In partnership with

This Sunday I’ll be one of the 35,000 people taking in the sights of Sydney on foot while running the Sydney Marathon. Yes, I know it’s not trail running, but please indulge me.

The race is a bigger deal than usual because it marks Sydney’s debut as a marathon major, joining New York, London, Boston, Berlin, Tokyo and Chicago in that exclusive grouping.

Of course, this is something of a confection, aimed at creating a series of events across each year for top athletes to target as part of their schedules. By awarding points for performances in each event, and attaching prize money to points, this exclusive club has ensured each of its members always has a gun field.

The series started in 2006 with five events. Tokyo was added in 2013. Sydney’s ascent to join them has been rapid, showing a kick any road runner would be proud of to accelerate past Melbourne and the Gold Coast to become the biggest marathon in Australia by participation in the past few years.

The fact 35,000 people will compete in the 42.2k event this weekend is testament to the pulling power of marathon major status. It’s why I’m running. And to the popularity of running right now. It’s definitely a thing.

As well as attracting top athletes at the elite end of the field, the marathon major concept has worked brilliantly at luring enthusiastic amateurs to toe the line, with runners striving to compete in all six - now seven - majors. Those who are successful join the “Six stars. Six races. One Dream” club.

Only now, of course, it’s seven races, which means seven stars. And presumably a whole lot of merch that’s suddenly out of date. And it may soon be eight stars with Cape Town likely to join the gang next year.

All this is made possible by sponsorship from Abbott Laboratories, a manufacturer of “biowearables and medical devices”, which is why the races are labelled the “Abbott World Marathon Majors”. But I digress… back to my race.

My goal: to break four hours

I entered this race through the ballot. I hadn’t really expected to get in, so it was a late addition to my racing calendar. And therein lies a lesson - you really should take a little care to plan your A and B races in any year, because having a road marathon at the end of winter has really screwed up my trail running plans for this year.

But putting that to one side, I thought Sydney was a great opportunity for me to finally break four hours for the marathon distance (I never said I was fast). Five marathons so far, 4 hours 6 minutes my fastest time.

So for the first time I took things (a little) seriously. For me, that meant following a program via the Nike Run Club app. In the past I have used programs to inform my training, but usually it’s been something I’ve printed off the Internet, referred to now and again, and then generally ignored.

I embarked on a 13 week training block - a few weeks shorter than ideal but I was coming off a good base so I had no fears about that - and things started well. I enjoyed the guided runs the app offered and the gamification in the app kept me more accountable than a print-out off the web.

The variety of sessions - across recovery runs, speed work and long runs - was also great. And best of all I felt I was making progress. I was feeling stronger for longer. And I was starting to feel like breaking four hours might be possible.

But sticking to a marathon program takes dedication. You need to make sacrifices because as the training miles increase, running and recovering can crowd almost everything else out of your life.

I am in a pretty good position to commit to this, apart from one weakness - I play football (that’s soccer in case you’re wondering which kind), and football and running don’t mix. So while my marathon training went well through June and most of July, by the start of August my body was starting to revolt.

Even at masters level, football is tough on your lower limbs. It involves a lot of twisting, turning, changing direction and changing pace. You are prone to getting kicked. The deeper into the football season I got this year, the more of an impact it was having on my running.

The coup de grace was last weekend. While playing a catch-up game on Sunday, after a tough, top-of-the-table clash on Friday night, I strained a quad. It’s only a slight strain, I came off the field as soon as I felt it. But it’s there.

As a consequence, I haven’t run at all this week - which feels really weird. I’ll have a nice easy Parkrun on Saturday morning, then into the marathon hoping for the best on Sunday.

It would be easy to be downright depressed about this. I’m not sure how many more road marathons I’ll run - I love the trails too much to commit to many more miles on the roads - but my failure to break that four hour barrier is nagging at me.

So I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking (brooding) about this over the past few days. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I just have to take control of the one thing I can control in this scenario, and that’s the attitude I take to the race on Sunday.

I can still have a crack at breaking four hours. I am an incurable optimist, so you never know. But I’m also a radical pragmatist, and that part of me knows it’s a long, long, long shot.

So why not embrace my “B goal”, and just enjoy the day. It’s going to be glorious weather - the forecast is sunny with a minimum of eight degrees and a maximum of 18. The race starts with a trot over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and finishes at the Opera House. Let’s face it, for views it’s a course that’s pretty hard to beat.

So I’m reframing my expectations and focusing on the process not the outcome with the overall aim of enjoying the day. And as long as my quad holds up, that should be a very achievable aspiration indeed.

Upcoming Events

There are way too many events for me to list everything that’s happening around the country, but here is a selection of upcoming races (with a bias towards South East Queensland).

The Running Calendar website is a great source if you want a comprehensive understanding of what’s available around Australia.