We head to the terminal in the morning, stopping at Gloria Jeans for a Creme brûlée latte. We head to the gate, and soon after, board our plane. It is a short 55 minute flight to Canberra airport, neither of us have flown into Canberra before. It is a great airport, very clean and modern. We walk to the taxi rank and before we know it have arrived at our hotel.
We check in, even though it's only 10.30 in the morning, take our bags to our room, and head outside. it is glorious outside; it's been cold and wet at home. We walk down to the museum and spend some time marvelling at the displays. We walk back to the other side of Canberra towards the gallery, where we have purchased tickets to see the Gold and the Inca exhibition. We marvel at the gold, the handcrafted drinking vessels, and the gold, then have a quick look at the Sidney Nolan display; he is one of my favourite artists.
The afternoon is passing all too quickly, and we make our way to the Australian War memorial. It is quite a walk up Anzac parade, and we stop and look at the memorials along the way. Inside the Australian War memorial we take a wander through the displays and then position ourselves for the last post. We are privileged to witness a memorial service for one of the WWII diggers. The last posts echoes through the late afternoon, and we leave to make tracks back to the hotel. We think we must have walked a half marathon already!
We decide on pasta for dinner, and find a place that delivers; no more walking for today. Our delivery arrives, we eat, watch footy, then prepare for our early morning departure. We must walk 3.7km to the start line.
I try to take it easy walking to the start, but Darren is a stride or 3 ahead of me. Soon we catch up to other runners, and I am still quite happy to take it slow; I didn't want to use all my energy getting to the start line.
At the start line area, we ask a lady to take our photo and she explains that this is her first half marathon. I tell her it's our 4th for the year, and that we are running in every state and territory in Australia this year. She gets excited and asks me if I'm 'Sharon', when I answer yes, she says "you must be Darren" and explains she had been reading our blog. Life became too busy to keep up with posts, and I hadn't posted for almost 2 months, but I am inspired knowing that it really is read by people and inspires others. Even though I didn't catch her name! this post is for you!
We head to the start line, and Darren gives me his customery kiss on the cheek? I tell him I'll see him at the finish line as always. It's a single lap course so I'm not sure that I will see him out there. It's a well organised run, lots of drink stations, wide paths, and amazing scenery. I must admit, it was exciting running around Parliament House with the Australian Federal Police on the side of the road.
It is quite warm in the sun, and at the 16km mark I see a man on the ground I a red singlet and black shorts, and I panic...I hope it's not Darren. As I get closer the paramedics are looking after him, and I am relieved; firstly that he is ok, secondly that it's not Darren. I push on, a few hills, and soon I hear my Runkeeper announce it's 20km, yet the sign post says 19km. Oh dear! I think I am going to have to run an extra kilometre. Sure enough, I run through the finish line and it is 22km in total. I'm spent, Darren is spent. We eat, drink and then slowly walk back to our room. We shower, them jump in the pool for a while. The water is cool, not the 27 degrees we thought it was, but the water is good for us, so we stay.
We spend the afternoon eating and relaxing before our flight home. I'm exhausted, I just want to sleep. Soon we land, and drive home. I unpack the bare essentials, hug and kiss the boys, then head to bed. Sleep comes so easy on the night after a half marathon, and come to think of it, the following night too. We are sore for the usual 2 days, by Wednesday we are feeling pretty normal again, and talking about the 'next' one.
Our next run however, isn't a half marathon, it's the ANZAC run on Easter Monday, a 10km run. It's going to be pretty special as an inaugural run, but special as ny middle son, Billy, is doing the run, in place of my little sis who is nursing an injured foot at the moment.
I'll keep you posted in a couple of days about that run.
Happy Easter
Xx
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