About ten years ago some nutter attempted to  chop down the tree on One Tree Hill here in Auckland.  It was quite an iconic symbol of Auckland and unfortunately it eventually died because of the attack and had to be pulled down.

The photo on the left shows the supports that the council placed on the tree to try and support it but to no avail.

Last night on the news they showed some new trees that they were going to plant.  There’s been a lot of political wrangling about what type of trees etc. to plant and it seems like they’ve decided to plant 9 trees.  No word on if they are changing the name to Nine Tree Hill yet!

As such, I decided I would take a run up One Tree Hill to go and have a look at these new trees.

Unfortunately it seems like they’d only been put up there for a photo opportunity as when I got to the top there was only a bare patch of ground where they had shown trees on the news!

It was a rather beautiful dawn moment as I got close to the top:

There were a lot of walkers going up – I guess with the same idea as me – and I felt really hardcore as I was the only I saw running up even though some of the walkers came perilously close to overtaking me!

Overall I did 22.5 km this morning.  Which brings my total weekly mileage to 74.2 km (46.1 miles) which is the most I’ve run in a week ever!  A great little milestone.

And here is a little music for you:

I had set my alarm for 5 am but there was no need.  By 4:30 I was up and raring to go.  I’d been woken up quite a few times in the night by the sounds of the wintry storm that was lashing Christchurch with heavy rain and I’ll freely admit to a few moments of trepidation.

Both my mother and my father were running in the half marathon event.  My dad doing his 6th one and my mother her first ever (Go mum!).  My beloved wife had originally planned on coming to cheer us on but we decided that she and Emma should stay home as the weather was just atrocious.

I had a website open that was reporting current conditions and the temperature was varying between –1 and –11 degrees centigrade as the wind gusted through the town.

Luckily I had come prepared and had some cold weather tights and a long sleeve top as well.  I’d never worn these when out running before and I recalled the advice that one should never do anything new on race day but I decided that being warm was better than freezing and that I would take my chances.

Here I am just before leaving for the event:

We got there about 40 minutes before the start.  The bag drop was very well organised – it looked like they had the air force cadets on duty doing all the work.  Another vital prerace activity is the bathroom visit.  The bathrooms were top notch as we could use the heated indoor ones in the Christchurch Town Hall.  Best prerace pitstop I’ve ever made.

At about 20 to 9 the race director urged us all to get into our starting boxes so we went outside.  The sun was shining and I thought that maybe I was a bit overdressed.  I went out and in a burst of optimism decided to line up with the 4 hour marathoners/2 hour half marathoners.  At about 10 to 9 I was glad that I had my cold weather gear as there was an icy blast of wind and then we got hailed upon.  This was the first time of many that I got hailed upon in that race!

I didn’t actually hear the gun as it were but all of a sudden everyone started to move.  Then we all came to a standstill again as the crowd bunched up.  It took me about two and a half minutes to get to the start but once I did I gave a ‘Hell Yeah!’ and started my very first marathon race.

The Christchurch marathon is a two lap circuit.  The half marathon is one lap and the marathon itself is two laps.

The start of the race was great.  Most race starts are I find.  The adrenalin is rushing through your body and you are surrounded by thousands of other runners who drag you along.  I made a deliberate attempt to go out reasonably slowly.  I figured I would try and maintain 6 minute kilometres for the whole event and that way even if I slowed down somewhat in the second half I should still come in in under 4 and a half hours.

I stuck to this for the first kilometer.  I even stuck to it for the next four kilometers although I did noticed my speed was slowly picking up.  I made a point of walking through the drink stop and making sure I got in a full cup of water.  I’d been warned that even though the conditions were cold I would still get dehydrated if I didn’t take enough liquids in.  At the end of the first 5K I felt great.

I took my first gel at this point and much to my disgust managed to spray it all over my face and arm.  I had a sticky arm and face for the next few kilometers until I got to the next waterstop and could grab a sponge to wipe myself down.

For the next 5K my pace went right up to 4 hour marathon pace.  I was going great and felt like I could maintain this pace indefinitely.  I slotted in behind a group of people who were running very comfortably at the 5:30 – 5:40 minutes per km pace and was quite happy being dragged along by them.  The weather wasn’t too bad at this point.  It was rather windy but the wind was at our backs and so there were no real complaints.

