Website: www.hbfrun.com.au
I took part in this 14km event in Perth today, being Sunday 23rd Mat 2010. This was the first time this event had been held and I’m proud to be a part of it. It is very rare I get to participate in something when it’s created. The course was excellent and the event overall was well planned.
I hadn’t done much training in the build up to it, so I was a little worried about the long distance where I usually up to 10km or 12km normally. In the week before, I had done some intervals training which involved speed work and around a 10km run the following day. So my preparation was sparse. When it comes to these races, I usually do it if I say I will do it.
The day before the race, I figured out when to leave home to get there in time and decided to get some new running gear. I had mostly old stuff and nothing that was suitable for cold weather. There was potential for some decent rainfall, so I believed it would be worth it. I got all of my stuff ready the night before. I’m up at 5am on Sunday and only got a few hours sleep, but I felt OK in the morning. I had breakfast and left the house about 5:40am. I parked up at my parents and walked down to the train station, which got me into Perth about 6:30am. They provided buses to get runners to the WACA where the start and finish was. Everyone lined up at the start from 7:30am onwards and we were off at 8am.
The first part took us towards Riverside Drive along the river and we headed east on Riverside Drive all the way to the end up to the Mitchell Freeway. That contributed to a few kilometers of the 14km. Getting onto the Mitchell Freeway was not as bad as I expected. I had thought it might be tough hill or a climb upwards, but it was a steady slope which was easy to tackle. Following the freeway, we got to the Northbridge Tunnel which is part of the Graham Farmer Freeway.
The Northbridge Tunnel is roughly 1.6km long and runs under a small part of Perth. It was quite an experience to run though it rather than driving through. The only downside is that if your not at the front of the race, it gets a bit hot from those already who have run through it. Coming out of the tunnel took us to a very long stretch of the Graham Farmer Freeway which took us to the other side of Perth and across the Swan River. Once over the river, we done small loop over a bridge and eventually coming off the freeway and onto a pathway which led us down the side of the Swan River towards Burswood. This was also a very long straight stretch of path which felt like it took a while to get through.
The last part of the course is simply going back over the Swan River via two bridges and heading into the WACA to finish. The actual course ended up being an extra 500 meters, so we actually ran 14.5km, but it was worth it. I finished the event with a time of just under 1 hour and 30 minutes, official time is yet to be published.
A course map can be found here.
I feel that the worse part of the day was collecting my bag and belongings after the race. They had kept them secure and a bag drop off area, but the helpful volunteers either randomly shouted out numbers of bags or got your number and went looking. With as many as a couple of hundred of people getting their bags at a time, this actually took about half an hour for myself. That is a lot of standing around in the cold after a race, and is not good for stiff legs and muscles (even after stretching and warming down). I’m happy that it didn’t rain at this time.
There is no doubt the event was a success overall that raised nearly $220 000 for 6 charities. An excellent day and I’m very happy I did it.