OUR own brand of Heartbreak Hill will be a selling point and maybe, give some time, even part of running folklore.
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Debriefs are done for the inaugural Ballarat Marathon festival and, despite a couple of course tweaks, the climb looks here to stay.
That climb up Sturt Street to the finish had some runners furrow their brows. Sydney-based men's marathon winner Tom Do Canto said there was not much to dislike about the festival "apart from the small little hill" but the awesome atmosphere more than nulled this niggle out.
Although women's marathon winner Ella McCartney did not mind hitting the bottom of Sturt Street and looking up towards a looming finish after 42.2 kilometres on course.
A Heartbreak Hill is a defining moment for many runners. Sydney's City2Surf is a notoriously epic two-kilometre incline. The Boston Marathon has one, too.
Besides, we are known for making like Miley Cyrus and always having that uphill battle - "it's the climb" - in major sporting events.
Mount Buninyong is what most cyclists talk about when you would talk AusCycling Road National Championships. That might not be quite the Tour de France grip-your-handlebars and hike-out-of-the-saddle gradient, but it was a repetitive feature to best determine an all-rounder to carry our national crowns.
RELATED COVERAGE: We demand respect for creating folklore in Ballarat and Buninyong
Mount Buninyong became a thing of folklore in RoadNats, so much so that para-athletes lobbied hard for the right to prove themselves on the climb.
But RoadNats are gone from Buninyong - for now - and the brand new Ballarat Marathon is shaping up as a great successor.
From the outset, the running festival's courses were measured to international standards. This included a tick for Paralympic qualifying standards.
About 5100 people registered for an event in the inaugural festival. This far exceeded organisers expectations.
Ballarat Marathon director Adam McNicol confirmed a couple of hundred had deferred their entry to next year, largely due to illness. This gives the 2025 event a head start with registrations set to open within the next month.
The 2024 festival had 4724 participants across the two-day program which featured a mile (1600 metres), 5km, 10km, 10km wheelrace, half-marathon (21.1km) and the double-loop marathon.
McNicol said Ballarat Marathon was starting from a position of strength after a positive debut. Plans are already underway to make it better again for recreational runners right through to the ambassador program and elite athlete offerings.
A handy coincidence also working in the festival's favour is the date has long been locked in for April 26-27 - the chance to cheekily take advantage of an Anzac Day long weekend.
More than half of participants for the inaugural festival travelled more than 100km to run our streets. Cafes and restaurants were activated to capitalise on the extra visitor boost.
We cannot underestimate how much runners will encourage others to give the event a go next year.
The course fits in a lot of the features people love about Ballarat from Lake Wendouree and the Arch of Victory, to cedar-lined roads in Victoria Park and the historic architecture lining Lydiard and Camp streets.
Sturt Street itself is an aspect we must never take for granted. We can boast beautiful council gardens running right up the centre of the main street in town and a sensational sloped view.
This is what made for such a spectacle on summer evenings for the criteriums in RoadNats - and that too served up plenty of heartbreak and triumph to all who dared race our hill.
