This weekend was the Gold Coast Marathon.

Although I wasn’t running in the Marathon, we transferred my entry to Rheanna to run the half-marathon. We travelled down on Saturday before lunch, and were struck by a little bit of traffic around Broadbeach. We had lunch, and then wandered over to the Gold Coast convention centre for the Marathon expo.

Sanjay on the Gold Coast

Gold Coast convention centre

The expo was ok. When we entered it was quite a big room, and it looked quite impressive. Upon moving around however we discovered that the exhibitors occupied less than half the room, and many of them had things that were repeated at another exhibitor.

We bought some Injinji products, 2 spi belts and I got a pair of their socks that cover each toe individually. People rave about them, but i’m not so sure. The guy explaining the product to us was a moron, stating that the Australian ultramarathon runners use them and run 250km a day! I’d suggest he gets his facts right next time! Anyway thought I’d try a pair. But the queues to get served were quite long.

The expo made me realise how much I miss running, and gave me new inspiration. It was badly organised but good by Australian standards! (If you get what I mean)

After that we made our way to our accomodation. We were staying at Royal Pines resort in Ashmore. Boy was it classy. We drove up towards the entrance and the bellboy motioned for us to park at the entrance. He asked for our bags and we weren’t quite sure what we were supposed to do. He asked if we wanted valet parking…but I can park my own car and I didn’t want to pay a fortune to move it a few metres to the carpark!

It was a beautiful resort. It has 3 golf courses, tennis courts, massive gardens, a health spa…you name it. Even the lifts had a seat in it! Never seen that before.

Me in the elevator

The room was quite nice except it had 2 double beds. Weird! We were 15 floors up, and the views out over the golf course were awesome. It would have been nice to stay there a bit longer and enjoy the resort.

Our room Royal Pines resort

View from our room at Royal Pines resort

We went out to dinner at Cav’s steakhouse at Labrador and had an interesting experience. Rheanna had chicken pasta, and I had a steak. You choose your cut of meat, and I chose a piece of rump. When it came out, it was damn tough to eat! I was spitting out half the meat because I couldn’t chew through it. The guy came around and asked how our meal was, so I said it wasn’t great. (I’m not going to lie anymore. Service in this country is rubbish and they should know about it!)

He was a bit surprised and went away and came back. He said they’d replace it as he wanted to ensure I enjoyed my meal, and that the restaurant didn’t want me to be unhappy. They replaced my entire meal, including the potato and salad. The potato was even worse…I wanted my first potato back!

The duty manager asked me if this steak was any better. I couldn’t cut it! Man the pressure as he stood over me…he said he’d come back as I couldn’t cut the steak. I think we were both nervous. It was better than the first steak, but I had to cut it into small pieces. And we still wouldn’t ever go back there! I still cook a better steak than any restuarant I’ve been to here in Australia.

After remembering we forgot our toothbrushes, we made a quick stop at a Supermarket, before retiring for the night at 8pm. I got up at 11pm, to watch the 3rd rugby test between South Africa and the British and Irish Lions. That was a waste of time as South Africa were disgraceful, and I was tired when we woke at 4am. Rheanna was not too happy that she couldn’t get a full night’s sleep either.

We made our way to the start line just after 5am, and boy was it cold. We got there about 5.30am and the half-marathon started at 6.20am. It was quite chaotic, and organised quite stupidly…but hey what do you expect in this place?

Rheanna at start of Gold Coast half-marathon

It was quite depressing seeing everyone else run. The Marathon started at 7.30am, quite late for a Marathon.

Rheanna had quite a good run, starting out 6:35 pace for the first 5km. She stopped for the toilet around this time and wasted over 5 minutes. She got progressively slower over the second half of the race but came in with a time of 2:22:39 which was a great effort for her first half-marathon!

Rheanna running last km Gold Coast half-marathon

Rheanna at finish line of Gold Coast half-marathon

Rheanna after Gold Coast half-marathon

After leaving the race precinct, which took awhile because nobody can organise anything in an organised and logical manner in this place, we went back to the Royal Pines resort, had a shower and checked out.  

It took us just over an hour to get home, and by that stage it was time to have a rest…well for some anyway!