A huge mixture of emotions...

Obviously thats what you get with Marathons.

Was a tough day out there from early on. I had the eventual 2nd place guy surge past at about 4km, then come back to me in the domain. I was either blind or delirous but only saw the km markers in Centennial park, missed 20km, Halfway, 25km, 35km. Between 15km and 16km I ran a 3:02, the next K a 3:3x, either I was doing fartlek or something else. Really started to hurt coming back up Anzac Parade climb as both Kenyans had past me like I was standing still. Wouldn't it be nice to live and train fulltime at altitude like these blokes.

It felt weird going zig-zagging through the city, up then down hill, then opening up to the expanses of the City West link made it very hard.

Great support all the way around Centennial park with Seans squad cheering at about 5 vantage points, the Cahill Expressway should be renamed the Coolrunner Expressway as it gave a big lift to the finish.

Splits
5 km 16:38
15km 32:30 (49:08)
30km 49:55 (1:39:04)
Finish 2:22:52

Can remember the finishing area well, as the commentator said I outkicked the 4th place runner in the last k. Actually I didn't see him over my shoulder down Hickson road, so he must have been close!?! He blew my ears out crossing the line with massive speakers in my ears.

Finishing a marathon, you have a mixture of emotions, heres just a sample.

Could I have paced it any better?
- Would have been good to be closer to 2nd place. Did I go out to hard? Should I have stuck with the Kenyans early and then increase the tempo with them?

Can I run any faster?
- I found out some weaknesses in my body that have been plagueing me since Berlin, with weak left hand side + sciatica. Something to work on. I would definitely need some extended altitude training to have a crack at a marathon. Also felt like I had a lack of speed b4 the marathon!

Which one next?
- In the next 4 weeks, will focus on removing injuries strengthening weaknesses and do some fun shorter stuff, 200m and 400m reps.
- (Feb-Mar) Beppu, Biwa or Tokyo or (Apr) Rotterdam or London. Still deciding.