Aussie Dust

At 6.00am David along with 1,000 runners of all shapes and sizes gathered  at Esplanade Park (opp Bell Tower) for the City to Surf marathon.  Despite warnings of rain later in the day Sunday morning was quite mild and promised a lovely day.

At 6.20pm  runners  were directed  200mtres up a short street to the start line on St Georges Terrace.  There they took off in the dark towards the causeway to then turn and run back along the river out to the University of WA and back again.

The flat course made the first half very comfortable.  The hills at the 20kms mark changed everything and David’s comfortable 5km pace slowed dramatically to 8-9kms going up Malcolm Street and the hills in Kings Park.

The hills put such a strain on David’s arms that his forearms are now very sore.  Fortunately the cramping he suffered badly with at Bunbury weren’t anywhere near as bad which is surprising.  For onlookers like me and David’s brother Bob, the 22c temperature was perfect but for runners  it was hot.  Many coming into the finish exhausted and ready to collapse.

Fortunately for David his earlier stomach problems didn’t affect him as much as was expected and  he ended up running the course in a fantastic 4hrs 25minutes.

The Kenyan’s on the other hand took all the major prizes with the  first male ( Chelimo Kipkemboi ) in at 2hrs 14 minutes and the first female (Ethiopian) in 2hrs 35minutes.

Overall there were 40,000 runners in the event

Most of the international marathon field have times under 2hrs 11 minutes with Kenyan Chelimo Kipkemboi the best with a 2-10-30 in last year’s Toronto Marathon.

Pictured above seated with David (second from right) is Kenyan Reuben Kosgei former Olympic & world champion visiting Perth hoping to secure the $20,000 first prize.  Tomorrow’s race is Reuben Kosgei’s second attempt at 42.2km.

David hasn’t had the best of starts with stomach problems most of this past week, but he is now well and will be starting the run behind the elite guys at 6.30am tomorrow.

We wish him well.

Today was a chance to meet some of the world’s best runners running the City to Surf Marathon this Sunday.

Not surprisingly most of the elite runners are from Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia.  Some have been in Perth for a week and have had a chance to run the course while others are  arriving  tonight. The two women runners  found Perth’s mornings and nights cool than they were used to in Nigeria.  When asked the two women runners said they will run the course in 2 hours 40 minutes!

They thought that running with a wheelbarrow was funny and despite the language barrier we could see that they thought David was a little mad. What an introduction to Perth.

This mornings meeting was also a photo shoot by  Channel 9 and the newspapers to promote the event.  David is still not 100% but is determined to run,  so to be safe he is seeing the Dr this afternoon to get another opinion.

Since Monday night David has been bedridden with a stomach ailment which has seen him unable to eat anything until today.  Even then the meal was only soup.

On advice from a Pharmacist he has drinking a special electrolyte mix and today is the first time he has been up for the whole day.  He did a light 10.5km run.  He said it nearly killed him.

Hope he gets better in time for the marathon as he has lost a lot of strength from not being able to eat.

Dixie Marshall (Channel 9) and City to Surf Organizer interviewed David last Thursday to be part of a summary of the City to Surf Sunday 29th August.

It is planned that Channel 9 will also interview David at the start of the marathon and then for his thoughts at the finish.

This together with interviews from other runners will  be aired  5.30pm Sunday 29th August on Channel 9, so take a look.

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