This was a bittersweet run for me as 4 weeks before Brendan had passed away. I had by this stage decided to run the 10 marathons and begun fundraising for the Blackdog Institute.
I took a number of things into the race with me. They were in no particular order.
- the memories of my brother
- the amazing support of everyone who had wished me well
- all those who had donated money to the charity on behalf of my cause
- how many people are affected by this dreadful disease
- how little it is discussed in conversation
- how nearly everyone I know has in someway been touched by this disease
I took a different approach to the Melbourne marathon, relax slow down and enjoy. Once again I went to the start line with my mate Cassie and she disappeared up front with the 4 hour pace runner. I stayed in the vicinity of the 4.15hr pace runner. He was a funny bloke who was running his 105th marathon.
Anyway we settled into a nice pace and the run went very smoothly and quite fast. I stuck to my plan as much as I could. I was looking forward to seeing my support team at the 30 km mark.
Pretty much to plan I got to the 30 km mark and there was Henry along with Keith, Jenny and my god daughters Karly and Julia cheering their heads off. This gave me further inspiration to keep running well. Well it went well but I gave back some minutes in the last 6km’s and the finish inside the MCG was great and the roar of the couple of thousand people who were there was great and again seeing Henry along with Keith, Jenny and my god daughters Karly and Julia gives you goose bumps.
I finished the race in a personal best of 4.18.03hrs. This was an overall improvement of 26 minutes for the marathon.
I was overall very happy with the result and drew immense strength during the run to the points mentioned above and I dedicate this run to Brendan..
