A Non-Runners Guide to Running A Half Marathon
The Great Ocean Road Half Marathon✅
Calling this a half marathon is misleading. You see, this is 23 kilometres. Not the typical 21. The only drawcard here is that the run is over some amazingly beautiful, yet punishing, terrain. I don’t know why I signed up for this, apart from the fact that I wanted to say I have completed a half marathon before I turn 40. A stupid reason? Maybe. A noble goal? No. Something I am going to do anyway? Yes.
You may remember this goal, but you’ll be forgiven if not. I laid it out in my Looking Back and Looking Ahead 2025, new-year-new-me, annual goal setting post right here on this very site. Well, I bring great news – maybe not to you, but definitely to me – it has been accomplished!
That’s right dear reader – The Great Ocean Road Half Marathon has been ceremoniously conquered by yours truly. And by conquered, I mean ran. And by ran, I mean I finished without having to be airlifted out. All in all, no embarrassment was caused by my involvement, although, I think I came close once or twice…
Cue the flash back montage – but in word form! This reads much better if you have Eye of the Tiger playing in the background. In fact, I must insist. I’ll wait… Right, now you have that queued up and on repeat…
I started training in earnest around mid-January, because that is when I signed up for this silly endeavour. With about more-than-three-but-less-than-four months to go, my training goal was very simple – go from couch to running, and running distance, in the shortest amount of time possible. I started this plan with a stint of two to three weeks of interval training, and let me tell you, just getting to 3ks was a struggle. The plan itself was simple – run for 3 minutes, walk for 2, and try to keep myself from coughing up a lung. Attempt this 9 times to make up just over 45 minutes or so. This way, the training not only fitted into a lunch break but also ticked off the outdoor workout requirement for 75 Hard: Part 2 (Times Two).
And away I went.
Three days a week, I did these intervals, with a Park Run thrown in every Saturday. Running four times a week! Like an absolute madman in dire need of a hobby. One that involves a couch and some chips. But you see, I had paid for the privilege to run along The Great Ocean Road, and there was no way they were going to get free money out of me! Plus, I had already started to tell some people about this plan of mine, so backing out was a no-go.
To say it was hard is an understatement. You see, although I have blogged many times about running – from running around the block in the evenings back in Napier, to taking part in Park Run, I have never been a real runner. You know, someone who went out for a run because they “feel like it” or because it makes them “feel better”. Nope, for me running was always something I did because I had to. Not because I wanted to. I knew it was good for me, and so I did it. I ran, not because of inner demons, or to quieten my mind, or even for the stress relief. No. I ran so I could eat that donut, get that extra burger, drink the double chocolate Oreo & Peanut Butter milkshake, and still feel like I was being some form of “healthy”. I suppose motivation is different from person to person.
After I got the hang of this interval training (i.e., not feeling like I was going to die each time), it was time to add distance. Forget setting world records for speed – this was all about running without stopping. Slowing when needed. Finishing with little to no gas in the tank. Figuring out when and how to push myself. So from 3km intervals, I went (and this is where Park Run really helped), first to 5km, then to 7, then to 10! Can you believe it, I could run 10kms without stopping. But for those keen of eye, 10kms is not 23. In fact, it’s not even halfway. Lunch times went from an average of 8kms round trips up to 11. I was adding distance but couldn’t break past the mental barrier that occurred around the 11th or 12th kilometre…
But I will say this – between the interval training and doing the longer runs, something strange happened to me. Something I never expected. Something truly horrifying. You see, dear reader, I became A RUNNER! Somewhere during training it went from “this is hard and stupid” to “this is hard and stupid and I am enjoying it.” My body, having being beaten into submission, had now accepted its fate that no matter how much it protested, I was intent on continuing this running nonsense. It just resigned itself the inevitable and started releasing those feel-good chemicals. Although I still couldn’t get past the 12km mark (I kept telling myself it was due to time constraints), I started to really enjoy running. Even the most impressive people you know have their inner demons.
