Well finally I might have most of you folks covered. I sneak ahead of Amkelly in the improvement award.
Nov. 1979 1st marathon 4.09 .
Sept. 1980 3.01.
Oct. 1980 2.55.
May 1981 2.51.
Nov. 1981. 2.44.
April. 1984. 2.43.
Training for my first marathon.
I was working on a thoroughbred horse stud. 13 day fortnight 5 am. until whenever.
The driveway was 800 metres long and had feed troughs along the fenceline on either side. Twice a day the foreman would drive slowly down in the Land Rover ute loaded with buckets of feed. I would run alongside grabbing the buckets and tipping them into the troughs. At the end of the driveway he turned around and I did the same on the other side. I did this in work boots.
We did a similar thing through the hilly back paddocks as well.
Every second Sunday on my day off I would do a 10 km run.
If I finished work early (didn't happen often) I would run 5 km.
A month before the marathon I ran a 17 km event with 18000 others. I ran about 70 minutes.
Marathon day was hot (90s F) and I took off at around 3 hr pace. I don't think I need to describe what happened in the 2d half. I am sure you can imagine.
Fortunately the stud farm went belly up a few months later and I picked up work cleaning at a hospital. I suddenly had spare time (and 3 x the income) and my running improved dramatically.
A funny little side note.
My boss at the studfarm was a terrible person in many ways.
Not too long before the business went bust she asked the foreman and I to research an upcoming sale to find her a quality broodmare at a bargain price.
We came up with a mare called Donna Juanita. We told the boss that $10000 would be a bargain price.
She sent the foreman to the sale to bid on her. His instructions were to go no higher than $6000.
He got to 5500 and the other bidder hesitated for quite a time before bidding 6000. The foreman quickly bid 6500 and the other bidder shook his head.
The foreman signed the papers and brought her home.
The boss was fuming about the extra 500 despite the foreman offering to pay it in return for the equivalent % share of the mare.
She told him no and as he had signed the paperwork he would have to pay the lot and she didn't want the mare.
A few of us put in some money to help him out in return for a % share of the mare.
6 months later Donna Juanita was the toast of the thoroughbred breeding world when her son King Zavata dominated the 2 year old races.
Her value skyrocketed into 6 figures.
The foreman sold her for huge $ and headed north to the warmth of Queensland and an easier life. My % was very handy for a young man who had never previously earned more than $70 per week.
Our grumpy old boss was not so pleased.