I’ve been back from my trip to the USA for a few days now, the coverage the Best Job campaign still receives is excellent news with the media interest focusing on:

“So now that it’s all over – how was it? No really how was it?!”

“Tell me how do you follow the Best Job – surely nothing comes close?!”

They’re all the standard questions but everyone wants to know the answer of course and I honestly tell them it could never be matched, well maybe the next eighteen months won’t quite match it but if the first one is anything to go by then it’ll come pretty damn close!

The P.R. value achieved through the TV and radio appearances go a huge way to reminding the public about Queensland and the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef but the other side of the tour is the presentations I’ve been making to the travel industry in each of the locations I’ve visited.

These are targeted at the most important part of that industry, the travel agents. For it’s them that help convert a customer’s mere thought into a booking, which is what we’re all aiming for.

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I’ve set myself another goal for 2010 and that’s to get properly fit again. If there’s one thing that the last six months have done for me (apart from the obvious good stuff) it’s drop my fitness back down to a level I haven’t seen for five years.

Completing my Afritrex expedition around Africa involved running five marathons and to do that I needed to be fit….really fit and the pinnacle of this challenge was the Comrades Ultra marathon in South Africa. 56 miles or 89 kms of running hell…

Comrades Route Map

…so I thought I’d set myself the daunting task of doing it again this year.

Why you’re probably wondering? I’m not 100% sure really; I love the idea of trying to mentally battle through the 10 hours of hell that the race is, taking it through the pain barrier and pushing myself to my limits once more.

The race takes place on May 30^th between Pietermaritzburg and Durban in South Africa and I’ll be taking some time off work to attend two weddings and to run the race.

But in order to up my fitness level to anything barely resembling that which I’ll need, I’ve been hitting the streets of my new home city, Brisbane. There’s a huge network of tracks, cycle paths and boardwalks covering the city and the sights and sounds of an urban environment are actually very interesting to run in – coming from the countryside of Hampshire I thought I’d never say that!

Brisbane's boardwalk

I’m also trying to find somewhere to live in this great city, getting to know and recognise new places and suburbs is tough when you don’t have a car so combining my training and a reconnaissance mission were the order of the day on Saturday as I took to the streets to investigate further:

To prepare for the Comrades I have to find at least one half and one full marathon between now and the day of the race in May. I’ve already decided to head back to my old stomping ground on Hamilton Island at the beginning of May to run the descriptively named ‘Hamilton Island Hilly Half Marathon’ which should be a stern test.

Hilly Half route

Half marathons are never easy but this one goes up and down the many steep sections of the island and heads off road for a good part too. I’ve trained on these hills and love them…but they hurt.

Why not enter yourself? Combine a week away in paradise with a testing, gruelling run – further details for the event can be found here:

Hilly Half details

To download the PDF of the event please click here

With only 4 months to go I’m trying to find another full length marathon in Queensland which I can enter – does anyone know of one?!

Back soon with some outtakes from my original Best Job application last year…

Ben