Marathon 1 1986 Anzac Day by martinpluss

This is the story of my first marathon in 1986. It was the birthday of my grandfather who was born in 1901 and was also Anzac Day. I thought surely I could do a marathon - it would be nothing compared to those who were at Gallipoli.

I was living in Bowral at the time, had only been running for two years. Anyway I did everything wrong, went out the night before , had nothing for breakfast, went out too fast - on 3:12 pace at half way, blew up from 30-35 km and found out the benefit of Coke in the final 7 km to finish in 3:42 hours - and my marathon PB.

The race scarred me so much my next marathon was 12 years later in Canberra in 1998 where I came across Cool Running Australia.