First Marathon complete! expect responding videos to be uploaded later on this evening!!!!

SO, THE FIRST MARATHON IS COMPLETE WITH A TIME OF 3hrs, 40 mins.

During the day yesterday – this sounds lame, but I could not wait to get going. I got on my bike to expel my inner butterflies due to the pent-up energy inside and cruised around the city. I ate some sushi and some bagels and was drinking liquids like it was my job.

It was fairly hot, but I decided I could not wait – setting off at 2:00pm. The snack I took were 4 electrolyte tablets, a bagel and a peanut Butter sandwich with multi-grain bread. You can never imagine how amazing those simple foods taste when you’re running a marathon, honestly – it feels like heaven. It’s so necessary, too. Without the foods my stomach can start to feel pains quite quickly.

I set off fairly quick on the run – just simply feeling good and with the nice weather. In retrospect, I should have slowed in down earlier on. I ran the first hour quite well, though and decided after an hour to give my bagel a munch. The bagel sat really nicely and over the next hour, or so, was a god-send (bagels are great because they’re fairly slow at breaking down/ slow released energy).

I find the hardest parts of marathons certainly come around Mile 15. This was the case yesterday and I attribute this to my taking too great a stride lengths when really I should have kept the legs a bit straighter, relaxed them more, with quicker steps throughout.

However, the peanut butter sandwich around mile 17 was good and got me through to miles 22 very nicely.

Psychologically, mile 22 felt nice and though due to the over-striding I had slight groin pain – I just relaxed, stood up straight, focussed on maintaining a smaller range of motion and I really enjoyed the final stages of the marathon.

Afterwards I guzzled a can of Lychee juice from a 7eleven – which is delicious! –  and a dollar coffee and the wife so kindly came and picked me up from BNE CBD. THANKS ZEUUUUUUUS!

I learned a lot from the first run – first of all and pun intended, “It’s a marathon not a sprint”. So I shall today be focussing on being a bit straighter and tightening up my technique quite significantly and to maybe take an extra “Sanga” (said with Aussie accent) for an extra energy boost.

I was pleased with the 3hrs, 40 mins and look to run the 42 k’s/ 26.3 Miles this afternoon in maybe 3 hrs, 50 mins? But, I’ll see how I’m feeling. It could easily be 10 mins faster, or slower.

I will be later be uploading a video from before the first marathon later and a video reflecting on the run and following the second marathon, late on this evening. Thank you so much to all the people to have wished my look and given me donations so far and to everyone – have a great day.