The 35-year-old Canberran bowed out as one of Australia’s longest serving track athletes on the same day compatriot Michael Shelley landed marathon gold, going one better than the silver he secured four years ago in Delhi.

In his first marathon in almost 12 months, Dent clocked 2:19.22 on a slippery day in Scotland, more than eight minutes slower than Shelley’s sizzling effort.

Going into the race he had harboured ambitions of contesting the Gold Coast Games as a 39-year-old in 2018, but an hour into the Glasgow circuit Dent realised his time as an international player was up.

“I retired halfway around the race, it’s really hard when you’ve got that long to go and you know you’re not feeling good enough to really push for a challenge,” Dent said.

“You’re fading, you’ve got three guys coming past you that are not running that fast anyway.

“I went out conservative and then died, so it’s not a real great performance. It’s a shame because the pace probably wasn’t too bad for me but I think I just wasn’t quite in as good enough marathon shape as a I thought I was.

“It’s hard to bury yourself to for the last 30 seconds when you’re running two nineteen or whatever it was.

“I’ll keep running around, I’ll probably hit some local races but I don’t think I’ll be spending three weeks overseas preparing for a big meet like this again.

“I’ll go home and get back to the family and get back to work.”

Dent ran his first marathon in 2002, after making his senior Australian debut in cross country 15 years back.

He finished 28^th in the marathon at the London Olympics and ran sixth in Delhi two years prior at his Commonwealth Games debut.

Awaiting him back in Canberra is his wife and four kids, who are about to see a whole lot more of Dent.

But before jetting home he has some celebrating to do with Shelley and fellow Australian Liam Adams who, like Shelley, produced a personal best in Glasgow en route to a seventh-placed finish.

“It’s awesome Michael won, the fact that he put so much into it,” Dent said.

“It’s been his main focus, and he’s been rewarded for it and I’m happy for him - he’s a great guy who deserves that. I can’t wait to see it on replay, because I was just miles behind.

“He won by a heap. It’s awesome on a day like this, slippery on the hills, that’s up there with some of the wins that Deek [Robert de Castella] and Monna [Steve Moneghetti] have done.

“I’ve never really had that opportunity before to get a real high finish at an international meet. It was nice to share that with Mike.”