Up And Up And Up

If you’re marathon training in Brisbane and you’re looking for an almost exclusively hilly route to get your legs tender and ready for what’s going to be a pancake flat Gold Coast Marathon, do I have a route for you!

This simple hill route is easy to follow but boy oh boy will you start to regret it about seven kilometres in. If your idea of a good time is 250 metres of elevation gain over a humble 12 kilometre course, look no further!

First, start in Milton. You’ll want to start from the Railway Terrace side of the train station. This is because I live there and partly because you’ll be able to get public transport in and out for ease. This will be the most straightforward part of this process.

From Milton train station, facing the crosswalk on Railway Terrace towards Anytime Fitness, start running right. You’ll follow the street down to where it intersects with Park Road. Go right. Then, once you’ve past the small cluster of shops — including the supplements store that’s open at odd hours especially on Sundays — and you’ll go right just before you pass under the bridge.

Follow this path up the steps and take your first left into the underpass beneath the rail line. Follow this straight, all the way through, and you’ll emerge on Baroona Road on the XXXX Brewery (or Paynters, if you look at the first building you see) side of the road. Here, either rebelliously cross towards the office block ahead of you (with the UBX) when traffic’s clear or wait for the green light if you’re behaved.

Then just follow Milton Road for quite a while.

Along this road you’ll undulate for a two-and-a-half kilometres, up and then down in soft curves, and just over a kilometre in you’ll hit a tall spike in the road that’s slow to run up and then, frankly, dangerous to run down. Especially in the wet!

Keep going and follow Milton Road until you reach the Toowong roundabout. You’ll know it when you hit it. Past the Kia dealership, past what’s currently an Ampol under construction so likely to be an Ampol by the time you get there, go right up Frederick Street.

This is where the fun begins.

Here you’ll go basically straight uphill as if you’re training to run directly into the sun. You’ll go up and then a little down and then up a little and then down a little then up a little. When you feel like you finally have a reprieve, going downhill properly, you’ll smile to yourself. “Nice,” you’ll say. Then you’ll look up at the hill ahead of you, part of which is a concrete path so thin that the bins that live upon it force you out into the street. “Fuck,” you’ll say.

Continue on. Dig deep. Get it down.

Then you’ll come out to where Frederick Street becomes Rouen Road. This part is all downhill and it’s good, with wide space between the footpath and the road so even if you do get low hanging foliage you’ll be okay. Catch your breath. Enjoy this part, feet pounding, heart going, head going, sweating, breathing well, getting some pace and some fresh air.

You’ll follow this down to the Bardon roundabout — you’ll know it when you see it. Stay on the path you’re on straight ahead down Rainworth Road. There’s a way uphill along Boundary Road via Kaye Street but I don’t know it and it must be hideous if running up it is anything like driving up so we’re going a different way.

Follow Rainworth Road.

You’ll pass Norman Buchan Park on your left and you’ll find yourself running through hilly green suburbia proper. Cross to the left-hand side of the road when you get a chance. On your left past the park is the land that’s part of Government House, where the Governor of Queensland resides. Soon we’ll run past where you can see the house if you have the energy to look up. For now it just looks like an inner-city forest. Which it sort of is.

This is a flat part. Enjoy it. Then take the left that’s coming up ahead: the 90-degree one, not the one that forks off on an odd acute angle. This is Murruba Street. It is also uphill.

You should have a bit more gas by now so you should be able to power through at least the first stretch here. Once you get to the first T-junction, look right. At just about any time — excluding foggy days which are fortunately rare in this incredible town — you’ll be able to see the spires of the CBD. If you’re the type to take aesthetic Instagram photos to pair with your runs like I am, this is a perfect spot to do so. This is the cover photo of this blog.

Then keep going up Murruba Street. Follow it all the way up then at the top, where it becomes Fernberg Road, cross to the other side of the road. Go left.

This is the worst part I reckon. Of the whole thing for some reason. You’re about to come onto a street called Bernhard. I used to joke, when I ran down Fernberg at the start of a weekly half-marathon and then returned the same way, that Bernhard Street was the part where it — ha-ha — burned hard. But it does. You’ll feel it here.

Walk if you have to. Walk to Wilden Street. Then get going again because at Reading Street it gets easier and then it’s downhill again a bit. As you go down here, this is where you should look left if you want to see Government House. Most nights, it’s lit up. During the day, it’s just Italianate beauty under the bright blue sky.

Keep going. Up the rest of Fernberg Road. Where it intersects with Boundary Road — which we won’t touch the colonial nature of the namesake of here — go right. You’ll head up towards Latrobe which is also a pretty rough part of the route. It spikes uphill pretty hard once you’re at Brigalow Street but you want to keep going to the higher Bardon roundabout. You’ll know it when you see it.

There, go straight over. Outside of peak hour this will be easy. At peak hour it’s a little trickier. Do not take the Latrobe turn right — though that’s a decent route too but not this one — but continue on over towards Tooth Avenue and beyond. Follow this, where it’s briefly Macgregor Terrace before it becomes Jubilee Terrace, and continue all the way around.

