GOLD COAST AIRPORT MARATHON 2004
THE JOURNEY
by Justin Voss
The 4th
of
July is a significant day for so many people
for so many reasons. It will remain significant for me
personally as a constant reminder of the journey I set out on as
a race pacer for one of the toughest mental and physical
challenges on the planet...Running a marathon.
My instructions were to run even pace
The pace mark I was given of SUB 3 Hours and 15 minutes
sounded easy on paper. The instructions given by our organising
crew were even easier. "Just run an even pace of 4minute 36
seconds per kilometre". The only hard part I thought was
going to be carrying the balloons for the entire journey to
enable the other runners to keep a visual on the pace mark of
3.15.
So
I was full of confidence at the start line and I had been
enjoying the excitement and anticipation surrounding the group
of runners that had positioned themselves around me and my
balloons waiting for the gun.
Even before the gun fired...........
Even before the gun fired I had made a small group of friends
that had come from far and wide to break the 3.15 mark. Guy was
in his first marathon, Brett his second, Carolyn from Melbourne
a seasoned runner, and "England" from England also a very
accomplished distance runner.
We
had people from all over the world expecting that the red
balloons and the man with all the confidence would carry them
over the line in sub 3.15. But as it turned out racing against
the clock was going to challenge all of us. At 5k our group of
around 50 people were all having fun and chatting away.
At
10k there wasn't as much chatting and the fun was slowly being
replaced by the realisation that the clock was not going to get
tired legs, the clock wouldn't get that feeling of wanting to
stop and have a break at the drink station and the clock
definitely didn't need to stop and go to the toilet. These were
all things that I knew I was going to experience at some stage
during the next couple of hours.
30k
approached
I
had lost a few runners by the half way mark and gained some new
ones so I could have new conversation with new people. Newcastle
from Newcastle and Andrew from Brisbane joined in, along with
Steve from Woolongong. We ran back over the bridge together and
before we knew it a sign that said 30k was staring at us. I
can't speak for the other runners but I was glad to see that. It
meant we were getting closer to the last turn.
Along the road a bit further I rejoined Carolyn who had been
feeling strong enough to go on ahead. She had teamed up with
"Browny" who was running his 30th International
marathon and announced that this was his last. 35k and all the
guys were starting to really feel the pinch.
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