57. Climb Sydney Harbour Bridge

7th July 2012

Having travelled down from Brisbane after my marathon run, i decided that i would be a perfect opportunity to complete another item on my bucket list with a climb of the Sydney harbour bridge. I therefore booked in a twilight walk up the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

After about an hour of prepartion including working the safety attachment and climbing with them and suiting up into our jump suits, we climbed out under the bridge onto the suspension walkways with views down to the ground from about 50 metres. Unfortunately the walkway areas and spaces were very cramp and required a bit of maneovuering to get through.

After the initial walkways we climbed up through the big concrete pylons, up next to the road with cars and trains passing us by and up further before reaching the outer arch and started climbing with occasional stops to view out over Circular Quay and out to the sea. We then got to the top and had photos taken right at the top the Harbour bridge before crossing over to the western side and getting a different view out over darling harbour and further towards western Sydney and further just as the sun was setting.

Amazing views over Sydney especially as we reached sunset and some great information from our guide, Hannah. Well worth the time (3 and 1/2 hours all up), however was a bit costly ($288) but well worth the one time experience but probably something i wouldn't do again but was pretty awesome.

22. Run Marathon by age 30

1st July 2012

After over 350 hours of training i headed up to the Gold Coast on Saturday morning to compete in the Gold Coast marathon. After a day in Gold Coast and an early night i awoke about 530am to prepare, get ready and warm up for the race. After getting a good warm up and feeling good before the race, i was very confident about a good time close to 4 hours.

After good pacing in the first 15kms of about 5:12 min/km i was on pace to break hours 4 hours, i felt a twinge in my left hamstring (which had previously played up but i thought was all better) and had to drop the pace significantly.

However i managed to finish the marathon in 4 hours 46 minutes but was otherwise disappointed in my finishing time. My split times are listed in the table below and show the drop off in pace. I am now considering running the Melbourne Marathon in October and attempting to break 4 hours.

SPLIT TIMES
split point	split time	s/rank	race time	r/rank	activity	distance	pace	speed
Five Kilometre Splits
5KM	00:25:54	3342	00:25:54	1900	RUN	5.00	05:10	11.58
10KM	00:26:03	2048	00:51:57	1945	RUN	5.00	05:12	11.51
15KM	00:26:18	2178	01:18:15	2029	RUN	5.00	05:15	11.41
20KM	00:29:40	3475	01:47:56	2516	RUN	5.00	05:56	10.11
25KM	00:36:02	4414	02:23:58	3284	RUN	5.00	07:12	8.32
30KM	00:39:56	4384	03:03:54	3586	RUN	5.00	07:59	7.51
35KM	00:41:57	4134	03:45:52	3745	RUN	5.00	08:23	7.15
40KM	00:43:04	3942	04:28:57	3789	RUN	5.00	08:36	6.96
Finish	00:17:06	3962	04:46:03	3865	RUN	2.20	07:46	7.72
Half Way Splits
Half Way	01:54:52	3965	01:54:52	2595	RUN	21.10	05:26	11.02
Finish	02:51:10	3962	04:46:03	3865	RUN	21.10	08:06	7.40