Running to Rome: Leadership, Family, Faith and the Marathon Journey
Sep 30, 2026 · 13 min · 8 segments
**Episode 12 – Barossa Half Marathon: The First Test of Preparation** Sometimes you can achieve a personal best and still finish wondering whether you could have done more. In this episode, I…
Sometimes you finish a race with a personal best and still walk away wondering if you could have done more.
That's probably how I felt after the Barossa Half Marathon.
I ran 21 kilometers.
I finished in an hour and 43 minutes.
Seven years ago, I ran the same course in around one hour and 54 minutes, my only other half marathon.
So on paper, it was a really good day.
A 10-minute improvement, a personal best, beautiful weather, good people around me, and a training block that, if I'm honest, I was really proud of.
But what I've been thinking about since that race isn't really the time.
It's what's happened around the 18-kilometer mark, because that's where the race became something more than running.
It became a question about preparation, confidence, risk, and perhaps more importantly, the mental side of running.
Seven years ago, when I ran Barossa, I was comfortably running around 15 to 20 kilometers, but I'd never really gone beyond the 20.
This time was different.
I spent the last four months gradually building myself up.
Intervals, long runs, easy runs, progressions, working on pacing, working on nutrition, working on recovery, and I've run beyond 20 kilometers several times in the lead-up.
There's no rule that says you have to run the full distance before you race it.
But having gone beyond 20 Ks a few times, I had a different level of confidence.
I knew I could cover the distance.
The question was, how fast could I do it? In the week leading into Barossa, Luke had asked me what I was aiming for, and I told him around an hour and 45 minutes felt achievable.
Luke had a spot in the Sydney Marathon World Major, which was the following week.
So Barossa wasn't really his race.
It was another part of his training.
But he had said he'd happily run with me and pace me around one hour and 45, and that gave me a really clear target, sub-1:45.
No guessing, no trying to work it out on the day.
Just settle into the pace and see what happened.
I think that's one of the things I've learned through this marathon journey.
Sometimes you finish a race with a personal best and still walk away wondering if you could have done more.
That's probably how I felt after the Barossa Half Marathon.
I ran 21 kilometers.
I finished in an hour and 43 minutes.
Seven years ago, I ran the same course in around one hour and 54 minutes, my only other half marathon.
So on paper, it was a really good day.
A 10-minute improvement, a personal best, beautiful weather, good people around me, and a training block that, if I'm honest, I was really proud of.
But what I've been thinking about since that race isn't really the time.
It's what's happened around the 18-kilometer mark, because that's where the race became something more than running.
It became a question about preparation, confidence, risk, and perhaps more importantly, the mental side of running.
Seven years ago, when I ran Barossa, I was comfortably running around 15 to 20 kilometers, but I'd never really gone beyond the 20.
This time was different.
I spent the last four months gradually building myself up.
Intervals, long runs, easy runs, progressions, working on pacing, working on nutrition, working on recovery, and I've run beyond 20 kilometers several times in the lead-up.
There's no rule that says you have to run the full distance before you race it.
But having gone beyond 20 Ks a few times, I had a different level of confidence.
I knew I could cover the distance.
The question was, how fast could I do it? In the week leading into Barossa, Luke had asked me what I was aiming for, and I told him around an hour and 45 minutes felt achievable.
Luke had a spot in the Sydney Marathon World Major, which was the following week.
So Barossa wasn't really his race.
It was another part of his training.
But he had said he'd happily run with me and pace me around one hour and 45, and that gave me a really clear target, sub-1:45.
No guessing, no trying to work it out on the day.
Just settle into the pace and see what happened.
I think that's one of the things I've learned through this marathon journey.
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