The City2Surf is an annual and very famous fun run in Sydney. It is 14 km's in total and starts in Sydney city at Hyde Park and ends at Bondi Beach. It includes a scary, steep and long hill which has been nicknamed Heartbreak Hill.
So my plan was to train myself and to run the whole way. I had never run further than 10 km's in one go. But I decided I wanted to give it a go.
For the past two months I have been running a few times a week and I would do a long run every weekend. I just kept building up the distance and my last long run was about 11-12 km's, including many hills!
This year in the race there was about 80,000 people who registered for the City2Surf including my brother and I. We decided to run together. There are multiple groups that all leave at different starting times.
The weather that we experienced in Sydney for the couple of days prior to the run was really wintery. It was extremely windy, raining sometimes and very cold; in terms of a Sydney winter! So we were hoping that it wouldn't rain or that it would be really windy.
It wasn't really raining, although while we waited to start it was trying! The wind was around though. In certain parts of the course that were not very protected we felt strong gusts of wind.
The atmosphere was fantastic! Every year some participants dress up, wearing all sorts of costumes including as guerilla's, pirates or even spiderman! Also a lot of people take part and support a charity. We were running for the Australian Red Cross.
We started off slowly with so many people all leaving at the same time. This wasn't so bad though as it was a good warm up and then we were off. I have to say I really enjoyed running with my brother and having someone to share the experience with. He supported with some good motivating whilst we ran up Heartbreak Hill, although I actually wasn't wanting nor felt like stopping. It is a long hill though! When we reached the top of the hill we had reached half way. There was a drink station at the top also with either water or Lucozade. I decided to have the Lucozade and it was exactly what I needed! The second half of the race went much faster than the first and the course wound down a hill into Bondi. From a far it looked like it was raining at Bondi but it was only when we got closer that we realised it was the spray from massive waves crashing into the beach.
As I approached the finish I was choking up a little. It hit me that I had accomplished my dream and this big goal. I was really happy to have kept going, to have run the whole way and not given up. Happy and proud.
Below is a photo that I took at the starting line and the second is one I took last night of the beautiful Harbour Bridge and city scape.
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