The Great Australian Run in Melbourne 2008

The Great Australian Run, renamed City2Bay in January 2011, was an annual 15 kilometres road running race which took place in Melbourne, Australia, held for the very first time, in November 30, 2008.

I entered the run to be able to run with homeboy champion runner, Haile Gebre Selassie, who finished 1^st in the race, way ahead before I even got to the race’s half way mark, in a time of 42:39, Kenyan, Makau, 2^nd and Australian fellow runners, Birmingham & Mottram, finishing 3^rd & 4^TH respectively.

I may not be Gebre Selassie or the modern day Rio Olympic hero, Feyisa Lelisa, but completed the race on both occasions at the happiest moments, in those days, without getting my hands crossed over my head.

The race starts with the women’s race and men’s line-up starts at 5:12 marks on video. After you spotted me in the crowd, like in my photo indicator, just far behind Mottram (on his right) on this part 1 video, you can continue to part 3 of this same video to see Haile finishing the race.

It was a good experience to test my fitness and endurance and I didn’t disappoint myself finishing the race in a time of little less than an hour with no prior preparation or running experience, although, I did run The Big M Melbourne Marathon 1984 as soon as I arrived, quite long time ago. The race was won by, the amazing Tanzanian, Juma Ikangaa, three in a row since 1982. It was also good to see few of our local community’s members, supporting Haile and I, waving Ethiopian flags. 

 The course of the race started and ended in Albert Park, passing many of Melbourne's famous landmarks including the Yarra River and Flinders Street Station heading north from Albert Park before turning at Flinders Street direction toward the Royal Botanic Gardens round loop run. Then passing along Fawkner Park into St. Kilda Road route and finally turning into Queens Bridge Street and back into the park to complete the path in Albert Park.
If you want to see the amazing curve route map, view here: http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/fullscreen/4545563/