Melbourne Marathon 2014 Race Day Review

It was an early start to the marathon and left the Hyatt Hotel around sunrise. It starts on Batman Avenue inside of Melbourne Park. Below are some pictures along Batman Avenue.

Below is the start line about 30 minutes before the race. Runners were held behind some barriers and were allowed to walk up to the start line about 15 minutes before the race started. There were ample restroom facilities at the starting area and the weather was great in 2014. It was around the mid 50F.

Once the marathon started, it was a bit crowded on Batman Avenue into the first turn on Flinders street.

There was adequate hydration along the course with a mixture of water and sports drink. There was a station with bananas but couldn’t remember where.

Below are some pictures through Royal Gardens in Melbourne, which had great views of downtown Melbourne. Another perk about running through Victoria Park is to get to run through the pit area of Formula 1 (not pictured). Of course nothing was open, but it was still pretty cool. You also realize how fast those cars go since they can zip by the pit area in a few seconds, where it took me about 5 minutes to run through it.

Parts of the course in the Royal Gardens was narrow due to the out and back sections so there was a small bit of slow down there, which was unavoidable. I was running at a 4:30 pace and it was pretty crowded at least 10 minutes in front or behind me.

The race winds through a few different parts of Melbourne. The section on Beach Street and Beaconsfield Parade felt extremely long because of the out and back the entire way. It was pretty much flat and scenic, but there was little shade in some sections of the course. I definitely got a nice tan during the race.

Summary

It was a very nice day for the race. Most of the race was fairly flat and a pretty fast course. There were some narrow parts of the course in the Royal Gardens that slowed me down a bit. The lack of shade was an issue in some parts of the course. There was adequate hydration stations, but some of them were crowded in the first half of the race. Luckily the half marathoners don’t start until an hour later so you only see the elite half marathoners run past you.

The finish area was a bit confusing to navigate out of. The finish area was about 1/2 mile south of downtown past some train tracks so it was hard to get back to downtown. There were some volunteers to help with the flow of traffic, but it wasn’t clear where to go at first.