Wagga Wagga marathon - 5th in 3:23

I had a great time down in Wagga Wagga. My family are just over an hour away in Culcairn, so I lined up a visit to coincide with the marathon.

Apart from a few hiccups, the organisation of the race was really good and it had a really friendly, low key atmosphere. The course has a bit of everything and was harder than I was expecting.

The family farm had quite a bit of rain in the lead up to the weekend and all the dams were overflowing which led me to think that the Murrumbidgee may be a little high - which it was. Some course alterations were required, however as I didn't know the course anyway, I didn't listen to the instructions and planned to follow the person in front of me. Bad move.

After 250m there was an arrow pointing left and 2m in front was an arrow pointing straight. The whole field went straight. I had a feeling that we may be going the wrong way however I thought we may be doing a short out and back to make up some distance due to the course changes. We kept going and going and I was increasingly doubting that we were going in the right direction (we were going anticlockwise around Wagga instead of clockwise). After a while a bike rider told us all to turn around. The end result was after 1.8k running, we had only covered 250m of the course - not a good start.

For the 1st 10k, the course goes beside the river and then heads through some urban areas. My pace here was good averaging around 4:20/km and I was having thoughts of a sub 3:10 run. I was by myself, with only 7 or 8 runners in front. I then turned a corner to find a pretty solid hill. With the next two splits being 5:24 and 4:59, I knew this wasn't going to be a fast course.

The next section to the half way point is mainly off road through bush and farming land. It was all quite interesting - going over a big Hill with a great views, behind houses, single track, fire trail, through grassy fields and even a couple of stiles to jump over. We even needed to bend over to scurry through a 4 foot high storm water drain at one point that lead under a road. It was really starting to feel like a journey and an adventure rather than racing a marathon. There was heaps of flour on the ground to help with navigation and it was definitely needed - I was constantly looking for the next marker to tell me where to go and was often relieved to see the arrows to confirm I was on the right track. I wasn't feeling all that fresh and things were beginning to become a little labored, but I was definitely enjoying it.

The next 10k after the half way point was really nice running in the bush around a loop of the golf course. It had a couple of solid climbs on fire trail and then some really nice weaving single track that the local mountain bikers would enjoy, that lead to the top. The final climb tops out with the reward of a really nice view of the town and 2 really fast downhill k's on the other side. The final 10k was tough as all marathons are, but the scenery was nice weaving in and around the river all the way back to the start. I was struggling through here and desperately wanted to slow down, however the challenge of beating the first female home kept me motivated. There was alos many stiles to climb over which were very hard on fatiguing legs.

The finish came surprisingly soon as the organizers must have made a change to the course to allow for the extra 1.5k we did at the start. I finished in 3:23, the 5th person home with 42.6k on the Garmin. Nice.

I have to say I really enjoyed the day, the event and the town. The organisation was really good. The course marking was great and must have taken a long time to do, the water bags as always were fantastic, the course had everything and was a real adventure, the volunteers were plentiful and friendly and the family loved the BBQ and playground at the end.

I have already penciled this one on for next year.