At the 9.5km this all changed when we turned back towards the city.  It was rather windy and I felt my pace slipping somewhat.  Having said that I still felt good and decided I would try and keep it up and still did around about 5:50 kms.  I kept these up until we got to Hagley Park.  The wind was rather bad there as there were no buildings to stop it and I was starting to feel the strain somewhat.  My pace plummeted to 6:30 but at that point I wasn’t too bothered as I figured I could easily make it up once I was out of the gale.

My brother was at the 20 km mark and I quickly gave him my jacket and gloves as I was starting to get quite warm.  It was good to see him and he told me my dad was only 30 seconds or so ahead.

Running through the start finish chute was bittersweet.  It was great to hear everyone cheering and it was great to know I was halfway but on the other hand all of a sudden I realised I was only halfway and I’d already been running for 2 hours and 7 minutes.

The first few kilometres of the 2nd lap were rather strange as I transitioned from running with heaps of people to pretty much running by myself.  Every so often I’d pass someone and to be honest a lot of people looked like they were struggling somewhat and I was still feeling pretty good.  I was a bit surprised by how good I felt.  I was tired and all but still very upbeat.  Normally I hit a patch during my races where I absolutely hate it and start to question why I’m doing this.  I hadn’t hit that patch yet and was hoping not to!

My first real thoughts of boy this is hard started at about the 25 km mark when I could look across the Avon River and see the runners on the other side.  There was a mix of slower half marathoners and walkers so there were still quite a lot of them but I knew that to get to that point I still had to run another 9km and even then there would still be quite a distance to go.  At this stage the struggle was a bit more mental than physical as I was still feeling reasonably good although my pace was slipping quite considerably.

At about the 26km mark I started to stiffen up a bit.  I could still run quite comfortably but I just could not take big strides.  This would get worse and worse as the marathon progressed but at this stage it was more of an annoyance than a problem.  Up until the 30 km mark I went along quite comfortably if slower than I would have liked.  I was consistently passing people and only rarely being passed by others.  There was a chap doing a run walk and he would run past me and then I would pass him when he stopped to do his walk.  We probably kept this up for about 12 km.

One thing the marathon does is give you plenty of time alone with your thoughts.  I stopped to think about my journey from being a couch potato to running in the marathon and I knew that there was no way in hell I was going to pull out of this event.  It just meant too much to me.  I got on to thinking about my inspiration for all this and it all comes back to my beloved wife.  None of this would have happened without her gentle unwavering support.  I owe her big time.

At the 30 km mark things started to get extremely tough.  I reached the point where I turned back towards the city and back into the wind.  I knew I had this pretty much all the way to the finish so I hunkered down and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other.  To make matters worse it started to snow, hail and sleet down.  This combined with the icy wind meant that I was rather cold and it really stiffened me up.  I made a point of trying to relax my body as much as I can but I think in those conditions it was really beyond my control.  I really started to regret giving my jacket and gloves to my brother as I was really struggling.  I found that my stride was getting shorter and shorter as my hips tensed up and as a consequence my pace was dropping quite dramatically.  I know going into the marathon I’d said to myself that there was no way in hell I could ever go slower than say a 6:45 min per km pace but I watched my pace first hit the 7 min mark and then even the 8 min mark.

To my surprise even though I was going slow I still felt good.  I was so stiff and cold that I could hardly move but my spirits were high.  I was going to finish and it was wonderful.

Would you believe it but at about the 37 km mark the sun came out again and I had to carry my cap for a bit as I was overheating.  By the 39 km mark it was freezing again.

One thing that was great was that all the marshalls and policemen on duty during the event were really supportive.  Quite a few of them commented on the fact that I was still smiling even though the conditions were atrocious.  I felt quite sorry for them having to be standing still in those conditions as they must have been freezing.

Kms 39 & 40 were the toughest of the marathon I think.  I was running in Hagley Park again and the wind was blowing something fierce.  I was extremely stiff and was down to a shuffle but I kept going and I still had a smile.  I was going to finish.

The organisers had put up heaps of posters with motivational sayings on them.  My favourite was: “It’s not that I finished but that I had the courage to start.”  I have to agree with that one.

I got myself through those two tough kilometres by chanting my wife’s name over and over like a mantra.  I told myself that I would give her a call as soon as I crossed the finish line.  I checked my phone and what do you know, there was a message from her.  I must admit I teared up a bit at that point and resolved to get to the finish line that bit quicker.

