Photo Below: Looking down on the finish area at Bondi Beach from the headland.

2003's Sydney Sun Herald City to Surf was only my second, but the race has begun to feel like a tradition. This year, my husband Gary ran with me. For many in Sydney and throughout Australia the midwinter race, of which this was the 32nd running, is a yearly practice. Very serious, very speedy runners come out every year--including elite Australian athletes trying to reclaim the first overall position, which an Australian has not taken for six years--and many more casual runners than one might expect participate in the rather long-distance race. The race has included more than 60,000 entrants in recent years. For this running, more than 58,000 registered and 49,000 completed the 14 kilometers (8.7 miles)-the fastest time was 41:55, the slowest was 250:27. The race shuts down major portions of the city for hours and spectators line the course. It is a major city event-a source of civic pride--and probably one of the most beautiful courses in the world, taking in views of the harbor, ocean, city, and suburbs.

When I started running in 1998, my mother urged me to run the City to Surf. (Though I was born and raised in the United States, my mother is Australian and returned to her hometown, Sydney, in 1990 when I was 19.) She was so resolute that she registered me to run the race in 2000. (She did have my permission.) One major issue concerned me: the race started at 10 am on a Sunday, while I was due to arrive, after a 24-hour trip, at 7 am on that same Sunday. But I drove straight from the airport to the start, ran the race, and had a blast. While a T- shirt is not included in the entry fee, my mother's enthusiasm led her to buy me two, one in navy and one in gray. They are now starting to fade.

This year, Gary and I had a good week and a half in Sydney before we had to arrive at the starting line. "You have plenty of time," the announcer said at 9:59 am on Sunday, August 10. How very Australian, often understating the urgent or startling (for example, "That [sheer] cliff is rather steep."). What a strange thing to say, I thought. He had said this a few times over the last ten minutes, perhaps to calm the crowds, but less than a minute now remained before the start.

John Eales, former captain of the national Rugby Union team, the Wallabies, handled the starting gun. His appearance was probably the result of the considerable local enthusiasm for the upcoming World Cup, which is to be held in Australia this year. And, bang, we were off. Or some were off. Turns out there was time, or rather, I had to be patient. The City to Surf is not a race in which you can expect to run a personal record.

Race organizers have used at least three separate starts for years because the City to Surf claims the honor of being the largest timed race in the world: Group A, the sponsor-named HSBC Start, and the Smart Back of the Pack. (Does "smart" imply intelligence? Or style? You do see runners with all kinds of style in this group: some were carrying an inflatable apatosaurus, others were dressed as sperm, the Hulk, and other assorted superheroes, angels, and even Saddam Hussein.) You don't have to be that fast to be in the first group, you just have to have completed the race before in less than 100 minutes, an 11:30 pace. If you have not run the race before, you can submit previous race times, but only from races of at least 10 kilometers, for a chance to make it into the first starting group. There is no space on the registration form for this information, nor are you told this option exists, you just need to know to attach a list of the races you have run and your time for each. I ran my first City to Surf in 73 minutes and Gary submitted prior race times. We are not elite runners. We are neither especially slow nor especially fast; we are more solid middle-of-the-pack runners. We applied early enough and were deemed strong enough runners to be in the first group. Group A is limited to 16,000 runners, which is about the size of Washington, DC's Army Ten-Miler, and this is the smallest of the three groups.

The three starting lines form three sides of a square, and the three prongs of lined up runners border and intersect Hyde Park in the center of Sydney. The announcer rallied each group, encouraging cheers before the start of the race. Group A was not the loudest. Perhaps we were too uptight. The HSBC Start and Smart Back of the Pack were much louder, but sounded far, far away. But, while we could not see them from where our start was gathered, we could certainly hear them.

I am not usually a patient person and usually run races as fast as I can. But I knew the crowds would force a slower pace (except for those even more impatient-and faster-people who lined up towards the front of Group A). So I decided to be calm, to take it easy. We were about three-quarters of the way back in the group, didn't cross the starting line for five minutes, and were limited to a slowish pace for the first two kilometers. Gary refused to call the pace slow, but he is not as crazy as I am. He does not believe in a race pace; he almost always runs the same steady pace whether on an everyday run or in a race. But we had agreed to stay together. And I did not become impatient. I did not bob and weave, nor did I force Gary to bob and weave . . . too much.

The course conforms to the south shore of the harbor and passes beaches-those of Rushcutters Bay, Double Bay, and Rose Bay--and up onto headlands three times, incorporating lots of hills, including Heartbreak Hill. (How many races in the world have one of these?) Stories circulate that heart attacks often occur on this hill, which lasts for about three kilometers and comes at the halfway point of the race. You can't miss it because a banner hangs across the road at its base, announcing the impending climb of more than a mile and a half. The race finishes downhill, curving along one of Sydney's most famous beaches, Bondi.

I felt great. I think I was smiling for most of the race. We ran an average of nine-minute miles. This pace made Heartbreak Hill almost easy-for me. After the halfway point of the hill, winding up New South Head Road from Rose Bay, Gary declared, "I'm walking." I turned around. Later, he told me that I ran backwards at this point, which he found rather annoying. I don't remember doing so. I let him walk for maybe ten seconds. Then I grabbed his hand, maybe a little impatient (I wasn't going to walk, but I wasn't going to run without him), said, "You can do this," and pulled him. He began running again and didn't feel the need to walk again. He didn't just get tired but also psyched himself out. As he explained it, he had been running up the hill for at least ten minutes, when he turned a corner, looked up, and saw the hill winding, twisting, continuing way above. He felt as if he couldn't take it. But he could. A bunch of short, sometimes steep, climbs followed Heartbreak Hill, but we barely noticed them.

The last two kilometers of the race were spectacular. We could see the oh-so-blue Pacific Ocean from the top of South Head, and then we turned and saw Bondi Beach, which is crescent-shaped and about a kilometer long. The wind was gusting along the coast and the waves were huge and crashing. We headed downhill-ah, downhill--toward the beach, passed the 13-kilometer mark at one end of the beach, ran almost the full length of the beach on Campbell Parade, then made a kind of U-turn onto Queen Elizabeth Drive along the beach to the finish. Gary and I picked up the pace once we hit Bondi. I could not help but speed up. But the finish is farther away than one thinks. I lost Gary after the final turn. I thought he was right behind me. I did not find him again for at least half an hour.

The finish line has three parts to it, all of which involve lines (or queues). First, I picked up my finishing time card. I immediately subtracted the five minutes from my official time of 83:28. Second, I handed in the card after attaching the sticker, printed with my race number, from my bib. Third, I received a finisher's medal. The whole process took at least 20 minutes. Gary and I finally found each other in the family reunion area, which was a miracle considering the crowds. As pre-planned, we found my mother completely set up for a late breakfast--claiming a table and chairs with her scarf, bag, and coat--at the Lamrock Cafe, from which we could watch the seemingly endless stream of runners making the turn onto Queen Elizabeth Drive.

After breakfast, we made the somewhat strange decision to walk around two more headlands, and one more intervening beach, to lounge on the nearby Bronte Beach, thereby avoiding the Bondi crowds. Though the forecasts the day before had been for cold, rainy weather, the more usual Sydney winter weather--sunny, breezy, 60-plus degrees--prevailed. I should have remembered that the City to Surf has a history of being blessed by the weather. What a tough winter those Sydneysiders have.

I want to avoid being overly sentimental, but the City to Surf has become even more of a family tradition than I anticipated. Or at least an historic family event. The day after the race, I found out that I am pregnant with our first child. So, in some sense, three of us covered the 14 kilometers. I am still looking for the smallest City to Surf T-shirt to buy for the baby to come.

For more information:
The CoolRunning Australia City to Surf website, with a variety of news and runner comments: http://www.coolrunning.com.au/citytosurf/index.shtml

Editor's Note: Caitlin and Gary's son, Isaac, was born in April 2004, and Mom reports that she has already started running again.