It’s that time of year again, Wings For Life World run, where the finish line chases you. This will be my third year doing this event in Melbourne. The event is unique in two ways, the first being the finish line and the second is that there are events around the world that all start at the same time. In Melbourne that’s 9pm on a Sunday night.
The aim is simple, run as far as you can before the catcher car passes you. As soon as it does you’re finished. The car starts 30 minutes after the runners start and incrementally increases its speed until everyone is caught. Some of the runners & chairs make it past 85km.
Heading down to the event hub just after midday on the Sunday to pick up my shirt, head torch and bib I managed to run in to a few familiar faces.
I registered my interest for this race at 1am after getting home from the 2017 run, then when registrations open a few months later I signed up. Somehow I ended up with number 74. Considering there around 100,000 runners worldwide, 74 is a nice low bib.

With bibs collected we chatted for a while, took a group photo and headed off to do our own thing until later that evening.

Getting back to the event hub at about 7:30pm I located TXR Runners and we did our group photo.

Then I found the insta runners for another group photo.

Paul was going to lead a group aiming for a half marathon (21.1km) before being caught. This was my A goal, it wasn’t really viable as holding that pace for 21.1km including hills was a bit beyond my abilities.
They started calling the different groups down to the start area. Fastest runners first. I was in group 3 of 4. I tagged on as group two headed down with a few friends and once on freeway ramp we made our way forward. The issue with starting further back is that the catcher car heads off 30 minutes after the start, if it takes you 3 minutes to get over the line then you’ve lost 3 minutes.

Soon after 9pm ticked over and we were off!

I stuck with Paul for 7km, and then the course got steeper and I got slower. I watched Paul disappear into the distance. I settled in to my running up hills slower pace. I also found out later that Paul may have got carried away and gone a bit faster than planned. Either way there was no way I was holding that pace on the night.

Basically the first 10km of the run is uphill. It changes to gently undulating after that. But if you’re done after the first 10km it’s going to be a tough.

My B goal was to get to 20km, this one still seemed within reach. My pace was still okay up to 14.5km then it dropped off a bit. The 20km goal was slipping away, but my quads had let me know they weren’t happy any more.

My C goal was to beat last years 17.42km.  This year when I first heard the catcher car beeping somewhere in the distance behind me I was at 18km, so I had beat last year! Unless you do this event you won’t really understand how hearing that car spurs you to a turn of speed you didn’t think you had.

I picked up the pace, back to around 5:00/km until it finally caught me at 19.37km. An extra 1.95km on last year’s result. Yes!

See you next year!