Run Melbourne, Australia. July 2023.
Melbourne’s Half Marathon’s slogan, “Run Melbourne”, comes true with a flat and scenic course that includes the wide streets of the financial district, the pedestrian riverbanks with their cafés and museums, and lush parks next to terraced Victorian houses.
🌍 The trip 📷
We arrived in Melbourne after a flight more than 5 hours long from Bali. When arriving from Indonesia, the Australian authorities check thoroughly for animal or plant products. This is not to “endanger the ecosystem and the Australian agricultural industry”. It’s a crime that can lead to jail time, or at least put you in a TV show. I declared a few tea bags and I could pass 😇
We found a “warm winter”, but it was still cold in Melbourne in July. It was around 12C, and we felt it even colder as we came from Southeast Asia. We had packed winter running clothes, remembering at the last minute that we were going to the southern hemisphere. And we suffered to keep our carry-on baggage under 7kg (another travel restriction around here) 😱
At first glance, I found Melbourne similar to many US cities. Suburbs that felt soulless, with very wide streets and sad shops with chinese characters. Its only beauty being a string of very British Victorian houses. A friend who has been living here for years summarized it for me while we were sipping cocktails later in a rooftop bar downtown. “Australia is a mix of British heritage, US ambitions and Chinese influence”.
The taxi took us to our hotel, a small but functional motel in the middle of CFD, Melbourne’s “Central Financial District”. And we set off to visit it.
Soon we understood the hype about Melbourne. It is truly a magnificient city.
Starting with the National Gallery of Victoria, we crossed the Yarra river over the Victorian Princes bridge and admired Australia’s second busiest train station, the also Victorian Flinders Street Railway station. One can walk Melbourne’s city center in a day, and recognise some of the scenarios of the famous detective novel by Fergus Hume, “The mystery of a Hansom Cab”, published in 1866 (20 years before Sherlock Holmes’ ones!). We felt like the main character, “Fred” Pycroft.
At the hour of one o’clock in the morning, he was driving down Collins Street East, when, as he was passing the Burke and Wills’ monument, he was hailed by a gentleman standing at the corner by the Scotch Church.
“The Mystery of a Hansom Cab”, Fergus Hume
Afterwards we walked around the center, seeing Melbourne’s Town Hall, entering the Royal Arcade and the Block arcade, and ending up in the famous Old Melbourne’s Gaol. In here they hanged bushranger Ned Kelly.
And then a wail of agony cut through the darkness. It was young Johnny Jones. A police bullet had smashed through the wall and into frail Johnny, just above his hip. Mortally wounded, he screamed for help. ‘Oh, mother! I am shot!
“The true story of Ned Kelly’s last stand”, Paul Terry.
The Great Ocean Road 📷
The day after we traveled the Great Ocean Road. The road was built between 1919 and 1932 by soldiers returning from WWI. And it is dedicated to those killed. So, in fact, it is the world’s largest war memorial: 240 kilometers long.
It is also one of the most beautiful scenic coastway routes in the world, through windswept cliffs and empty beaches, that made me evoke times of exploration and adventure. In fact, adventurous was, and is: in this area hundreds if not thousands of shipwrecks have taken place off its coast.
We started seeing a magnificent sight: the 12 Apostles, a collection of limestock stacks which impressed me vividly. In fact, it was one of the most beautiful places I have seen.
Later we walked to the equally impressive Loch Ard gorge, named after a famous shipwreck in which only 2 youngsters survived, is also a marvel of nature. And going down the Gibson Steps to the beach, being able to walk along the sand under the rugged tall cliffs and see up close the Gog and Magog (named after an ancient legend) made me feel very small.
Our tour, like most of them, took us also to the cold rainforest, where we saw the world’s tallest flower tree: more than 100 meters tall! And we even got to see a koala in the wild, hugging a branch of eucalyptus tree, unaware of the pictures we were frantically taking.
🍜 Carboloading 🍝
For carbo loading, we enjoyed some noodles in Chinatown, the oldest operating Chinatown in the world, where we found a restaurant that boasted to know Chairman’s Mao “secret recipes” 🙂
For recovery, you can choose a variety of meats. Australian’s love Barbies (barbacues): it is almost a national tradition! And you can also try Kangaroo steak: 100g contain approximately 25g of protein. Kangaroo meat is a rich source of high-quality protein, which makes it popular among health-conscious individuals. But if you prefer fish, Australian’s Barramundi is very popular: high on protein and very healthy. Here you can find Australian recipes to cook it.
📅 The Marathon Expo 🎽
We only go to enjoy the “Event Village” very early, right before the race on Sunday.
We had booked our hotel not for its comfort or luxury, but because it was very close to the departure and arrival of the race, Batman avenue. This is in front of the Rod Laver arena, which is home to the Australian open and thus added to the “sporting event” atmosphere. Plus there was grass for warming up.
Runners could collect their BIBs in Sole Motive stores (one of the race sponsors) for several days, and in “Event Village” on Saturday, but we had to pick them up on the same Sunday. We went there at 5:45am and collected them smoothly.
