Vincero!
Snow, sleet, hail & gale force winds. You’ll have to wait for me to recover to get the full report but it was a fantastic experience and yes, I finished!
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1 day to go!
I’m here in Christchurch and I’ve got one day to go to the Marathon!
I went along to the expo last night to pick up my race number and race pack and I’ve got to admit that the quality of the race bag is rather low. Just a bunch of advertising material and nothing else. Oh well, you don’t run the race for the goodies bag do you?
The weather forecast for tomorrow is rather daunting:
| Max: 7 °C | Min: 1 °C |
| (Day) | (Overnight) |
| Sleety showers and strong cold southerlies. | |
There was a warning at the expo that we should dress for cold. Even though the temperatures aren’t that low apparently the windchill can take things down way below freezing. I’ve got the cold weather gear I’ve just never really had to wear it in Auckland even in the coldest outside runs. Something to look forward to I’m sure and it will add a bit of dramatic flair to my race report!
Thanks for all your support!
6 days and counting
Well, it’s 6 days to go to my first marathon and I’m feeling severely undertrained. I’ve done very little running this last week (only 3 runs!). I’ve had a cold, recovered from that and then got a stomach bug which involved a lot of running but only the few metres to my bathroom! I’m hoping all these bugs are just my body recovering.
Anyway, I’m feeling great today and am really looking forward to going to Christchurch later this week. Temperatures are pretty low there at the moment (2-6 degrees C) and my parents (who live there) reckon it could get even colder.
Speaking of the cold I’ve been finding it bitterly cold at home. One of the side effects of weightloss is that you really feel the cold a lot more. All that blubber acts as insulation I guess! I felt cold last year but nothing like this year. I’ve been wearing multiple layers of tops under my jacket just to try and stay warm. I guess its time to get out the heaters!
The marathon countdown is rather exciting. I vacillate between thinking it’s going to be very tough and hard and I’m a nut for doing it to thinking it’s it going to be very tough and hard and I’m a nut for doing it! But a happy nut. 
An afternoon run
I’ve had a pretty crap week in the sense that I had an annoying cold. I took two days off work which helped a bit but overall I’d much rather have been well.
Anways, as a result of all this I didn’t run at all during the week…not really a good idea with a marathon in two weeks but such is life. As such, I was determined to get out for a lung clearer yesterday afternoon.
I did my usual Tamaki drive loop but I extended it to go through Glendowie. I’d never been on this route before and in hindsight it was not the route for me after a week of no running. The first half was great. I really enjoyed it. The second half was extremely hilly. I knew there would be a hill or two but I didn’t think there would be quite so many. For the first time in quite a while I could really feel my legs once I got home.
19.97 km in 2:07:29. Hmm…what are the odds of the marathon coming in at under 4:30?
Run Auckland Race 3 2009
I was a doubtful starter for this year’s Eastern Beach Race as we had no baby sitter lined up and it was my wife’s turn to run the race. Fortunately the night before my wife’s cousin phoned up asking if we still wanted him and his wife to come over to babysit! Apparently we’d arranged it months ago and totally forgotten that we’d asked.
So Sunday morning found me toeing the line for a 10K race.
I bumped into Aaron again and it was good to catch up. I also saw a few of my colleagues from work at the event. It’s pretty good seeing all the different folks out there actually.
The weather in Auckland had been rather atrocious as it’s been thundering down and even hailing at times but fortunately we had a great gap in the weather for the race.
The Eastern Beach race course is a out and back 2.5km stretch that is flat and straight. As such I had to do 4 loops and my wife 2. I was hoping to set a new PR as I figured this was my best chance to set a 10K PR for the year.
The race itself was pretty good. The first 2 laps I was quite quick and well ahead of the time I needed for a PR. In lap 3 I started to realise that I’d gone out a bit fast and was struggling to maintain the pace.
I saw a lady ahead of me collapse and heard someone say ‘tell a marshal to get the ambulance’ so I made a note to tell the next marshal. A lady who was ahead of me beat me to him but he mumbled that he didn’t have a phone so please tell them at race control. I ran past the lady and at the turnaround point for lap 4 had to stop to tell the ambulance folks that their coffee break was over. I then resumed my race. I have to admit the ambulance folks were pretty fast as they overtook me within a minute.