Pass the old Anytime Fitness on your right. Pass the dentist. Pass the massage place. Follow this road around the corner where it begins to slope downhill. This is Jubilee Terrace, named for Victoria’s jubilee and upon which I used to live and upon which someone I had an embarrassing crush on lived years before I lived there. Follow it downhill. You’ll run past the places in which both I and my embarrassing crush lived. Enjoy the decline.

Just before Kennedy Terrace you’ll start to climb again. No, this was not named for the President. Yes, I had to Google it too. Basically you’ll follow this road until Waterworks. It will climb up and then drop again at the bus stop which you should pass on your immediate right. You’ll beat a set of traffic lights if you’re good. And then it will climb again.

Make your uphill way towards a church at the intersection of Jubilee and Waterworks. Turn right. You’ll be tired, tuckered, and you might read the sign the church has put out the front of the place. I didn’t. Haven’t basically any time I’ve taken this route or a shorter version of it. Let me know what it says.

From here you’re looking at a mostly flat route for a while before it dips and then climbs. You’ll pass a service station, a few sets of shops, a driveway that you’ll want to be cautious of because cars can randomly come of out it courtesy of the Goodlife Health Club at Ashgrove that’s in the building to your right. There’s another church and then just more suburbia.

You won’t be going uphill again until you pass the Restoration Station. It’s an old school shop. It will stick out even at night. It looks like it’s been transplanted out of the past. And then past it is all uphill. Persist. Go up.

It will start to hurt now. But you’re 8 kilometres of the way through a 12 kilometre route so keep going. Push, push, push, and at best don’t walk this hideous incline — which is probably the worst part of it all, in truth — until you’re at the bus stop at least. You’ll pass a school on your right. You’ll cross a small road to your right just before the crest of the hill. And then there’s an inner west Brisbane-exclusive type hill with a staircase to the right and up. Take it.

There is a church. You’ll see its message board right ahead. And it is, indeed, inspirational. Take a photo of it if you need to. Absorb its truth, its message, its value, and then keep going. Follow this road straight. Keep going along Waterworks Road. There’s a bit left.

You’ll likely next stop at Enoggera Terrace where to your right is Le Coin Bistro and past that Red Hill Cinemas. Hit the button here at the lights and catch your breath some because what’s ahead is a bit rough given the distance, the elevation, and your heart rate probably, but you’re at the tail end.

Then — par for the course — keep going. You’ll get to a part of the road that falls into a small alleyway that’s the entrance to homes before it inclines sharply. Run up it. You’ll get to a set of shops on your right. Keep going. Cross Balmain Terrace, continue, and push up the where Waterworks Road has now become Musgrave Road. Follow the Musgrave Road Service Road up past the townhouses and apartments where my friend Caden lives.

This will be the last severe uphill I promise.

Then you’ll break free on a downhill towards the CBD proper. You’ll pass a street on your right that goes down into the depths of Red Hill suburbia. I have no idea what’s down there. Don’t venture. Pass Haven Hair on your right, a boutique that’s usually brightly lit, and at the corner of Hale Street where cars would turn left past you going the other way, turn right.

This is your reward.

Downhill for almost a kilometre, into the wind, clean and fresh air bursting all over you even though counterintuitively it’s along sort of a highway. It’s an empty path, a clean path, a straight path, and it’s only at the very tail end of it as you come alongside the skate park that it climbs back up again. But you’ll have the energy back, the juju, the drive. Push up to the set of lights. If it’s clear, go. If it’s not, press the button, rest, relax.

Then we’re going straight over, along the left flank of Suncorp Stadium, through the bollards and along the side. Follow this all the way, flat, and where it veers off into a T-intersection towards either The Barracks or the stadium proper go right.

On your left you’ll get to an overpass over Milton Road. Take it. Level out. You have options at this stage, nearly 12 kilometres in, but I’d suggest just going over and hugging right on the way down the stairs. You can take it all the way up and over to add some more elevation. But at nearly 250 metres of it already, why would you?

Go down the stairs on the right and go left the set of lights. Round the corner, go under the bridge, and cross whenever you can. Run yourself back towards where you started on Railway Terrace.

This will climb some but not a lot — much less than if you kept left at the top of the stairs and decided to run all the way up and over Milton Road before turning either into the station or back at the intersection of Park and Baroona Roads — and then you’re home free.

Round the whole thing out to a good distance if you’re so inclined. If you started at the train station you should be at 12 kilometres on Strava or whatever by the time you get back to the train station. You should be at 12 by the time you pass the Vietnamese place that, depending on when you run, might be closed.

Congratulations.

Short of running straight up Mount Coot-tha, you’ve likely done Brisbane’s hilliest route.

Log it, post it, enjoy it, and cool off.

Given how sweaty you are I really hope you didn’t actually get the train in…