Brisbane Marathon ( I did the 1/2 marathon - 21km)

The alarm went off at 4 am this morning, I was already awake. I got out of bed and ate half a bagel, toped with strawberry cream cheese, a bananna, some OJ and a little water. Mom woke up when I was eating, around 4:20 am, and at 4:30 I went in to wake Cari up. Most of you know that Cari likes her sleep, so waking her up at 4:30am on a Sunday morning is kind of like poking a hornets nest. Thankfully, she wasn't to bad....it took a couple of minutes but she finally got up. At 5am we got in the car and headed to South Bank. The morning was a little cool but nice, perfect 1/2 marathon weather. South Bank was already busy with people when we arrived, the run this year was their biggest yet with around 2000 runners. I posted a couple days earlier that my goal was to finish within 2 hours but expected to finish around the 2 hr 10 minute mark. I ended up with a time of 1hr 51 minutes and 45 seconds!!!! My average pace was 5 minute 9 seconds a km... I actually ran a really relaxed race, I never felt wasted and I finished with a nice sprint. I'm really looking forward to the Gold Coast Marathon, again I'll be entering the 1/2 Marathon and this time I'd like to be around the 1hr 45 minute mark.

I have to run how far? I've never run 21km before!
My support crew at 5:30 in the morning...
Me before the race....
Me during the race....look for the red hat blur.
And finially me crossing the finish line. It started to rain about 1km from the end so I'm a little wet from the rain. The race clock behind me says 1hr 53 minutes and 31 seconds, but my time was actually 1hr 51 minutes and 45 seconds...