After I passed the 41 km mark I though I’d better try and shuffle a bit faster as I suspected my brother might still be around and sure enough he was.  It was quite funny as he was standing next to a marshal who said that he’d been waiting very patiently and hadn’t let any foul language pass his lips even when it got bitterly cold.  It was good to see that he’d stuck around and I told him I’d see him at the finish.  I even joked that he might get there before me at my current pace.

The last kilometre was both long and great.  I knew I was going to finish but the finish seemed rather far away.  As I ran down the last stretch I saw my parents and the Sri Chimoy Running Team gathered at the side cheering me on.  My mother is friends with them that’s why they gave me a cheer!  Rather nice of them.  The announcer called my name and I crossed the finish line!  I am now a marathoner!  4:54:53 – a new PR!

I gave my wife a call and I was pretty emotional.  Enough said about that!

It was a brilliant experience in torrid conditions and I learnt a lot about myself and marathon running.  I’ll do another post with lessons learnt.  I think this one is long enough.

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!

Well, I’ve still got a rather nasty cold and unfortunately it means I haven’t got much exercise in the last day or two.  I’ve also found that my desire to eat crap food has increased rather dramatically although I’ve managed to restrict it to the odd cup of Milo and a few mini chocolate bars.  Not enough to do any damage fortunately.

The Physics Diet Chart is looking good again.  For the first time ever I’m under 200 pounds on my Physics Diet rolling average.  199.96 pounds to be precise but I’ll take it!

Actual scale weight dropped from 89.8 kgs last week to 89.3 kgs this week which I’ll take as well.  I think it’s official.  I’m in onederland as my American readers say.

9 pounds or so till a normal BMI.  I never thought I’d get this close.  It’s rather exciting actually.

In other news I switched my feedburner subscription over to Google and since then I’ve seen some wild swings in the numbers of readers subscribed.   It normally varies between 170-250 so that is a bit odd.  Hopefully it will settle down somewhat.

I realised earlier this week that I started running just about one year ago.

My post on completing week 01 of Couch to 5K ends as follows:

I’m hoping to stick with it for the whole nine weeks and actually manage to do the 5km. Actually, I’m not hoping. I WILL stick with it.

Boy did I stick with it or what!  I must admit that I had my doubts at the time.  I’m so glad I did stick with it too.

In other news I’ve got a nasty cold and sore throat.  Not a happy camper.  But having said that I still got my run in this morning so it’s not that bad!

Running:

2009 is going to be my Marathon year.  I want to run a marathon.  I won’t make any plans for more until after my first one.  I’ve picked the Christchurch Marathon on Sunday 31 May 2009 which is not that far away.

I’m also going to do a wide variety of shorter races.  I’ll do a few half marathons, a number of 10Ks and at least 1 5K this year.  Hopefully I can break all my PRs in these.

Other fitness goals:

I still want to do the hundred.  I’m not even going to consider the Two Hundred Situps program until I’ve finished the One Hundred Pushups program.  I maxed out at 46 pushups in 2008 which is still more than I’ve ever managed to do but I would like to do the 100.   Damn you Steve Spiers.

I’m also thinking of taking up Aikido but I think that will have to wait until after the marathon.

Weightloss:

I’m in a pretty good place with my weight at the moment.  I’m still technically overweight (according to BMI) but I’m pretty happy with things.  I’d like to get to a normal BMI and so that will be my goal this year.  It’s not a big number this year and I think that is a good thing.  Truth be told I’ll be happy if I’m just lighter in 2010 than I am today.  Even one pound will do. Although…if I’m lighter I can probably run faster so maybe I’ll try for more than one pound!

To help with the weightloss I’ve entered Running Hoosier’s 13 week challenge.  I’d encourage those of you who are interested in losing weight to do the same.

It’s that time of year where everyone appears to be evaluating their efforts over the last year. I’m going to do the same!

1. Fitness.

I think I’ve exceeded all my fitness goals. At the beginning of 2008 I couldn’t run and my goal was to be able to run the quarter marathon at the Auckland Marathon in November. Well I ran the Half Marathon instead and am now regularly running in excess of 40 miles a week. A half marathon distance is just a Sunday run now. Not bad if I say so myself.