My breakthrough and mental shift came one fateful Saturday when my manager decided we were going to do a long run. How long, you ask. Well… we had planned on hitting 16 or even 18ks. Jim arrived in the afternoon, and off we went – two mad men running down the street. From Southbank we jogged to St Kilda, and then past St Kilda. As we got close to the 9km mark, Jim made a call that forced my entire mental gearing to shift. He suggested we run an extra 2.5ks to make it 11.5, then, with the run back – made it a round trip of 23K and therefore doing the entire distance of the half marathon.
Dear reader, it took us three hours! But we did it! 23kms done and dusted, and I even felt like I could have gone for longer. Sure, my everything hurt, and I slept like a champion that night for a record 11 hours, but we had done the distance and proven to ourselves and each other that we really could handle it. Provided it was all flat and there was a nice beach to look at for most of the run. My mentality shifted from “just have to push through” to “I could really do this and not die”. That in itself is a huge adjustment. What shocked me even more was that after this long run, I found that I really enjoyed it. As in really, REALLY, enjoyed it. Way more than anyone has right to. My conversion into a runner was complete. Although I was/am still in denial.
Race day approached, and the closer it got, the more Kyle Team shrank. Excuses started happening, as one by one Kyle Team went from 5 members, down to one. Kyle Team was all just Kyle. But as I told a few of my friends who helped me train – I am very stubborn, and my stubbornness will either see me complete this race, or end up in hospital trying. Was I let down by some of these excuses? Sure. I mean it’s not fun to have friends pull out, and some excuses were super lame, but hey, I don’t have to live with the knowledge that I spent $180 for nothing.
Now with Act 1 over, it’s onto race day, except it’s not really a race. It’s more just a finish day. My goal was simple – get over the finish line in under 2 and a half hours, and don’t die. Two very simple goals. I didn’t want to complicate the run any more than it needed to be. Side note: during my entire training period, I stayed away from gels and performance enhancing drinks. Not for any reason in particular. But because honestly, I simply forgot they were even a thing. Before the race, Lee bought me some gels which I planned to use. But when reading the package, found out that when you start using them, they come with some interesting side effects. One of which is increased bowel activity. Of the urgent kind. Which makes sense – these things are pure glucose. Your body has nothing to digest, and so it takes the gel, uses it, and evacuates it in record time. Keep this in mind for, uh, no reason…
I woke up at 4 AM. The run started at 8 AM. I had to be in Lorne – which was 20ish minutes away – by 5:30 to catch the bus to the start line. I also wanted to eat some breakfast, drink a coke or two, and basically rub enough Deep Heat on my legs to become a fire hazard. So I got up early, had a shower, taped my nips (because nipple rash while running is not fun – one of the lessons from the Melbourne Marathon 10K I did in 2023), applied copious amounts of Deep Heat, ate breakfast and away we went. Lee, who, up until the night before, was the other remaining member of Kyle Team, dropped me off. In the dark, I joined a line of people and made my way to the bus.
The bus drive itself was uneventful. A lot of nervous chatter between strangers and friends. “Is this your first?”, “Where are you from?” and other polite small talk while everyone came to terms, in their own way, of what they had signed up for. Once or twice, I heard the rumbling of a nervous stomach – thankfully not mine.
The bus delivered us to the start line – still cold and dark. The temperature was about 8 degrees, and the wind chill dropped it further – close to 5 or 6. It was cold! And there was very little to do until the run started. Groups of people huddled wherever they could, got coffee, walked around and queued for the Portaloos. Once the sun started to rise, a few went across the road to the beach to watch. As pretty as it was, it was too cold and I got over it. There are only so many photos one can take of a sunrise when one’s hands are shaking. So back across the road I went to find some form of shelter. At about 7, with more people arriving, and the road starting to close, the organisers started a group warm up session. Now this was really fun! We had someone call out and demonstrate different stretches to help get moving and almost everyone took part. We did our lunges, our heel sweeps, our jumping jacks, and yet the jumpers, sweatshirts and trackies stayed on for most people. The community feel before we’d even started was something I did not expect.
Then it was time to disrobe and pack away the warm clothes, hand over our bags to the trucks and move towards the start line. I made my way to the 7 minute pacer, with the thinking “I can always run faster and overtake which looks impressive. But to start closer to the start line and have the pacer overtake you – now that’s just embarrassing.” So almost all the way to the back of the starting lineup I went.
