Brisbane's a beautiful city for running.
It’s
the first week in winter and it comes with an overnight low of 15 degrees. A high for the
day of 24. Perfect.
This makes the prospect of running here enticing! (As compared to the gloves and beanies I’ve been wearing in training).
Welcome to the 2023 Brisbane Marathon.
It's not a huge event. 7 or 8 thousand people across the 4 distances.
The Half and Full go off together at the same time - 6am. I quite enjoyed having both events on course at the same time and the two laps of the same course gives you lots of people to see. (There’s also a 10km and they would really struggle going fast and having to pass the slow longer distance runners.)
And I do love a big city marathon.
They
close the Storey Bridge only four times a year - and this is one of those days.
That’s cool. It’s an iconic landmark of Brisbane and worth running over.
* There’s
a boardwalk (New Farm River Walk) that's about 30m into the water - and you run along
that.
 |
| Finish Line video! |
It
was a really nice size event. Not too big. Not too small.
I
keep writing the word ‘nice’. And I think that’s what it was. Nice is about
right. Not ‘gobsmacking outstanding’. Not ‘oh that was ordinary’. Everything
was just about right.
What can I complain about? Nothing comes to mind. They close the roads and give us the city for the day. Nice!
I’d definitely encourage people to do it. You can’t lose. Make a weekend of it. What a great winter escape.
Organisation | 9 | Nothing to fault really. The Expo bib collection was straight forward. Lots and lots of volunteers. Lots of drink stations (water and electrolytes). | |
Crowd | 8 | Around the start/finish in the garden it was great. And the few spectators on the Bridge was cool. Out the back of the course there was a few. | |
Atmosphere | 7.5 | If you didn't know the event was on in town it would be easy to miss. | |
Course | 8 | The highlight is the Storey Bridge. | |
Expo | 4 | The Expo was at the start/finish area. | |
Medal | 9 | Really nice (there's that word again!) | |
Runner’s pack | 7.5 | Not a bad tshirt. | |
Injuries | 1 | Just a doozy of a black toe nail. On my big toe. | |
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| Obligatory daggy kiss the medal photo! (Storey Bridge in the background) |
