The Sydney Marathon 2010 course route had been re-designed since last year. The changes to the marathon resulted in a new loop course after crossing the Harbour Bridge with the opening 8km remaining pretty well the same out of Art Gallery Road and into Hyde Park along the central pathway and crossing Park Street on a purpose built bridge to avoid traffic congestion in the city. By utilising some bus lanes along Anzac Parade, Driver Avenue and additional kilometres in Centennial Park the course no longer headed all the way down Anzac Parade into Randwick.
After returning back to the City the Surry Hills section of the course was removed with runners returning to the city via Hyde Park and heading north to Circular Quay then following the foreshore around the Park Hyatt and into Hickson Road to the flyover into Ultimo. Turning then just behind Darling Harbour and returning on the same route through the Rocks, around Circular Quay and finishing of course on the Opera House forecourt.
These course changes make up a considerably smaller footprint and were primarily motivated to ease traffic congestion within the city to allow better traffic movement through and around the city, airport, eastern suburbs and the inner west. By removing some of the hills and the often referred to ‘boring’ section of the City West Link organisers are convinced the course is even more scenic and certainly potentially faster. The removal of this 'boring' section was a welcome relief as this was also the hottest section of least inspiring section of the course.
The morning was ideal for marathon running and following the adjustment to the course and the opening half way passed in Centennial Park was well ahead of projections while feeling strong at 1:55. It was around 25-26km that the opening speed started to catch up with me and I decided to pull back a little and stop attempted to keep pace with other runners.
The new course layout certainly was an improvement on heading out west although the pain in Pyrmont was not avoided on this new course. This is one of the more challenging periods of the race when you are searching for the finish line and you must continue to run away from the City around the streets of Pyrmont and up one nice little hill that is sure to test the best of runners closing in on the 42km stage. Following a little water in Pyrmont and time to gather my thoughts I set my sights on heading back in towards the City and down Hickson Road passing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the finish line at the Sydney Opera House.
It was great to pass a number of runners over the closing stages of my home marathon to cross the line in just over 4 hours. All up a big improvement on the previous year and something to work towards smashing the 4 hour barrier in 2011.
First Half - 21.10km
Split time - 01:52:18
Split time rank - 1344
Race time - 01:55:39
Race time rank - 1338
Pace - 05:19
Speed - 11.27
Second Half - 21.10km
Split time - 02:15:20
Split time rank - 1848
Race time - 04:10:59
Race time rank - 1646
Pace - 06:24
Speed - 9.35
Official time - 4:07:38
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