Last weekend we traveled to Sydney for the Sydney Marathon. G and some of our running friends were running, I was up for the spectating and socialising. We took some extra days, flying up on Thursday and returning on Tuesday. The flight up wasn’t great. As we approached Sydney and the plane decreased altitude we ended up in turbulence because it was so windy. They then proceeded to stay in it while doing a big circle out over the ocean. I had not taken any travel sickness tablets because it was a short flight and while I didn’t throw up, I did check the seat pocket to make sure I had a sick bag. Once on the ground we caught an UBER into town and the driver was not a smooth driver. I was really not feeling great on arrival at our apartment so we dropped our bags and headed out for a walk to try to clear my head.

We wandered down to Circular Quay and on our way back stopped at the supermarket and picked up some supplies. For dinner we went to the little Japanese place at the bottom of our apartments. I had a big bowl of Ramen and was feeling a lot better.

Friday morning we both got up and went for separate runs. I did an out and back along the Quay, past Mrs Maquarie’s Chair. It was the most beautiful morning and there were heaps of people out running and groups doing shakeout runs. I would have preferred it if the group leaders had educated themselves regarding the courtesy of staying on the left in Australia as getting round some of the groups was a pain.

After showers and breakfast we headed of to the running Expo to pick up BIBS and check everything out. We met up with a couple of friends from running group, one of whom we haven’t seen since Gold Coast 2024 because she’s moved to Townsville. She was down with her son to run in the marathon, to add the seventh to her big six World Majors. We also met up with Rob DeCastella because our friend is involved in the IMF. Afterwards we went out for lunch then back to our apartment to do some work. For dinner we went to Fabbrica for pasta. It is still excellent. It’s best to make a booking as the wait for tables when we arrived was 20 minutes if you didn’t have a booking and not long after they started turning people away completely.

Saturday morning I got up early and caught the train across the bridge for Sydney’s Biggest Shakeout Run. It was a 5K run that went across the Harbour Bridge, wound around the streets at the base of the bridge, then along the Quay to the Sydney Opera house and back to the Rocks where the after party was. As I was running along the Quay at the Rocks one of the organisers was calling people over into the after party queue which was already pretty long, so I ditched the rest of the run and lined up—I didn’t want to miss out on breakfast. Once in, I got my bag of free goodies, a pastry and drink. They had DJ’s and it was pumping. I hung out until my friend arrived who did miss out on a goodie bag, but got a pastry because I grabbed one for her before they ran out. Once reunited we headed back towards our apartment, detouring to meet G at a cafe for a proper breakfast.

Back at the apartment I had a shower, worked out an attack plan for spectating at the marathon, then had a nap. I got up at about 1 pm and headed out to the Art Gallery of NSW. They had a special exhibition on: Yolnu Power the art of Yirrkala with a free guided tour at 2pm. I took a detour on my way to scope out the spots I’d picked for spectating to make sure they’d work for me and my friend with our friend’s toddler in his stroller. I had booked my ticket for the exhibition online, so once I arrived at the gallery I had a little peak at some other artwork before sitting down to wait for the tour. The tour was fabulous. The guide had been able to visit Yirrkala out in Arnhem Land and her enthusiasm for the art shone through. I can understand why though, the artwork was absolutely amazing. There was an audio-visual installation that moved through different stages. It bought the artist’s connection to country alive in a way that I hadn’t experienced before.

Once back at the apartment I let my friend know our plan for the following morning and the runners what kilometre marks we’d be at. Dinner was down at the Japanese place under our apartment again. This time I had yakitori and it was yummy. Then it was into bed ready for my 6 am wake-up, although G’s was 3:30 am. We’d worked out that the leading pack would probably come past our first stop around the 9km mark just before 7 am and G and B about 7:10. It was about a 600 m walk from our apartment and once in the vicinity we found a good spot next to the road. The parts of the course that we saw generally had a single row of spectators lining barriers (if there was any) but we could always find a clear spot to get right up to the course which made it a lot easier with the stroller.

After seeing G and our friends at the 9K and 13K marks we had some tricky work cut out for us because our next spot required crossing the course. I calculated we had over an hour to navigate this and in the meantime we got to see the two leaders run through at about 800m to go. They looked seriously impressive. I couldn’t believe the way they can run at the end of the marathon—the lean, the power generated by their glutes was impressive. I realised later that this must have been where Kebedew was making his push to drop Aga. All the runners going the other way were about 15K in and clapping them as well. Check out the runner taking a photo while running—haha!

After that exciting interlude, we were back to our conundrum—how to cross the marathon course. On the spectator guide they had a map that showed crossing points but only one of those passed over the top and didn’t require waiting for a lull in runners (an unlikely proposition at this time). Unfortunately that crossing point was inside a square bounded by the marathon course and the water and we were outside that square. Luckily I caught site of the train station and realised we could ride it one stop and then be on the right side of the course to use the overpass into the Botanic Gardens. A few stairs and some steep hills later we made our way to the overpass which required lugging the stroller up and down multiple flights of steps. I really appreciated my strength training at this stage which made it much easier than I expected, although once over I needed to strip off G’s jumper which I’d been wearing up until then because it had been so cold.

We had a lovely stroll through the gardens up to the 39/41km point (the course looped around so we could stay in one spot and see them twice). Our friend decided to go to the TCS VIP area to wait for B (they had access through the IMF) and I stayed on to cheer G and B up the hill. It was a pretty tough section of the course and a number of people were stopping at the fence near me to try to clear cramps.

At this stage I wandered back through the gardens to the athlete meetup area. The live tracking showed G stuck at the roundabout 200 m from the finish but Find Friends showed him finished and out of the finish area. I checked the actual results which showed he was finished ten minutes earlier so I figured he couldn’t be too much longer. This was one of the easier post-major athlete meetups we have done. Normally we avoid the official ones—the crowds are ridiculous, but this was easy with lots of room to spread out and heaps of people were lounging around on the grass, catching up and recuperating with the harbour sparkling in the background. The beautiful weather helped, as if it was rainy, it would not be quite as idyllic. At this stage I must also give a shout out to the designer of the medal, they did an awesome job with the little Sydney Opera House bite out of the bottom. Meanwhile G never did finish the marathon according to the live tracking.

By this stage we were getting texts from our friend worried that she was in the wrong place because B wasn’t there yet and she’d finished ages ago. It turned out that she met Kipchogi!!

G and I headed back home via McDonalds (G always craves junk food after a marathon). We both had naps then headed out to where S and B were staying for celebratory drinks. Some champagne and some wine was had then G and I headed out to dinner at Bennelong. This is G’s favourite Sydney restaurant, and there a lot of people celebrating with their medals on.

Monday G worked while I went for a walking tour of the Botanic Gardens. I had a few possible things on my list to do, but it was such a beautiful day I wanted to be outside. It was good to get a bit more context around the gardens as I’ve been in them numerous times on our visits to Sydney. I walked back around the Harbour and met G for Mee Goreng toasties from the Dutch Smuggler. Back at our apartment it was time for me to do some work as well and after so much eating over the weekend we just got a salad from Woolworths for dinner.

Tuesday morning I did some more work before we checked out and headed to the airport. What a wonderful extended weekend we had!