A while after I ran the Canberra Marathon in 2018, I decided I wanted to try and run a marathon in each Australian state.  Melbourne was on my radar, as I grew up in Victoria so had friends and family there. The Melbourne marathon is held towards the end of September or early October, so I decided that in between, the Hobart ‘Cadbury’ Marathon in January was up next.

In the midst of my training build, life got a little chaotic. The role I had worked in for over eight years had taken an enormous toll on my mental health and in early September of 2018, I went onto workers compensation. I began the agonising process of trying to heal mentally, while still trying to juggle university studies and train for a marathon. Meanwhile, one of my brothers was involved in a horrific vehicle accident that caused significant injuries, and a very dear family friend passed away suddenly after a very brief battle with cancer.

Looking back at this time I am unsure how I managed to get out and train for a marathon while my life was in such turmoil. I firmly believe  that running helped me cope with all of it. Running was simple. It was time I could spend outdoors and away from the chaos of life. It gave me space to think and to feel peace, while all I had to do was put one foot in front of the other for a while.

My husband and I had travelled on a camping trip to Tasmania shortly after we were married and we both loved it.

Ordinarily, a January marathon in Australia would be automatically eliminated as a viable option due to the oppressive heat of summer. Tasmania however, generally tends to be far cooler than the mainland. The morning of the marathon was a bright and crisp 14 degrees.

A shuttle bus service collects runners from the city area and deposits them at the Cadbury factory north of Hobart in the town of Claremont. The marathon course loops around the famed chocolate factory before heading south on the Brooker highway for a double out and back run, returning to finish at the factory. Hobart, and indeed all of Tasmania, is beautiful with many picturesque places. The Brooker highway however, is not that pretty, so I was a little disappointed that race organisers decided this was the best possible course to showcase the state for a marathon.

The standout memory of the Cadbury marathon was hearing someone gaining on me with very loud, fast footsteps at around the 7km mark. Hoping the owner of the footsteps would carry on past me with their noisy feet, instead Pete fell into pace next to me and kept me company for the next 25 kilometers.

Pete was obviously well known in Hobart, as it seemed almost every person we passed shouted encouragement to him. I felt like I was running with a celebrity and asked him if he was famous. “No, just a local” he responded with a huge smile. Hobart is not a huge city after all.

Astonishingly, this was Pete’s debut marathon, and I congratulated him on holding such an impressive pace. He looked very comfortable and was great company as we chatted and laughed and ran together.

The final turnaround was at around the 32km mark and sadly it was here Pete paused to stretch out some cramping calf muscles. I continued on, buoyed by his positivity and affable company. My third marathon was over, finishing with another PB at that point of 3 hours, 42 minutes and 34 seconds.

One of the remarkable things from this marathon was my heart rate data provided on the Strava app.

It clearly shows my heart rate nudging towards 160bpm in the first 5-7km, which is when Pete fell into pace next to me. The next 25km my heart rate trends downwards, even on the elevation peaks, dropping as low as 120bpm at about the 22km mark. There is a huge spike at 30km, which is when Pete dropped off to stretch out his cramps, and my heart rate remains high from then on until the finish.

I was running with only my Garmin watch with its in built wrist-based heart rate detector, so accuracy can not be relied upon. However, the data is fairly clear that once Pete joined me and we chatted along as we ran (even picking up the pace as we went along) my heart rate was considerably lower than it was when I was running alone.

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