Lap 4 going out was a bit of a struggle – not so much physically but more mentally. My wife (who was on the other side of the course) said I looked like I wasn’t enjoying it but I was actually. It’s rather surprising as I don’t normally have such a good time during the race but love it afterwards! The in lap was good as I kept trying to up my speed.
Looking at my stats for the race I can see that my first 3 laps were the fastest and then that last lap was. I’m still going out a little too fast I think.
Overall a good race. I set a new PR of 50:19 (Garmin time). I was a tiny bit gutted that I didn’t break 50 minutes (only 2 seconds a km faster required!) but then realised that a 2 minute PR was a pretty good result! Overall my average HR was 164 with a max of 174 so I think I can go a bit faster yet.
Here’s the race results graphic. It looks like everyone was a bit faster this time:
My wife had a good result too with a new PR of just under 30 minutes. Funnily enough the official results show she did it in 18:39 and finished 1st amongst the women!
It’s really nice being able to have her doing the races with me. You know if anyone had told us that we’d both be running races even just a year and a half ago we would have called them mental. Life is grand.
As we got back to our car the heavens opened in a thunderous deluge and we were very glad to be inside the car and not still on the course!
A beautiful morning run
My first marathon is 4 weeks away today. That’s a rather scary thought to be honest.
Anyways, today’s schedule called for a 20 miler (aka a 32 kmer for those of us in the metric system). I used map my run (the NZ knockoff at least) to plan out a route that was 32 km long and set off before the sun came up this morning.
The first leg of my run from Remuera out towards St Heliers was beautiful. It was dark out and the sun was slowly coming up and conditions were just perfect. I wanted to head around Cliff Rd and then down to Tamaki drive but I failed to notice my turnoff and ended up running an extra 2 or so km before realising admitting it to myself and turning around. This meant I’d added about an extra 3-4 km to my route so I needed to do a bit of on the spot improvisation and shave a few km off here and there as I ran along.
It turns out I didn’t do such a great job of this and ended up doing 33.65 km which was a bit more than I wanted. Fortunately the last 1.65 km were all downhill so that was a relief.
The only other eventful thing that happened on the run were a big dog chasing me for a bit. I just stopped as he seemed more friendly than vicious and his owner was frantically chasing him down.
One thing you notice when running around Auckland is that 33.65 km is a long way. Boy the marathon is another 8.55 km further than that. On the plus side I’m very convinced I can complete the distance (albeit slowly) but on the negative side it’s a freaking long way!
So 33.65 km in 3:43:27. That’s pretty slow even by my standards but I’ll take it. It wasn’t so long ago that even running 5K was a major event. 
Inspirational Bloggers: Andrew’s Blog
I’m starting a new series of posts where I’m going to highlight some of my favourite blogs.
One of the things I personally find very helpful is reading about other people who have been there and done that and the first of these that I’m going to mention is my friend Andrew (AJH) from Andrew’s Blog. One of the great things about blogging is that you get to become friends with people you would not normally meet.
A bit about him in his own words:
In July of 2004 I weighed about 40kg more than I do now, and I’d been overweight for the previous 20 years of my life. By June of 2005 I had lost about 24 kg by sensible eating and increasing the amount of exercise I took – primarily walking and cycling. I wanted to lose a bit more, but started to find it really tough, hitting a plateau – big time. I joined a gym and started a 6 month plan with a personal trainer – this helped a little, but not a lot. My PT kept telling me I should run, but I had never been a runner, and didn’t think I could do it. However, he persisted (as they do) and I decided to try – it was oh so hard at first (run a few steps, die a little, run a few more), but gradually I got addicted.
In 2006 I completed my first half marathon, in 2007 I completed my first marathon and in 2008 I completed my first triathlon.
A more visual representation of his transformation:
Andrew’s blog is more than just a running and fitness blog. It’s a bit of a personal journal and I’ve learnt quite a lot about Melbourne and his life just by reading his blog for the last year or so. If you are ever in Melbourne on a Saturday odds are you’ll find him in the Victoria Markets!
I think each blog has a main theme or lesson that you can get from it and this one is no exception. Andrew is one of those folks who’ve lost the weight, gotten fit and kept himself that way successfully for a few years now. The main lesson I’ve picked up is that you have to keep exercising. Persistence and dedication do pay off.
Head on over and introduce yourself to him.
