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Auckland Marathon 2009 Race Report

I did not sleep much last night.  I guess I was a bit nervous about the event and that got my brain buzzing.  After a lot of tossing and turning I finally fell asleep about 2 minutes before my alarm went off.  Well that’s what it felt like!

I have this thing about always being on time and so I like to be ready early so I think I did really well to catch the second ferry of the morning rather than the first – unlike last year!

I was in Devonport at about 5am and I almost immediately bumped into fellow blogger Aaron. We had a good chat about the upcoming event and then headed our separate ways.

The start was at 6:10 AM and I had decided that I was going to try and stick with the 4:15 pace group as that was a pace I had been planning on trying to achieve.  In the past my big mistake has been going out too fast and I was determined not to do this again today.

Unfortunately I think this was a mistake.  After the first two km there were a few mutterings amongst our group that the pace guy was planning on walking the last 2km so was trying to build up a healthy lead.  After 2.5km he headed off to the loo and abandoned us without a so much as a “I’ll be back”.  I didn’t see him again till the 4km mark and managed to stick with him up until about the 12km mark.  However he was going way too fast.  If I look at my time splits I was on pace for a sub 4 hour finish after the first 10 km.  I decided to let him go as we hit the rolling hills before the bridge as it was becoming very hard to keep up with him.

I went quite slowly up the bridge as I didn’t want to burn out and it was a good experience.  It’s always nice running somewhere you are not normally allowed to run I find!

I started to get a few stomach rumbles and so hit the portaloos along Curran St.  I spent a bit too much time in there and  I started to get a bit concerned at this point as gastro issues have ruined quite a few of my long runs.  For some reason I started to get a rather nasty headache as well.  I must admit that at this point I was thinking that the half marathon is a great distance!

My half marathon split was 2:06:37 which was under the time I needed for a 4:15 (even with my extended portaloo stop) so I have proof I was not exaggerating about the 4:15 pace guy being way too fast.

The second half of the race was a bit of a disaster I’m afraid.

There were quite a few portaloo visits.  Let me tell you now that you don’t want to go into a portaloo after several thousand runners have gone by…enough said about that.

I really struggled to keep going and I can honestly say that I really did not enjoy most of the second half.

Having said that there were a few fantastic highlights.

My wife, daughter, cousin, cousin-in-law and their kids were at Mission Bay to cheer me on.  You have no idea how great it is to see family there cheering you on when you need it.  I felt truly blessed to see them.

My wife took this photo of me:

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I also saw some of my students out cheering and got a bit cheer from them.  That was very nice too.

I’m fairly sure I saw William powering along.  He looked to be in much better shape than me but I was a fair distance ahead of him.  I guess I built up a bit of a lead in my good first half.

Aaron powered past and looking at his results he had a really good inaugral marathon.

I finished in 4:58:24 which is slower than my last marathon but surprisingly this one was a lot tougher.  During the race itself I was rather disappointed but after a great afternoon with my wife and daughter I realise that it was actually an awesome achievement to finish.  I always find finishing these things quite emotional and I’m glad I’m in a position to participate.  A few years ago I wasn’t and it’s very easy to forget that.

I’m very happy that I did it and I love the medal!  We took my daughter to the park in the afternoon and I insisted on wearing my medal!

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As you can see in the map below, 42.2 km is a very long way!

My Activities Auckland Marathon 1-11-2009

Congrats to everyone else who participated.  It was a great day for it.  Thank you all for your support.

A very special thanks has to go to my beloved wife who has been unfailingly supportive.  Marathon training takes a lot of time and she’s had to put up with quite a lot!  It was especially great having her and my daughter out on the course today. :)

P.S. For my Auckland readers Revive restaurant is giving out a free meal to all Auckland Marathon runners on Monday and Tuesday. You just have to take in your running bib (number).

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 8:04 pm and is filed under fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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