19 Sept 2013

City to Surf, Perth Marathon, my new favourite race!

Well, City to Surf is a whole race series with events all over the state climaxing with the marathon in Perth! It appears to have only been running a few years, but its well backed by the community and state. I absolutely loved this race, so many aspects of it just made me so happy to be a part of this, hopefully in the coming blocks of text I can convey everything that I enjoyed about it.

It's only been a week since my last race,  and I've only managed a few short runs this week. At the tail end of the week I got really sick despite feeling invincible at the start of the week! Glands were swollen and I had a fever, but no way in hell was this going to stop me working, let alone running in Perth!
I flew on the earliest (and cheapest) flight I could get to Perth, 7:15am, so again, I slept in my car at the same rest area the night before my flight. I learnt my lesson from last time and booked ahead for my car parking, checked in via the web, and started my car as soon as I woke up to defrost the windscreen! Everything went to plan this time and I was at the airport nice and early, stress free!

Hotel SUCCESS! 

Once I got into Perth, I made my way into the city and checked into my hotel. Speaking of which - the Pensione Hotel in Perth was amazing, super accommodating, good value, great service... it was a most enjoyable stay.. they let me check-in super early and then also let me have a late checkout for after the marathon at no extra charge!
This is all I could capture of @michloise lol
I met with my friend from twitterdom @michloise for a 1 hour jog along the river followed by an epic mission to find lunch on the Saturday, hunting for pasta. It was great meeting yet another tweep and we had a blast running and chatting!

Fellow sweeper Simon was splitting accommodation with me again so we met up after lunch and then went off to check out the expo. We were pretty late, but the expo was fantastic! Amazingly well setup, catering for all sorts of running related things and had all your pre-race needs covered. Signups, Helpdesk, warm clothing drop off, race kit collection... So much stuff, I was in awe! Let's just say, if you head along to this race, make some time to really check out the expo!


As I tweeted, the forecast was very dire, with thunderstorms and rain predicted. It looked like this was going to be a rough one weather-wise... Low of 10 high of 21 sounded great except for the 90% chance of 10mm rain!
As it turned out, it did rain, but only a casual light rainfall that peppered the course for the first 20km, enough to make it greasy, but not bad enough to really soak us. The rest of the thunder and lightning stayed away and I doubt we came near that promised 10mm of rain :)

As you can see the course profile gets interesting in the second half!

I didn't research the course prior to the race, so we got our first glimpse of the map when we saw it at the expo. The course is designed to take in the sights in and around Perth before sending you off to City Beach to find the finish line. It consists of an initial 21km loop through Perth and along the river, which is all pretty flat and easy. It then goes back through the start line and heads straight up the first of a few hills. It weaves around Kings Park and through the course of several switchbacks before it trundles on towards City Beach for the finish area.