(or the fastest race in Australia)
By Andreas Mindt

Finally, 16 months after my last marathon in Kuala Lumpur I was ready to run the 42.195km again. After my work brought me to the beautiful Gold Coast in South Queensland in Australia this race is just in front of my doorsteps and part of our Sunday morning runs. The club I joined here has its clubhouse adjacent to the marathon starting point, a location hard to beat. To avoid traffic jams and to have a good warm up I took my push bike and cycled the 15 km from the place where I am living to the starting line. Cycling at dawn along the race course created the first excitement. Last preparations were underway to get all signposts up and drink stations equipped.

I arrived at the clubhouse just in time to the start of the Half Marathon to cheer club-mates who where competing the Half-Marathon. It was massive to watch 6,000 people starting the race.

Just when the sun had risen from behind the horizon the gun to start the marathon was fired. A short walk to the starting line and off we went. Like in every race the start was chaotic with slow people walking in from and blocking the way and fast one sprinting and overtaking from behind. I stumbled into a running friend and we chatted along for the first kilometre. Then he decided to increase the pace and went off - a big mistake as he learned 35kilometers later. I continued my easy running pace and found myself in the pace group with the 3hour 15minutes runners, the time I tried to achieve. It was a nice feeling to run in a big bunch of people and to have somebody setting the pace.



Gold Coast Marathon 2007 (photo by Moira, who was running in half marathon)

Pace runners are marked with the time and a balloon and a very good thing to have in a race.
The race continued on the roads just next to the beach with quite a number of people cheering us on. It was a perfect race day, totally different from the day before when gusty winds and cloudy skies had created some concerns about a good a fast race. But the worries had faded away overnight. There was no cloud and the sun was shining from a perfect blue sky. Even the morning temperatures were 10 degrees warmer than previous days. The weather continued like this for the whole race; when I finished it was around 20 degree warm. Race day proved to be a perfect winter day.

I felt great at this stage and time and kilometres where just flying past. Before I realised we had reached the first tuning point after 11km where some colleagues from work had promised to watch out for me. The only one who was watching out for people was me! I watched out so much for them that I did not concentrate on my running anymore and almost fell over a couple of other runners! My colleagues had preferred to sleep in and recover from clubbing the night before.

We ran all the way back we had come earlier seeing all the other runners till following from behind. It was a great atmosphere.

After 1hour and 36 minutes we had passed the Half way mark and I started to think whether a 3h10minutes time would be possible. 30 kilometer in the race I was still feeling great and running at my 3hour 10minute target pace so I decided to leave the pace group behind and try my best for the last 12km. It was too early as I found out 6km later. But at this stage I felt great. At the 34 km mark I recognised a familiar person ahead. It was my running friend who had talked to me at the start. He was struggling. I tried to motivate him when I passed but he did not seem too happy at all. But my confidence started to fade. All of a sudden the legs started to feel heavy and pace dropped considerably. The distance to the finish line did not want to decrease anymore. 2 kilometres to go the 3hour 15 min, pace runner had caught up with me and slowly ran away. I tried to follow his pace but desperately failed.

On the last kilometre we joined with the 10k runners. This gave a big boost in confidence and all the pain was forgotten. I tried to stay with some of the runners and speed was increased. 600 meters to go I passed our clubhouse. The cheering gave the last boost and I almost sprinted the last metres to finish the race in a personal best of 3 hours 15 minutes and 30 seconds, almost 15 minutes faster than my previous PB set in KL during the marathon in 2006.

Back at the clubhouse we had a big gathering with BBQ, drinks and lots of fun. It was almost 2pm when I started my journey home. At this stage I really regretted the decision of cycling to the race in the morning. It turned out to be one of the slowest 15km I had ever ridden on a bike.
But all the pain is forgotten now and the 6th of July 2008 is marked in the calender. I can only recommend this race to everybody. It is one of the biggest and fastest marathons in Australia and surely the race at the best location. A perfect spot to combine it with a great holiday on the Gold Coast.
But the race year has just started, interesting events coming up, with the longest being the 500k Endura road relay in November (surely, a race covering 500km on a weekend). I will keep you updated.

For more information on running on the Gold Coast or Australia you can contact me via e-mail at andreas.mindt@web.de

Note: Andreas is a member of Pacesetters Club, now living and competing in running events in Australia.