I had a big smile on my face for the entire marathon. My plan was to beat last years time and I executed that to perfection. Could I have gone faster? Definitely. I felt fresh afterwards and even took the stairs at work today. But I'm very happy with that to be honest!

My mistake in all my other marathons is that I've gone out too fast and then crashed and burned so the plan was to find the 4:30 pacer and stick to him. I did this until he needed to go to the loo at about the 25km mark. In hindsight I should have just cruised along then while he caught up but I sped up a bit instead and this resulted in a slow down as he caught me again at St Heliers. I stuck with him till just past Okahu Bay and then commenced with my slow down. I knew at that point I was definitely going to be faster than last year so I just cruised to the finish and enjoyed it!

19 minutes faster than last year and I think this was my best marathon yet in terms of enjoyment.

My only real mistake in this marathon was that I should have started carb loading on Thursday evening rather than in June. :)