I’ve hit 1375 km for the year to date (850ish miles) and still have a run scheduled for the last day of the year tomorrow. The couch can kiss my proverbial!

2. Weight.

I’ve exceeded my expectations but I’m also a little disappointed with my weightloss progress. I’m well over 20 kilograms lighter than I was this time last year but I know I could have done a lot better. I haven’t really lost any weight since July and over the last few weeks I’ve regained a few kilograms while on holiday. The regain is annoying but I know I will lose those kilos rapidly so I’m not too bothered.

About July I hit a milestone that I never thought I would when I hit the 100 pounds lost mark. I felt good and got comfortable and let my eating habits slowly slip back into a more relaxed routine. I was maintaining fine up until December when I slipped into some bad habits again and have been pretty much overeating for most of it.

As such, I’ll chalk the weightloss as a victory but write in a ‘could do better’ comment on my grade card!

Overall I am tremendously pleased that I have managed to discover a love of running. Running has become part of my life now and I can’t go without exercise. I’m also extremely pleased that so many of my family and friends have taken it up as well. It’s brilliant!

I couldn’t have achieved what I achieved without the support of my wife. Thank you Darling!

I’m thinking about my goals for 2009 and will blog on them later this week. I want to have some realistic yet challenging goals so am giving them some serious thought.

I’m back in sunny New Zealand. I’ve had a great holiday but I’m glad to be back home now.

I thought about giving my run today a miss as I was feeling rather tired and jetlagged but I know I normally feel really good after a run so I decided to head out anyway.

I did my St Heliers loop which is about 15.5 km long and it was really good. There were people kite surfing at St Heliers Bay and you can just about see them on the right of that photo.  I’m really enjoying having a decent camera on my phone.

I’m still doing my low heart rate training so my aim was to keep my heart rate under 146 bpm. I had to go rather slow to do this but I’m getting sort of used to running slower now. The theory is that once I complete this base training I’ll be faster and fitter. I hope so as I’m feeling a bit slow lately!

My GPS watch asked me if I had travelled hundreds of km since my last run.  I thought that was quite funny.  It normally does that when it can’t detect the satellites it used the previous time.

After I got back and entered my run into my running log I noticed that I’ve run 57 km this week.  I’m fairly certain that this is the most I’ve ever run in a single week.

My alarm went off at 3:55 AM this morning.  Race day!  At last. 

The weather forecast was for heavy rain clearing in the early morning and for once it was accurate.  It bucketed down in the night but stopped at about 4AM.

My dad had flown down from Christchurch to do the race as well so we both got ready and then my darling wife dropped us off at the ferry terminal at 5AM.  The ferry terminal is just outside some of the more popular bars in Auckland and there was some poor drunk bloke staggering home after a hard night out on the town who made me laugh when he blurted out “You’re all F***G mental!” Yes we are mate.

We got the timing just right and managed to get straight onto a ferry.  25 minutes later we were in Devonport eyeing up the portaloos.  I have to give credit where credit is due and say that the race organisers had definitely put in plenty of portaloos!  There looked to be about 500 meters worth of them.

My dad has a regular training partner who was supposed to be meeting him but by the time the race started he still hadn’t shown up so we just ran.  About 100 meters into the race he showed up!  7500 people and he managed to find my dad.  I was impressed!  I left them behind at that point and set off on my personal quest.

I had decided to try and maintain a reasonably conservative pace for the first half so that I would still have plenty in the tank in the second half.  In all my races up until now I’ve always shot off and struggled quite a lot at the end.

The course was quite congested for the first two kilometers so it wasn’t too hard to be restrained.  I must admit that I was extremely happy to be out running this event.  It wasn’t that long ago that I weighed more than 300 pounds and the thought of exercise filled me with dread.  Fortunately I’ve kicked the couch habit and am now a runner.

I lost quite a bit of time at the drink stations.  I think next time I will do what I do in training and carry my water with me.  It’s much easier and I know what to expect that way.  It was hard to get at the water and I didn’t get much in either I think.

At the 10K mark my time was 52:36 and I was very pleased.  The race had been very enjoyable up until this point and I was going strong.  I was actually ahead of my projected finish time and I was thinking the hills that someone had warned me about hadn’t been that bad.  Oh boy, how wrong can you be?

