The road to Sydney......  by Sophie Kennedy

What feels like many months ago I decided to reflect on my running journey and make a choice about my next running challenge. My running career started in Sydney in 2013 at the Sydney Blackmores half marathon and I thought, well why not try the marathon course? It’s meant to be one of the most picturesque!

With the decision made, I started the journey with what has seemed like a thousands of 4am starts, some even 3am, countless runs along the Brisbane river, physio and dietitian appointments and mountains of sweaty washing.

Pre race Saturday was filled with the obligatory pre race park run in North Sydney with the Fortius crew. It was a good hit out pre race, but the post Parkrun breakfast with Pip, Mirjana and Matt was amazing.

Other normal pre marathon activities included carb loading and fueling with friends. Matt embarked on a little marathon himself, hitting the Ale Trail in Sydney’s inner west. He finished the short course on the Ale trial feeling pretty happy with himself and celebrated with another beer!

Race day was perfect conditions with the potential to be hot. I saw Pip at the start. We were both nervous, but looking forward to it.

Lining up at the start line, thinking...... oh wow. This is it. I hope I can get through this!

And then..... people started running! I didn’t hear the start gun!

One of the highlights of the race is running over the Harbour bridge. It’s amazing!! It was a good reminder to take a moment and appreciate what I was doing.

The first 15km of the race takes you out to centennial park in the eastern suburbs. It was starting to get hot, but this part of the course is shady. The elites ran past me when I was at 9km, cool as cucumbers, they had just hit 20km.

I started to come into my own from 15km onwards. The race felt good, I was fuelling well and drinking still. After running out of centennial park you run through the city and out to Pyrmont. The crowd dissipates and this is where you can hit the wall. You are about 30km in by this stage. I could see there were a lot of people struggling.

After Pyrmont, you come back around through darling Harbour. The finish is about 4km away..... so close! This is where I started to feel a bit dehydrated and like I could hit the wall. However, I dug a little deeper and pushed a little harder.

The last 2km you come around from the rocks into circular quay to the opera house. You can see the finish and you then realise how far 2km actually is. My thought process was to just get the race done so I put my foot down and sped up.

Matt was about 600m from the finish line. I hadn’t seen him all race and it gave me the little boost I needed to get it done.

Running over the finish line and pressing STOP on my watch was amazing. As I crossed the line I saw the clock at 3:50 or so. I knew I’d done a PB. offical time was 3:47:11 time in my watch was 3:45:27. A PB of 12-14 mins depending on what time you looked at.

Recovery areas are amazing. All finishers are happy and love to talk to you about the run. It’s my favourite part of the run. Listening and hearing everyone’s race stories.

Recovery of course means having a glass of bubbles to celebrate, while wearing your finishers medal. I made sure I did this. And told everyone that asked that I had run a marathon that day. ​

The brand spanking new membership portal is now live with QRUN and boy do we have a deal for you to get you started.

For the 2020 membership we are moving to a calendar year based membership instead of the Oct-Sep membership we have had in place for the last few years.

So....

Drum roll please....

Any member who renews or rejoins in the month of October will get an extra extra special deal of 14 months membership for the price of 12, that's right your membership will run through until 31 Dec 2020!!! and on top of this you can renew at 2019 prices as well. Prices will go up slightly in November to accommodate an increase in the fee QRUN charge us for the benefits you receive from them for being a member. As a not for profit club absorbing this cost is not possible financially.

On top of this if you want an extra reason to renew or rejoin, just for October we also have the option of purchasing a newly designed Fortius Running Club T-Shirt which will you can personalize with your name, nickname, coffee name, whatever you want. A draft design is below for you to have a look at (please note it may change slightly in the final production).

If you want to know more about the planned membership changes for 2020 jump over to our website HERE or if you want to renew click on the RENEW or REJOIN  NOW button below.

Regards and happy running.

Simon (a.k.a. Captain Fortius)
President Fortius Running Club

Proposed Fortius Running Club T-Shirt Design 
Left image - Front 
Right image - Back

On top of these announcements we have also simplified our membership structure.

​We now have 4 main membership types all of which expire on the 31st of December 2020
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You can are able to still add coached sessions to your membership at any point during the year. Remember coached session access gets you access to 3 coached sessions per week (1x strength and 2x running sessions).

If you decide you want to add coached sessions to your membership during the year you can do so in the Fortius shop via team app.

​This year we are also adding monthly access as well where you can purchase access to the sessions for a calendar month, perfect if you just want to try it out or are training for a specific event.

Our September newsletter is out, click below to see

https://mailchi.mp/5c8095e9e628/vqeakw54fc
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Some great tips here from our partner BL Physio

Getting enough quality rest and sleep is important in so many ways as we all know, yet we always seem to run short! Life is busy, the to-do lists are long, there’s not enough hours in the day. Sounds familiar?

But setting aside time to wind down and prioritising this will benefit us in the long run. There is research showing that lack of sleep is a contributing factor in a range of health conditions. Also, the repair and recovery of our body happens when we sleep!

Here’s 5 tips from me for winding down and ensuring good quality rest and recovery:

1. Get enough magnesium. Magnesium is involved in countless body functions. It can help with muscle tension, cramping, quicker muscle recovery and also calming the nervous system. In Queensland we sweat so much exercising and it is difficult getting enough magnesium through food. A good quality supplement daily really makes a difference.
2. Go to bed the same time during the week to create a routine for your body. If you know when you are getting up and how many hours of sleep you need - count backwards and create the habit. When you’re waking up on time before your alarm you know your circadian rhythm has adjusted.
3. Try no screen time for the last hour before bed (no iPhone scrolling)! The light from our devices can impact our melatonin production and so negatively affect our sleep. Melatonin is a sleep hormone which is produced when we are in a dark environment.
4. Do a 5-10 minute meditation routine before bed or first thing in the morning. If you don’t like the guided ones try this - lie flat on your back. Breath slowly in through your nose and out of your nose. Slowly go through gently being aware of each part of your body starting from your right toes - then your right foot - right knee - right hip - belly - heart - chest - right shoulder - elbow - right hand, mouth, cheeks, eyes, and then do the left side (all the same as the right) until you’re at your left toes.
5. Breathing exercise to slow down the nervous system and relax. It’s called “box breathing”. Slowly filling your lungs breathing in from the nose counting to 4. Then hold the breath at the top counting to 4. Then slowly release the breath counting to 4 as you breath out, then hold the empty lungs counting for 4 to complete the cycle. Then slowly breathe in again counting to 4 and keep going with the same 4-4-4-4 breaths for 10 cycles.

Getting your rest right will help your nervous system function which in turn helps controls your muscles. So it's win win win.
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Enjoy!

Physio Anna 😊