Australian Marathons

Having completed the Edinburgh marathon sore and sunburnt in May, i'm heading to Australia for two years with work and well the thinking or maybe my non thinking goes it would be cool to run a marathon in Australia, well ive been sore and sunburnt once......................

Does anyone know of were I can find a list of marathons in Australia on the web?

Cheers

Comments

  • Try this image

    http://tinyurl.com/2c2vta5

    You're best to search by state though. It's a big country image 

  • cheers thanks for that image
  • Having had my photo's published in R4YL magazine (their equivelent to Runners World), thety have sent me 2 years free subscription. It's a cracking read and has a race diary in it.  They are also on twitter. 
  • cool I'll look out for it when I fly out on the 28th December image
  • I completed the Sydney Marathon in September. It was great, best day of my life

     http://www.sydneyrunningfestival.com.au/

  • OK, i'm popping this in here as I can't start a new thread (not enough posts), but this is the closest I can get to an accurate thread title, so my apologies for bringing such an old thread back to life...

    I have friends who live in Christmas Island, a small island territory that is part of Australia, but geographically part of Asia as it's due south of Java. It's famous for the red crab migration c/o David Attenborough & Brian Cox tv shows.

    At the moment, they are not having the best of luck with PR - it's where Australian citizens living in Wuhan have been evacuated so they can self-isolate from Coronavirus!!

    But, it's a stunning island, almost entirely national park, and previously promoted as 'Australia's own Galapagos'. It's tricky to reach from the UK, but there are occasional charter flights from the UK.

    However, they do have an annual Marathon - probably one of the most exclusive in the world. They have an event website - http://www.marathon.cx/ - although they have messed something up as it's not always visible in the UK. But, the Marathon is in September. As a friend of a lot of people on the island (there are only 1,300 people there) they've asked me to look at how to promote it in the UK as they know a lot of you like to run in very unusual destinations. I've got some questions for anyone that may be able to help me!

    - Where would be the best place to reach people that travel the world doing such events - this forum? What magazines? They have a very small budget for advertising, but will promote if it's the right audience.
    - The positive/possible negative is that flights operate every Saturday - with the race on Sunday. You'll then have (enforced) 6 days afterwards to explore, trek, dive (one of the world's best diving places), bird watch, play with the 40 million crabs, drink in the locals bars etc. But does this kind of restriction put runners who travel off? Do they like to 'get in and out' asap?

    One of the main reasons for asking is if they think they can get 10 runners from the UK, it will be worth the time. They'll need to put a block on an allocation of hotel rooms (there aren't many), places in the Marathon / Half marathon, book in with the islands only masseur, and the charter flights in and out, so it's a lot of time and effort. They will work with a small Tour Op in the UK to ensure ATOL bonding.

    I'll see if I can ask a Mod to separate this out onto it's own thread. But from searching this forum, I couldn't see any mention of the event, so possibly it's very new to you all. It's not a commercial event - just set up by the locals, and few hardy souls from the Australian mainland do fly up, but as yet, no-one from Europe. All feedback is welcome!
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Sam - I think you need to have posted something like 10 times to be able to start your own thread.   

    Re attracting UK runners, perhaps a race report that gets published in Runner's World.

    Distance Running is the magazine that gets handed out at big marathons and has lists and adverts for marathons all over the world, but I guess it might be pricey.  I also think it only lists AIMS events, not sure.

    http://www.distancerunning.co.uk/latest.html

    Maybe emailing 100 Marathon Clubs in their various countries, some like to travel to unusual places to run marathons and it would maybe get the race on their race listings too.

    Maybe try the sports tours companies to see if they'll consider it as one of their trips?

    I don't have the budget for your race but if I did I'm a fly in, run, fly out again, wouldn't want to spend a week there, but I'm sure some people would love it.

  • Thanks Shades, that's great advice. I'd never heard of Distance Running - i'll go dig it out.

    Yep - it's definitely not for everyone - you'd be looking at an outlay of around £2,200 per person (based on 2) from the UK including everything, and a minimum of 10 nights out the UK. But it is a stunning location - https://www.christmas.net.au/
  • TTTT ✭✭✭
    Sambee1, reading this I am interested. However I do have to say it would be one I would think of doing in the future (the Falklands is also on the list). To me, to do that, the budget seems very reasonable in terms of value for money but it is a large amount of money. Also many of my friends only have 20 days leave a year so this would take a very large chunk of that and would be a very big negative. 
  • Thanks TT,

    To put into perspective, it's a destination I work with promoting for birdwatchers as there are a number of endemics that can only be seen there, but it puts a number of people off as you can see the 9 endemics normally in the first day and they want to then head somewhere else afterwards! So it's really for people that would want to tick it off as a very unique marathon AND a great destination you'd want to spend some time! You would have to want to visit an island that's 80% national park, some of the worlds best diving and snorkelling, meet the 40 million crabs, and just enjoy a very unique unusual destination. So it's not somewhere to go spend a day running, a day recovering and then head elsewhere. It also combines well with Indonesia, i.e. Bali as you fly via Jakarta so a 2 week break would typically be 7 nights Christmas Island, 1 night Jakarta, 6 nights Bali and so on. Or you can actually spend 3 nights there, do the marathon and continue onto Perth...

    It's also duty free so has some of the cheapest wine and beer in Australia!!
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