Location: Airlie Beach
Weather: A little too warm for running but clear blue skies and sunshine can’t be moaned at! 30°c

An exhausting but brilliant day…

I’ve been staying at Big4’s Adventure Whitsunday Caravan Park for the last couple of nights and have had a grand old time since I arrived…from the moment I checked in and was driven down to my accommodation in the golf buggy. This is not just any buggy, oh no, this is one with a huge frog on the roof – the logo of the resort!

My condo is one of a number of types of accommodation available on the site but the vast majority of people choose to arrive in their own vehicles towing either a caravan or trailer tent. As I walk into my luxury Condo I instantly think how much my sister and her family would love to stay here, with a family of three this place would be perfect.

Around the site there’s so much for kids to do too with the focal point being a swimming pool and waterpark, there’s tennis courts, jumping pillow (try bouncing around on this thing for a while!) and in the evenings open-air movie screen and a children’s disco, at which I was the adopted DJ for the night.

At the beginning of my contract I’d asked Tourism Queensland to try and enter me in as many running events as they could during my time with them so I could maintain my fitness and today was one of those days.

‘Run the Whitsundays Great Walk’ has been organised for a few years by the Mackay Running Club and takes place in the Conway State Forest, located inland from Airlie Beach. It’s 29 kms of forest path with considerable rises and falls which mean the course can take around 1.5 times as long as a comparable course on the flat.

It’s an early meet in Airlie before coaches take the 100 competitors up into the forest to the official start of the race. I’m a little nervous for the first time in a few races as my training has been next to nothing over the last few weeks and the course is rumoured to be a pretty challenging route.

As we clear the start line the pack breaks up quickly with the front runners disappearing off into the distance, the tracks only wide enough for two runners and I pair up with a guy called Geoff who’s running at a similar pace to me…pretty slow; a cautious move to conserve energy for the inevitable tough parts of the race later on.

What a scenic run! Over creeks, through clearings, winding up the side of ridges and dropping down steep dusty paths – this is the sort of running I like. The km’s slowly tick by and I’m out there enjoying myself on this Sunday morning.

I leave Geoff behind and up my pace feeling more confident in my abilities as the race goes on. By the time I read the 25km sign everything’s going brilliantly and the downhill track starts back towards Airlie Beach, the site for the finish, I’m racing past other people here and bar the cramp which hit me in my calf as I dropped down the hills, it’s the best race I’ve had in ages even finishing the final kilometre at sprint speed.

My finish time of 2hrs 52 mins is just about as good as I could have hoped for as this is my first long distance race in a while, all in all, a very satisfying day.

End of day location: Airlie Beach
Distance covered: 29.5kms running through the forest