At that early time the village was already buzzing with excitement, with a speaker praising “those who woke up so early to cheer up the runners”. There was music, information points and a lot of sponsor stands, including a Sole Motive one, where we also collected some cool merchandising with the R and the M of the “Run Melbourne” that coincides with our own initials 😀
🏃♀️ The race 🏃♂️
Several waves (A-D) set off with 15 minutes difference while speakers played a curious combination of music (from “Every breath you take” to “Tubthumping”) and we ran the first part of the race through the wide streets of the central financial district. It was still dark, the skyscrapers were lit up with neon lights, and we were running amongst many sporting “mad rabbit crew” t-shirts. I learned later that it is a local running club.
The first hydration point was at kilometer 4, followed by another at kilometer 6, and included water and energy drinks. We ran most of the first part of the race along the riverbanks of the Docklands, with yachts in the basins and modern and expensive residential buildings: we ran on pedestrian sidewalks, in front of restaurants, cafes and museums. This was truly unique, as most urban marathons are run on the asphalt of the streets, not on the sidewalks.
Runners commented that running here is “definitely easier than a trail race, where you need to be always alert not to get lost”. The whole thing had a feeling of a Sunday’s urban run.
The course continues up the Yarra Riverbank, while rowers practice in the river next to their boat clubs.
At kilometer 11 enters the grand Royal Botanical Gardens. The on-course entertainment picks up here, with a couple of musicians playing Johnny Cash’s “Ring of fire” with a guitar and an electronic keyboard. And, most surprisingly, a choir of at least 50 singers singing Robbie Williams’ “Let me entertain you”.
The final part feels very uplifting. You run with the green beauty of plane trees and oaks, and hundreds of people cheering.
There are marks in the last meters (600… 500.. 400m to go…), and you cross the finish line amongst a festive atmosphere. It becomes evident that, when it comes to sporting events, Melbourne knows how to put on a show.
You are given a medal (the same for the half and the shorter races), drinks and protein bars.
Later you get to download a certificate and race pictures. The pictures are taken frequently, and in good spots (so you can see Melbourne’s landmarks in the background!).
In summary, Run Melbourne 2023 was the perfect race to enjoy a city that lives and breathes sport.
🏆 Run Melbourne Half Marathon (21K) / 10k / 5.2K. Number of runners: 12,000.
⛰️ Difficulty: Easy. Flat, fast course.
🌐 Website https://runmelbourne.com.au/
🗓️ Mid July in Melbourne, Australia, Oceania.
👟 City shoes. Winter gear (temperatures range from 5 to 12 degrees C).
🏅 A “Run Melbourne” medal (the same for 21k and 10k races). And a completion certificate that you can download online.
✅ Very well organized. Nice atmosphere, photographers placed in good spots, frequent hydration and on-course entertainment. Even a choir of around 50 people singing uplifting tunes! Good if you are undertaking a half marathon “7 continents” challenge.
✅ Flat and scenic course. It is designed to truly “run melbourne”. Not only you run in the wide streets of the “CFD”, but on the river banks, past restaurants, cafes and museums. And in beautiful parks.
❌ Difficult to get to if you do not live in Oceania. Expensive to fly if you live in Europe, Africa or America.
❌ Quite cold, specially since it has a very early start, at 7am.
Map
One book
“The Mystery of a Hansom Cab”, by Fergus Hume.
Apparently Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not write the first detective novel. Fergus Hume did. And it takes place in Melbourne in mid XIX century. “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab”. It starts stating that “truth is said to be stranger than fiction”. Together with a newspaper report “of this great city” that reads like this:
On the twenty-seventh day of July, at the hour of twenty minutes to two o’clock in the morning, a hansom cab drove up to the police station in Grey Street, St. Kilda, and the driver made the startling statement that his cab contained the body of a man who he had reason to believe had been murdered
I really enjoyed the mistery. Not only because we happened to be staying very close to the scenarios of the novel, also in July! 🧐
Summary: When a man is found murdered inside a Melbourne hansom cab at the end of his journey, the police quickly find out who he was and ascertain that he has been robbed of a certain piece of paper. But what did the document contain, and who was prepared to kill to him for it? First published in Australia in 1886, and described by John Sutherland as the nineteenth century’s ‘most sensationally popular crime and detective novel’, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab sold out in three weeks and went on to sell more than half a million copies worldwide. With ‘more twists and turns than a python swallowing a corkscrew’ (Anthony Gardner, from the foreword) and considerably ahead of its time in both format and content, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab remains, over a century later, as thrilling as the very best of Sherlock Holmes.
To know more…
| 📖 “The true story of Ned Kelly’s last stand”, by Paul Terry. 📖 “Ellen: a woman of Spirit”, by Noelene Allen. 📖 Miss Fisher’s murder mysteries series: “Cocaine blues” and “Flying high” by Karen Greenwood. 🎬 “Miss Fisher’s murder mysteries”, TV series, 2012. |
“Miss Fisher’s murder mysteries”, TV series, 2012
I have been a big fan of Phryne Fisher, the fashionable and sassy detective, for years. The series has three seasons and takes place in Melbourne in the 1920s. For this trip I also read two of the original books by Kerry Greenwood, “Cocaine Blues” and “Flying too high”.
I love everything about Phyrne, but specially that she drives a Hispano-Suiza, a Spanish car no less!
And with this, we have arrived to the end of the post… like this street in Melbourne!
