Gold Coast Marathon Recap

What a weekend on the Gold Coast, after false starts in 2020 and 2021 the Gold Coast Marathon festival happened in 2022.  With so many stories over the course of the weekend, there’s a thousand things we could talk about here, but we’re going to focus on those in this group that tackled the marathon.  

Firstly you’re all legends, whether you ran a PB or you made the hard decision to DNF.  The marathon is a different beast to anything else, it is unrelenting, there’s nowhere to hide and it is a push the entire way.  I spent most of my morning cheering on with the Motivators at about the 34km/41km mark and I got to see the full impact of the marathon on the faces of thousands of runners.  At 34km plenty of runners were questioning their ability to keep pushing as the race really started to pinch.  Then when I saw the same runners at 41km, with 1,200m to go there was nothing but grit and determination etched into their face. This was the same whether is the Australian marathon legend Lisa Weightman running 2:25 or a first time marathoner knowing they were going to finish and push to the end. 

By my count 29 athletes from HERC ran the marathon, hopefully I haven’t missed anyone. 

The first group I want to mention are those that gave up chasing their own race goals and PBs to help others achieve their's.  I’m talking about the pacers.  In the marathon Jonny Brereton paced the 3:50 group and looked like he had an absolute ball doing it.  Shelly Marie paced the 4:30 group to help a heap of runners achieve their goal of sub 4:30.  Rhys Drummond paced the 6 hour group, which is an incredible effort for someone that runs a marathon in roughly half that time.  Thank you Jonny, Shelly and Rhys for helping others achieve their race goals.  Also a quick shout out to Jodie Cumner and David Sinton for pacing in the half marathon and 10km respectively. 

This next marathoner is definitely worth a stand alone mention.  Joanne Clark ran her 15th Gold Coast marathon on the weekend.  A monumental achievement for consistent running over a long period of time.  Joanne already had legend status with the GC Marathon and has taken it to the next tier now. 

The lads from Norths all had amazing runs, with Tom Brimelow running 2:32 for a blistering marathon PB.  Fellow Foxes Brad Aird (2:54), Scott George (2:56) and Sean Lyons (3:36) also having phenomenal runs.  I’m not sure what’s in the water at Oxenford Lake but I might have to get some.

Also running a sub 3 hour marathon was Trevor Lampard (2:56).  A ripper run and I’m sure will be accompanied by very humorous caption if it make it onto his instagram page. 

Two athletes that took on the 63.3km double (half on Saturday, full on Sunday) and knocked it out of the park were Lucy Schweizer Cook and Jarrod Snow.  A daunting challenge to take on but one I’m sure you’re both pretty proud of, and you should be.  

According to Strava, all of the following ran an marathon PB, whether it was better than a previous marathon or it was their first, but fantastic achievements by all:

Becc Eagles (3:50:07), Monica Brook (5:30:08), Simon McKinley (4:56:54), Colin Evans (3:20:01), Mick Drew (4:50:49), Simonne Clark (4:30:26), Philip Ruthven (4:11:42), David Dickin (3:38:48), Pete Rosiak (3:36:22), Matthew Hamilton (3:00:52), Trent Gardiner (3:35:58) and his 10th marathon distance run in 30 days, Graham Riki Koti (3:58:01), Michael Farley (3:48:27), Carla McKinley (3:42:27) and Jack Lyons (3:27:56). 

While over 20 people ran a PB, a few ran for different reasons like to help others or simply to enjoy the day at a pace that allowed them to do it.  Jake Malby paced along at 3:30 to run 3:27 and I’m sure his body is wondering if he now has to do another 30 marathons in a row after having previously run 31 marathons in 31 days a couple of years ago.  Jake Roberts ran a great time of 3:25 and did it with a fantastic attitude of not putting any pressure on himself to run anything specific.  Kerry Stewart didn’t quite have the day he was aiming for after his back seized up at half way, then is hammy and claves decided to cramp on him too… None the less he still ran a quality time of 3:20 with the support of Dan the Chicken Man.  Hopefully nothing too serious Kerry and you can chase those goals at another marathon soon.  

Finally I want to give a quick mention to a group that’s pretty special to me.  I didn’t get to run yesterday due to a frustrating year of injuries, however I do get the privilege to write the training programs and coach the crew at Good Times Running Club (along with Australian marathon legend and former GC marathon winner Sam Hughes).  So I kind of participated vicariously though those athletes on the weekend.  Thank you Lucy, Jonny, Colin, Carla, Graham, Simon and to all the Good Timers that ran over the weekend.  

That’s a wrap for the GC Marathon.  Stay tuned for the normal weekly leaderboard recap.