Tidd's is BACK!

The race was AMAZING. There were 75 THOUSAND people who raced – I have never seen anything like it before in my life. The roads in Sydney were filled with people in running gear and there was such a buzz of excitement in the air.

I went to the Cancer Council stall before the race and got my photo taken with the Cancer Council Bear. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a photo up soon so you can all see it!

The race started a little after 9am and there was such large amount of people all moving in the one direction. I managed to get a pretty clear run early on, so I wasn’t stuck in the center of a big group. I found it hard to find my own comfortable running pace as it was very distracting having so many people running around you. I overtook a lot of people and I was overtaken by a lot of people! There were people walking from about 1km in and this increased as the distance increased. After what I thought was about 2kms, I found out was actually 5kms! Then before I knew it I was at the half way mark. At about the 10km mark I started overtaking more and more people as people started getting tired. I was hurting a little bit by the 10km mark but the adrenilan kept me going. If anything, I actually think I started running faster!

At the 12km mark I saw Bondi Beach in the distance – which was the finishing point. I got another burst of energy and then when I reached the 1km to go mark I really upped the pace. Crossing that finishing line was an amazing feeling – I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face!

I ended up running the race in about 75 minutes. I’ll get my accurate time e-mailed to me in the next few days hopefully. This was much faster than I had expected as I was aiming for under 100 minutes so I really shocked myself. I think I ran a lot faster than I have been in training because of all the excitement of the race. This time means a lot as now I’ve qualified for the higher groups for next years race. If my time was under 75 minutes then I’ll qualify for the TOP group of runners and if it was over 75 mins then I’ll qualify for the second group. This is really exciting as I was hoping to achieve this. I was aiming for the second group, as I didn’t think I could make it in 75 mins, but I’ve proved myself wrong! So if I don’t make the first group then I won’t have been far off it.

So I’d like to say a final BIG thankyou to all the support I’ve had leading up to this race. It was such a great feeling knowing that I had people from all over the world cheering me on! And if anyone is going to be in Sydney around August next year then come along and join in the race – it was such an incredible experience!

I woke up before my alarm this morning and jumped out of bed as I was so excited about the day!

I’ve already had lots of water so I’ll be fully hydrated before I start and I’m preparing my breakfast which will be low GI with a good balance of protein and carbs so I won’t run out of energy half way through the morning.

I’m going to go in to the city early as the roads in the Eastern Suburbs (where I live) are getting closed at 8. The Cancer Council is setting up a stand from 8am onwards where you can go and grab sunscreen and water and get photos taken so I’m going to head to that when I get there.

I’ll post again this afternoon when I get home!

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!

I had a minor scare on Thursday as I got told I had to join a ship immediately for work and I thought I was going to miss out on the race! However, luckily, I didn’t have to join the Ship until Sunday night – so I can still do the race in the morning and then join in the evening. I got very strict instructions that I’m not allowed to injure myself though!

Thankyou to all those amazing people who have sponsored me to run tomorrow. I met my goal and raised $523 in total and I couldn’t have done it without the support of all the fantastic 43’ers!

I’m off to bed to get a good nights sleep before the big run! I’ll update everyone tomorrow after the race to let you know how I’ve gone.