Kilometer 11 – 15 was hilly!  It started off with some small hills, then some big ones, and then the bridge!  The bridge wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared it would be.  It was long and steep but I had done a lot of hill training in my training and I actually kept a really good pace up all the hills.  Not once did I even consider stopping.  The marathon photo people were on the bridge so I made sure to give them a big smile and a festive fist pump as I went past.  I look forward to seeing those photos in the next few days.

Kilometer 15 was where things started to go downhill a bit.  Both figuratively and literally!  Literally in that it headed downhill after the bridge and figuratively in that a few things started to go wrong with my run.  Firstoff,  I started to get some rather serious stomach rumbles and I really didn’t feel good.  I also made a rather serious mistake with my footwear – I wore shoes I’d only done about 20 km in, essentially new shoes.  This resulted in some rather nasty blisters and both my big toes are bruised under the nails.  This made running rather interesting.

Kilometers 16 – 17 I started getting slower and slower.  I abandoned my 1:53 hopes.  I abandoned my 1:55 hopes.  I abandoned my 2 hour hopes.

Kilometers 18 & 19 I started to hate running and worried that I wouldn’t finish.  I thought about walking but really didn’t want to.

Kilometer 20 I thought HTFU and run!  So I ran.  Could I make two hours?  Hmm.

Kilometer 21.  Where’s my cheer team?  Run!  Where are they?  Run! Where’s my lovely wife?  Sprint, there’s the finish!  What’s my time!  1:59:04!

I didn’t actually see my wife until about 30 minutes after the race.  She took the photo above and so I must have looked right at her but I didn’t see her at all.  Apparently my mum was cheering like mad too but I missed them both.  There were so many people lining the finish.  I went through the finish and couldn’t find them so I went to the Heart Foundation tent and got my free massage.  Then I went back and found them all at the bag pickup area.  It was a bit disappointing that there was no finishers medals for the half marathoners.  The medals looked so nice too.  For a $89 entry fee you think you’d get something at the end.  Oh well.

It was really special having my family there at my first half marathon.  I don’t know who was happier about me doing it.  Actually I do.  My mum is my number one fan.   Hi Mum!

Immediately after the event I was a bit despondent about my time as I’ve run faster in my training runs but that only lasted for about 10 minutes.  I’ve come such a long way.  A year ago I couldn’t run 100 meters.  Today I ran that 100 metres and another 21 km.  Wow!  I also set a Half Marathon PR.  I should be able to beat that one too in my next HM in February.  I’m rather happy that this overweight middle aged fellow has managed to become a runner.

I have to run a marathon now.  I just have to.

I’d like to use this opportunity to say something to my wife Sally.  Darling, getting to the point where I could run this race was a lot of work but I know it was a lot of work for you too.  You’ve supported me from the beginning and I could not have done it without you.  I know I’ll never be able to express how grateful I am to you.  Without you I would still be lost.  You are the most amazing person I know and I love you.  I’m always amazed that you love me too.  Just as well considering we’re married!   Thank you.

And thank you to all of you as well.  This blog has really helped me achieve this goal and without all of your cheers and bits of advice and whatnot I don’t think I would have been nearly as successful.  Thank you all.

My wife managed to twist her neck and hurt it rather badly while looking after our little girl in the middle of the night so I spent a good part of the day taking her to doctors, massage and acupuncture.

When we got home I decided that I had better get my run in before it got dark so I headed out in the late afternoon.  I wanted to do a nice and easy 10K run so I headed out towards Tamaki Drive.  I did a 10K run but it wasn’t particularly easy.  I think I was a bit dehydrated as I hadn’t drunk anything since about 10am and there was quite a strong wind blowing so the running was rather hard.  Having said that I still managed to run the whole way and didn’t stop at the ice cream shop that I passed twice!

One of my friends, Stephen, had his birthday yesterday and held a party in the evening.  My wife and I went along and had a great time.  I can’t remember any other evening events that we have actually gone to during the week since our daughter was born.  Considering she is 15 months old tomorrow – it’s been a while!

I had a single slice of pizza, some fries with aoli and an espressotini and a small piece of birthday cake.  They were all good and, to top it off, I had a record low (scale weight) on my weigh in this morning so it looks like you can have your cake (in moderation) and eat it!

Here’s a photo that he took of me last night:

A bit different from this one: