🏃🏻‍♀️ My first City2Surf

This year I participated in my first City2Surf. The City2Surf is a famous “fun run” in Sydney that is what the name suggests—a course from the city to one of our famous beaches, Bondi Beach (where one would surf). The course is 14 kilometres and has a notorious gradual incline as part of its course, affectionately called Heartbreak Hill.

I did the run with my friend Chris, who has done City2Surf a handful of times before. My usual workout routine involves a lot of strength training and powerlifting, and not much cardio. I actually don’t like running very much at all, although I had a couple of brief stints of running: back in my early 20s when I still lived with my parents and didn’t do much other exercise, and during the pandemic when gyms were closed and we were allowed to exercise outdoors. I do like walking pretty much everywhere, but that is the only cardio that I get in, trying to get 10,000 steps a day on top of my gym workouts. Chris predicted that I would do a lot better than him, given that my overall fitness is better, but I was pretty sure that he would do a lot better than me based on being almost a foot taller than me. I simply cannot compete with people who are six feet tall and have a stride that is pretty much double mine.

In the end, he did end up beating me by five seconds. But before I describe a bit more about the experience of the race, I wanted to share my intent with signing up for this event. I wanted to give myself a challenge that was different from powerlifting. Physical fitness is quite important to me, and I think that having friends who have completed the run before, and the possibility of doing it with a friend, made it more motivating. Of course, it was probably motivating for Chris as well to not be doing it alone. We had talked about doing it together for a couple of years, but I was always occupied with something like travelling, or preparing for another powerlifting competition. This year, things lined up pretty well, and I decided to commit to a powerlifting competition towards the end of the year instead. Although it might be possible to prepare for both a big run and a powerlifting competition at the same time, the two are quite opposite types of fitness, so I didn’t want them to clash in any way. Many people end up walking the entire course of the City2Surf, doing it with mascot costumes, doing it in groups with costumes, and just making it overall very fun. It’s very accessible in that people from all walks of life feel encouraged to join. The course is also quite scenic, but I’m saying that as someone who doesn’t have familiarity with other running or marathon routes. I actually wanted to really give this a go, and not just walk the entire course, so I was prepared to train by running a couple of times a week and increase my running distance each week.

I signed up for the event as soon as entry was open, which was at the end of March 2026. Chris and I joined the new Purple Start Group, which had the suggested time of completing the run in 90–105 minutes. Chris said that his best time was around the 90 minute mark, and I thought about some of my fastest runs being around 6 minutes per kilometre, so I thought it was pretty doable, and I’d possibly do a bit better if I took things “semi-seriously” (that was the phrase I used).

I started training pretty well, investing in a pair of running shoes and then doing short 2-kilometre runs just around my neighbourhood and around local parks. I didn’t actually train on any of the City2Surf course because it felt like too much effort. My coach usually tailors my training towards strength training but he threw in some exercises in my program that were aimed at strengthening each side of the body individually, and reducing muscular imbalances. I am not embarrassed to say that I spent some time looking for shoes that I actually liked that weren’t too expensive. I’m a sucker for white sneakers, and I hadn’t owned running shoes in several years, so the pair I settled on were white with blue accents.

Unfortunately, I gave up training about a month out—some life events are out of your control, and that’s what happened to me. The event was in the winter time and I don’t think the weather really blocked me from training, apart from a couple of rainy days. My life circumstances caused me to fall sick (physically and mentally) and I have been going through a period of prioritising myself and things that I really want to do and achieve. Running just didn’t fit in that bucket. I didn’t want to force myself to do something that I wasn’t enjoying as much as other enriching things in life. I was still very much committed to doing City2Surf, but I resigned myself to just, as my friend Lilian put it, “going off vibes and adrenaline on the day”. She, too, has done the City2Surf a handful of times.

Leading up to the day, I wasn’t in the mood and feared things going wrong on the day. I recently listened to a podcast where the two hosts talked about therapy, discussing how the feelings of nervousness and excitement are actually the same, and that you can frame nervousness as excitement so that it’s more positive. So I felt nervous when I was probably, in a way, excited. I felt a little bit of worry that I would give up and not be able to do the run, or that I would dislike it so much that I wouldn’t do it again. I suppose I couldn’t have been more wrong, because I came out with a time of 1:32:23, which is close to what I was aiming for at 90 minutes (1:30:00). And I actually enjoyed myself and had a good time, even though parts of the run were really quite tough. I really felt the motivation from all the people running there, the people cheering from the sidelines, the music that was played throughout, and overall the energy of the whole event.

Our start time was delayed a bit, which didn’t bother us because we had to use the restroom a few times before the run, and there were some queues since we chose to go to the ones in the shopping malls (better than portable toilets). It was all very exciting and a volunteer at the entry point was fist-bumping everyone as they went past.

The first 3–4 kilometres didn’t feel too bad, given that most of my attempts at training had not been more than this. Along the way, signs read “13km to go”, “12km to go”, “11km to go”. As simple as it was, it was motivating. I started to get a blister under my left foot about halfway during the run, which bummed me out because I was doing so well and I didn’t want to stop to even get a bandaid from a first aid tent. I decided I’d just suck it up and deal with it as soon as I was done. I was wearing socks that were a bit thicker than I expected, with quite a bit of cushioning, but personally I have found that those kinds of socks can be less helpful than I think. So I wonder if it played a part in causing my blister or if my left foot was just taking a bit more impact.

My left ankle rolled slightly on some uneven ground, but it wasn’t enough to cause too much pain, and I continued. I would later find that a couple of my toenails bruised during the run, maybe because I was compensating for the funky ankle, but forgetting to trim my toenails may have contributed to that as well.

On Heartbreak Hill I thought I could try and sprint up, but I realised I was just getting exhausted so I walked really fast instead. After talking to some people about their various strategies, most people seemed to go with walking up the hill to conserve energy for later in the run, because expending energy on the hill doesn’t always get you that much further ahead.

At around the 8km mark, I was really surprised with myself because I had simply never run that far before. The furthest I had run prior to City2Surf was 6km, and that was five years ago. The whole run began to feel a little easier overall. I wish I had taken more photos and videos on the run, but I also wanted to continue trying to run without distraction. Some notable signs from spectators included one reading, “Chase the finish line! You’ve chased far worse”, and another with “Your ex is behind you!” It was a bit of a coincidence that the ones I paid attention to seemed to relate to relationships and dating. 😅 Or perhaps they were the most memorable. I had also paid for the photo package that includes professional photos of me, so I knew I could look forward to those later.

I found that I was quite good at running downhill. I remember running downhill being absolute chaos on my knees, but my knees felt very strong and I held my core and body and engaged my muscles in a way that reduced the impact of my feet hitting the pavement. I was going quite fast. Oftentimes I went onto the pavement instead of being on the road, because I needed to run faster than the crowd of people and not get too stuck behind them.

I had been listening to a running playlist that I threw together on the train ride into the city earlier that morning. I got kinda bummed when I was 1km away from the finish line and my music wouldn’t continue playing (it was due to play Toxic by Britney Spears after a very fun round of Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People). My headphones were too annoying to pop around my neck so I just put them back on my head and they blocked out the noise. The last kilometre of the run is notorious for being a switchback on the road to the beach, so you often see the beach and think you don’t have much longer to go but still have a while to go. I really felt the rush of people here, and I ran what I would say was hard. I didn’t dare slow down and walk for fear of holding people up or getting in their way. The crowd really made me push myself towards the end. I recall seeing some motivating signs from spectators, but I couldn’t remember any of them.

Very close to the finish line, the muscles in my right arm started to spasm and I searched for a first aid tent, the closest of which was right after the finish line. I lost Chris some way ahead of me and he split off into a different part of the crowd, but I figured I’d take care of myself and he’d locate me later. I grabbed some bandaids for my blister, and my ankle felt OK so I didn’t bother mentioning it. A physiotherapist came to assess my muscle spasm and put it down to needing electrolytes after being depleted from the run, and she monitored me and encouraged me to finish the whole bottle. She re-assessed me about ten to fifteen minutes later. Chris managed to come to the first aid tent and had his knee looked at by a physio. It was surprising to hear that he didn’t think he’d make it to the end because of the pain.

I laughed at the fact that I often ran to catch up with him only to have him pick up speed and run ahead of me. LOL. After we hydrated, we walked to Funky Pies nearby and I got to take part in Chris’s post-City2Surf tradition. It was good to have a feed after the run. The weather throughout the morning was lovely and it was overall a successful City2Surf, I would say!

Would I do the run again? 😂 I probably would, because it was fun. I might train a little more next time I do it. Am I interested in doing other runs or marathons? Unlikely. 😆