I crawled out of bed at 6am yesterday morning to go watch Niall run his first marathon. Mayra collected me at 6.40 and we headed off towards Fox Studios to await his arrival. The point we’d chosen meant we’d see him at the 11km, 16km and 21km points of the race, allowing us to give plenty of encouragement. Mayra had missed the last three races he’d done for various reasons, so this time we were taking no chances, and ended up in place, banner at the ready with a good hour before he was due to pass us. The only other people around were police manning the road closures!

Niall duly arrived at the appointed time, looking quite relaxed and cheerful. He’d latched onto the 3:30 pace group, indicated by a guy carrying yellow balloons, and on the three occasions we saw him seemed to be quite comfortable with the pace. After leaving him at the halfway mark we headed back to the Junction and got the train in to the CBD to watch the finish on the Opera House forecourt. The run down Macquarie Street, with the Opera House gradually revealed as you get closer, is an attractive way to finish a marathon, though by that stage I doubt any runner really gives a toss about the view.

We got ourselves set up just after the finish line and were keeping an eye out for the yellow balloons, figuring that Niall wouldn’t be too far behind, but he must have picked up the pace since we’d last seen him as he beat the balloons, crossing the line in an unofficial time of 3:29:18. There’ll be a couple of seconds knocked off that too due to him not crossing the start line as soon as the gun sounded.

So, a pretty impressive first effort for a marathon. Check out the photos.

Update: His official time was 3:28:59.