Standing in the cold, watching the sun rise over the Southern Ocean, with The Great Ocean Road stretching before you, sure is something. I could describe it as beautiful, awe inspiring, or daunting, but it won’t cover the range of emotions, that not only I, but others, felt at that time. I remember standing there, looking at my surroundings with one thought going through my head – how lucky am I to be here!
The start bullhorn went off – no start guns allowed here in the state of Victoria! And we were off. Kinda. Now I’m not an idiot and know that it is no use running to the official start line – my time only starts when I go over the line. So the best way to warm up to running is by not running at all. I think Sun Tzu said that. I joined the crowd in a slow amble down the hill, making my way to the start line, which took me three minutes – that’s how far back I started. But once I passed it, the legs kicked into gear – all the while remembering some sage advice from my training buddy Mark.
“It’s so easy to get caught up in the excitement and push yourself too hard too quickly at the start.”
I started off keeping pace with the 7 minute pacer for the first kilometre just to get warmed up, find my rhythm, and allow those gung-ho to blast past. As I passed the first kilometre, I got comfortable in my running and sped up slightly, admiring the view and just having a really good run. Getting into the rhythm, and relaxing into the run (words I never thought would ever pass my lips, or my fingertips!), I watched the sun completely rise over the ocean. Some people stopped to take photos and that helped me realise that this is supposed to be fun, as hard as it is. It also helped that I had a very good A.I. generated playlist, engineered for my exact pace, playing in my earphones.
It is now a personal belief of mine that everyone should, at some point in their life, run down The Great Ocean Road listening to AC/DC. There is something so right, so cathartic, about having Highway to Hell playing, while you’re slowly jogging up a particularly tough hill. And knowing these legends are from Melbourne themselves, it just fits. I sped up some more, and I found a few people I was able to keep pace with, and just ran. In that moment there is nothing else to life. One foot in front of the other, in some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, just you with your thoughts and the music you’ve chosen to shove into your earholes.
The first drink station came up around the 5km mark, and I wasn’t parched yet, so I skipped it. Preferring, instead, to keep up my pace and stay focused on the run. The second one came up around the 9km mark and I decided to grab a black disposable cup, thinking that there was no difference between the black and white cups. Black looked smarter and I wanted to look smart while I ran. Simple logic, right? Ah, but what I failed to realise was that the black cups contained “Sports Drink”. Remember the point I made about the gels earlier? Yeah… Basically the same thing. I wondered what type of water they had down here that it tasted so good! But I only found out my mistake much later.
As I ran, a few locals had come out on the road to cheer us on and hand out gummy worms. Not being a fan of gummy sweets, but seeing their use, I took one. I need the sugar, I told myself, in order to finish strong, even though I was not hurting yet. I wanted to make sure I got to the end after all, and this was a way to ensure I wouldn’t die of starvation first. Running and chewing gummy worms do not go together, let me tell you that! Most people took a bite and then threw theirs away. I decided after two laboured bite-chew-and-swallows down a dried throat, to treat it like a sucker (or lollipop depending on your locale). But you see, dear reader, my mouth, as mentioned before, wasn’t the lush bed of moisture I had been accustomed to throughout my life. Sucking the gummy worm did nothing as there was nothing to suck but dried, coloured, gelatine. Even better, I thought, just treat it like spaghetti and swallow it whole. Was this a good idea, who can say? It certainly was a choice though. A choice that almost had me either throw up on the side of the road and risk looking much weaker than I was, or die in a choking fit, becoming the first recorded death from not-running while running. Thankfully the constant up-down pounding motion that is running helped the worm make its way down my desert-like throat and avoid any of those embarrassing outcomes.
Ah, the next drink station approaches, and it will surely help me feel better about almost having a gummy worm lodged in my windpipe. I went for the black cup again, thinking this was the best water I have ever tasted, and slowed down enough (although I didn’t stop running), to hear, as I gulped half of it, that was indeed, “Sports Drink”. On hearing that, I threw the rest away, but the damage was done. My stomach was now deciding the first sports drink, in conspiracy with the death-gummy, was going to speed up everything before it. Oh dear. My goals for the run where now
- Finish the run in under 2 and half hours
- Don’t die
And the new goal that suddenly appeared - Don’t shit yourself
And number three was very quickly rising to the top of the list…
Stomach cramps probably helped me not focus on the rest of the pain my body was feeling, and two things happened in short succession thereafter.
