wait hours and hours for me to come stumbling over the line in a time around 4.45. Thanks for waiting guys.

So it's back to some more serious training for the rest of this month, and for February and March before Marathon Numero Due in April.