Race Recap: Cadbury Half Marathon – Hobart, Tasmania

Have you ever had a dream? Well of course you have had dreams and I guess you have all had a running dream – me too! That’s part of why we are here as Rachel’s Runners!

My dream came from a funny little idea I had early on in my running journey, actually probably somewhere around the “oh my goodness will I ever be able to run 5 km!” part of my journey and we all know the answer to that is “Yes you can!”

So somewhere between learning to run and 5 km I started to look at all of those (at that stage to me) ‘CRAZY’ people who could run, really run, like ‘entering events runners’ and then I heard about an event in Tasmania – the Cadbury Marathon (not that I was interested in that distance, but they had a 5km event). That sounded a bit alright to me but then I had to justify all that travel for a 5km fun run and yep, it was a bit too hard to be able to do so I put that idea on the back burner.

That was probably 4 years ago (maybe 5), Since then I mastered 5km and noticed that they had a 10km event, hmm that’s possible! But still a bit too much expense for a 10km run.

In 2017 we traveled down to Tasmania as a family, my kids loved it but it was October (and Cadbury’s is in January). We did manage a parkrun (a free 5km event, so winning!) but no Cadbury run.

Add a few years, a couple of FOMO moments in January as I heard of others completing the events and my interest was reignited – especially when Michelle said she was looking for someone to go there with her. I really wanted to go – I even worked out costs, flights, accommodation, registration and I had my husband’s blessing, but I couldn’t justify it so I said no. However, it kept eating away at me and then I said “I just can’t seem to let go of this Cadbury idea” and within about an hour we had planned our family trip to Tassie for January 2019! Woohoo!

I knew I could run the Half Marathon distance so I registered myself for the half
(big change from my initial 5km plans!) Brett (hubby) and the kids for the 5km and I started training.

Tasmania is such a beautiful place and despite having visited there only 14 months prior, we had loads to see and places to go. It is a great family destination as well as a fantastic place for adults, especially if you enjoy food and wine! But I digress.

One of the great features (for me) of the Cadbury January event is the weather which is quite mild, mid to high teens for the start of the event and low 20’s as the temperature for the day of the run. It was so pleasant after the heat and humidity of Sydney.

I managed to find my friend and fellow team mate Michelle before the start of the race. She was keen to start the run with me, which was nice but never likely to work as she is a speedster so we shared each others company for the first two kilometres (she talked I grunted!) and then I watched her pace away.

This event is so relaxed and friendly with much smaller numbers than our Sydney events. The marathon starts half an hour before the half following the same route (the Marathon runners do the route twice).

The halfway turnaround point is at the end of a bridge. I am sure the bridge is about 1.5 km long (it went on forever), but it was at this point that I began chatting to a bloke. We both had the same goal of making it to the turnaround before the speedy Marathon front runners came through, then we had a new goal of returning to the start point of the bridge before they came, and we made that too!

My new mate charged on and was beyond my reach for some time but at about the 16 km mark I caught up, told him he was my pacer and he needed to lift his game – he did! I caught him again at about 19 km and he brought me home up the finish hill. Overall the course is gently undulating (a few more gentle hills than I had expected) but the finish does have a bit of a nasty hill.

Throughout the course, runners gave loads of praise and support, even the front Marathon runners were giving us encouragement; it is a very friendly event.

I managed to finish close to my goal time, got my medal, my chocolate (yes you get a chocolate show bag), found Michelle, had some photos and saw my family finish their 5km. We even met Freddo and Caramello Koala – if you go, find them as they give out extra chocolates!

Each show bag is a bit of a lucky dip but I thought my Dream bar was a serendipitous touch as I finally got to complete my dream event.

I would highly recommend this event for anyone looking for a tourist run. I know there are some RR’s looking at 2020, I would love to do it again too….maybe!

Words and photos by Kathy Crispin.