Flashback: 1996 City-2-Surf Run

The longest race I've ever been in was the 1996 City-2-Surf run in Sydney. It's 14km (9 miles), starting in downtown Sydney, heading east/northeast to the coast, and then south to the finish at Bondi beach. There is an excellent online course overview. It's one of the best courses imaginable - Sydney has neighborhoods comparable in charm and character to San Francisco, and the coastal landscape is as dramatic as anything I've seen elsewhere. For example, this is a picture of the final couple of miles of the course. It's one of the largest runs anywhere - I think in 1996 there were 45,000 participants, and now it's over 63,000.

Several friends ran it also. None of us had done any training - I think I had done one run of about 2 miles the week before the race. My time was 66:31. That's not a misprint - 9 miles in 66:31. That's about 7:20min/mile pace!! The crazy thing is that I was one of the slower ones - I remember a couple of my friends did it in under an hour. The course is tough - many small hills and around kilometer 8 is the famous "heartbreak hill" - a 2km long hill that is probably around 7-8% grade. I remember passing a large number of people on the way up, only to be passed by most of them on the downhill.

Oh yeah - I was extremely sore for about a week after the race.