Around the 16th kilometre, my earphones died. Apparently they didn’t charge overnight properly and forgot to inform me of their predicament. Then around the 18th kilometre, I hit a wall. The run, which beforehand was physical – don’t choke on a gummy worm, adjust your leg so your knee doesn’t hurt, take a longer stride so your calf doesn’t cramp – now became a mental game. I could feel my body was tired but I knew I could get to the end. My energy levels were still pretty high, and nothing was in massive pain (yet). But my mind… It was screaming at me to stop. To walk. To catch my breath. It’s one of the strangest things I have ever experienced, because logically it doesn’t make sense. Mentally it’s a war with yourself. I just kept telling myself two things – one: if I walk, I probably won’t be able to start running again and two: I just have 5kms left to go – I do these every Saturday at Park Run after all.
With that, I pushed through, was able to keep my pace steady, and allow my absolute bullheadedness to force me onwards while my mind kept wanting me to stop. About the 20k mark though, it subsided, which I think is due to the intense stomach cramps and some woman who would pass me only to slow down only to pass me again when I passed her. Talk about annoying. Just keep jogging and stop trying to play leap frog with me! Anyways, it allowed me to focus on other things, and that allowed me to just keep placing one foot in front of the other.
As I started the descent into Apollo Bay, my hips, my abs, and my knees had had enough and they were very kindly telling me so. I passed the 21km mark, and then another thing happened that I did not expect. I lost speed. I was able to keep jogging but it slowed almost right down. To the point where the last 2km took me 20 minutes to cover! It wasn’t a mental thing either as goal 3 was now firmly and miles ahead in position 1.
Coming over the last hill, and onto the main road, the locals were out in force. Cheering, ringing cow bells, clapping, giving high fives and just being in great spirits. Hearing them yell “the finish line is so close, just one corner to go” really helped to revitalise me. Either it was their yelling, or the promise of a vacant toilet, but I could speed up again. The last few hundred metres was some of my fastest for the whole run.
Crossing the finish line and I almost burst into tears. All the training, all the time it took, the actual day – its ups and downs – both course-wise and mentally – all came on me at once. The emotions of setting a giant goal, something you never thought you could or want to do, and accomplishing it – that hits you like a ton of bricks and leaves you changed in ways you can’t explain. You’ve become the person that does what they say they are going to do, no matter how hard it is. My only regret is that there was no one there to share it with. If Simone and James had been at the finish line, I think I would have cried. I would have sat down and let my emotions wash over me.
Maybe next year I’ll get that luxury?
When you’re out there, running along the road, listening to your breathing, taking in the sight of the ocean, listening to the rhythmic pounding of your feet hit the ground – that’s something else entirely. Something I will forever treasure as one of the best experiences of my life.
In early 2025, I set a goal – to run and finish a half marathon. I wanted to do this before I was 40 to say I’ve done one. I wanted to push myself past myself and see what I could accomplish when I really, and I mean, REALLY, tried. I wanted to know what it felt like to get a runners high, to hit the wall, to have the aches and pains and to top it off with the sense of a job well done. I wanted the physical and mental challenge that is you against you.
In May 2025, I ran 23 kilometres from Kennet River to Apollo Bay, along some of the most beautiful terrain in all of Australia, and I did it in two hours and twenty three minutes (2:23).
And I didn’t shit myself!
I call that a job very well done.
As for the music I chose to shove into my earholes – I got A.I. to make me a playlist based on my expected pace, and told it to help me speed up and slow down in order to keep up my energy. This is the playlist he came up with. You know, just in case you want to try it out on your next half marathon. I have also added a few songs I felt were missing because no computer is going to tell me exactly what to do!
As I am doing the Run Melbourne Half Marathon in a month’s time, I’ll leave this playlist for posterity and create a new one. Suggestions are welcome!
