Andrew is getting fit

I ran the Solid Energy Huntly Half Marathon on Sunday.  I’ve also been extremely slack and haven’t gotten around to writing up my race report until today!

My wife’s cousin originally asked me if I was keen to go run the Huntly Half as he’d heard there were good spot prizes there.  I thought about it for about 2 seconds and said “Sure!” as I had been planning on doing it in any case. 

Huntly is about an hour or so away from Auckland and on the drive down on Sunday  morning we hit a bit of fog.  This meant that the start was a bit delayed as traffic had to slow down and people were still flooding in right up until the gun went off at 10:15 rather than the original 10am.

My plan for the race was to run conservatively and set a PR.  This seems like a bit of a contradiction but in reality it was not.  My previous 1/2 marathon PR was 1:59:04 and I set that in my very first half marathon back in 2008.  I haven’t actually run a proper half since then as the 2 half marathons I’ve run since then have been classified as fun runs and the courses have been a bit short so I didn’t count them as PRs.

So I set my virtual partner on the Garmin to do a 1:58 as I wanted to practice my pacing and hopefully negative split.  In previous races I’ve gone out too fast every single time.  This always results in a second half that was much slower than the first half!

The first half of the race was great.  I got stuck behind a lot of walkers in the beginning but I didn’t indulge in lots of weaving as I figured it wouldn’t make much of a difference overall.  It was probably a blessing in disguise as my first KM was the slowest of the race which is very different to my normal race outcomes.

I settled into an easy pace that was just slightly faster than my virtual partner and enjoyed the run.  The scenery was quite pretty.  We ran along some suburban streets then went out onto what looked like a hiking track.  At about the 5km mark I realised that I had been trading places with an older lady from the YMCA Marathon club so I decided I would just fall in behind her and follow her as she was running at my target pace.  This was a good move as I found the running really easy after doing that.

At the 10km mark we headed off the trails and back onto the suburban roads. 

 

I had to give kudos to the organisers of the event.  The water stops (which only had water) were positioned well and often.  There were very enthusiastic volunteers manning them and it was just great.

My half way split was 57:43 which was a little fast but I felt that I was running well within myself at that point and wasn’t too concerned.

It was just before the halfway point that things started to get hilly.  I must admit that the hills took me by surprise.  I had thought the course was flat but from the 10km mark to (I’m guessing) 14km mark there was a serious of rolling hills which really separated the pack.  I’m pleased to report I passed a lot of people on the hills which was quite satisfying.

The second half of the second half was an out and back section to the Solid Energy Coal Mine.  It was quite cool as we actually ran into the mine area and ran under some mining equipment which was very different to anything I’d ever done.

I dedicated the last 4 km of my half marathon to different folks.

I started off with km 17 and thought about my mum and how proud I am of her and her efforts to get fit.  Km 18 was dedicated to thinking about my dad and how he is a source of inspiration to me for taking up running.  Km 19 was dedicated to my little girl and I was thinking how I’m so glad she’s only going to know a fit dad.  Km 20 was dedicated to my darling wife and her support.

I had a brief problem at the beginning of km 20 when my cap caught on a tree and flew off.  I fleetingly thought of leaving it there but I paid good money for that cap so I ran back and got it.

Km 21 (all .1 of it!) was dedicated to myself as I tried for a sprint finish!  I didn’t quite sprint across the finish line but the last km was my fastest overall:

I managed to finish the second half in 56:39 for my first ever negative split in a race.  I also finished with a fantastic PR of 1:54:22 which is a lot faster than I had aimed for.  That time may be problematic next Sunday when I run the Christchurch marathon.  I don’t feel that I pushed too hard but I guess time will tell.  If I blow up in the marathon you’ll know why!

I really enjoyed this race and I’ll be back again next year if circumstances permit.

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