By Kerry Larsen

An ankle injury, the flu and a slow recovery from the Cairns Airport Challenge Cairns wasn’t enough to keep Port Douglas triathlete, Nick Carling, from finishing the 2011 Gold Coast Airport Marathon on Sunday.

Carling went into the 42km marathon after suffering the flu during the week and with an ankle strain, but finished the course in 3 hours, 24 minutes, and 14 seconds – amazingly only 18 minutes  off his June 5 Challenge Cairns run.

“I had done one slow 21 kilometre run between Challenge Cairns and this race, as the flu and ankle restricted all training,” Carling said after the charity race.

“I had to change my running technique to allow less impact and strain on my ankle, which ended up ruining my legs - and by the 10 kilometre mark, my legs started to give way.

“I managed to hold strong until 21km mark, but it soon went downhill and I thought I wasn't going to make it.”

After setting his sights to finish the race in three hours, Carling’s race goals were constantly re-assessed mid-competition.

“Originally I planned for three hours, then halfway through I was aiming for 3:15, 25k's in I was aiming for 3:30, then at 30k's it became about survival,” he said.

“I just wanted to finish. I have never been in so much pain and discomfort in my life and I highly doubted I'd cross the finish line.”

At the 41km mark, and with only 1.2km to go, Carling said he was barely able to lift his feet off the ground, but pushed on.

“As I drew closer to finish, the thousands of spectators gave me the lift I needed and I managed to get back into a run.

“With 500 metres to go, my legs were tingling and going numb and as soon as I saw the finish, I felt like Usain Bolt during the last 200 metres,” he joked.

“It is by far the hardest thing I've ever done and the most pain I've ever been in. It all came down the mental and physical toughness and without the many hours of training on my own and building a "never give up" and a "push through the pain" mentality leading up to Challenge Cairns, there's no way I could've got through,” he said.

“It was character-building and the event itself was incredible. Over 24,000 competed over the four distances (42.2km, 21.1km, 10km and 5km) and thousands of people lined the streets.

“I’ve learnt a great deal from this race - including pre-race preparation, traveling education for events, post race recovery, expectations for races - and I learnt a lot about myself and the inner strength I can dig out when times are at their worst and the odds are against me.”

Carling’s sights are now set on Canberra’s 70.3 ironman race in December (1.9km swim / 90km bike / 21.1km run), after the Great Barrier Reef Marathon Festival in Port Douglas in November.

“It really gets me really excited about the Great Barrier Reef Marathon Festival this November,” Carling said. “It definitely has the potential to become one of the biggest and best running festivals in the world if we can all get behind it.”

The Stats
Time: 3hrs:24mins:14secs
Overall Position: 624 of 4,549 finishers;
Male Position: 540 of 3,044 male finishers;
M25-29yrs Category: 68 of 342 finishers.