by Mat Churchill

Port Douglas runners Emma Mills and Kate Cullen tested themselves like never before to succeed in completing the famous Gold Coast Marathon on Sunday.

The event which attracted 20,000 people (5,000 of those in the 42km event), was their first marathon attempt and both were proud of their achievement.

"We'd done a couple of runs of around 35 kilometres in our training, so the last few k's was a struggle," said Emma. "I just had to convince myself that the last seven kilometres was a short run."

Kate agrees, "It was an awesome experience," she said. "I smiled the whole way. And once I got to the last ten kilometres I knew I could make it by setting smaller goals. The hardest part was to see other people around me getting tired and failing."

Emma and Kate were introduced to running by fitness instructor, Sarah McConnell, founder of the Port Douglas Running Club.

"I only started running about a year ago to try and lose some weight. I just love it now," Emma said. "We also did Boot Camp training two mornings a week with Simon Dobbs at Energise Personal Training."

And how did it feel to get across the finish line? "Awesome" they say with a mix of pride and excitement. "We celebrated with a few drinks that night, I think we were still running on adrenalin," Emma said.

So how did our runners wind down the day after their first ever marathon finish? A massage perhaps? A relax by the pool? Asleep? "We went to Dreamworld." Emma said.

Both Emma and Kate are looking forward to the 2012 Solar Eclipse Marathon in Port Douglas. "I'm planning to enter it to give support to the local event," Kate said. "It'll be a really tough event but we'll have an advantage to be able to train on the actual course."

The 2012 Solar Eclipse Marathon will be the biggest single event to ever come to Port Douglas.