Waitakere City Half Marathon

Well that's another race down and I'm actually fairly happy with the result. Not quite the triumph that I'd hoped for five weeks ago, but still a good result considering two weeks ago I was in hospital hooked up on IV drip and feeling pretty sorry for myself.

Now for the RACE REPORT

I had the usual pre-race nerves last night. It seems that regardless of how many races I do, I still get nervous. I think its a good thing as its a reflection of my excitement. If every I lose that nervousness its probably going to be time to re-assess things. Despite the nerves I actually managed to get a fairly good sleep (although I did have to get up at 4am to settle my three year daughter down - bless her little heart).

My alarm was set for 6.10am and as advertised, it woke me up. Breakfast was my usual, two pieces of toast with a banana squished on top washed own with a cup of coffee. Nice and easy and doesn't give me any problems. From then on its just sipping a sports drink until race time. I was a bit spoilt this time as I was getting picked up so didn't have to worry about getting myself to the start line, or that annoying question of "what to do with the car keys?" - someone elses problem today!

At 7.10 (a little later than planned - race start was 8am) my ride turned up. I headed on down to the race with a mate of mine and his friend. This was going to be my mates first race, and needless to say first half marathon. He got all inspired after coming down to support me for IMNZ this year. So this was a big day for him.

It was going to be an even bigger day for his friend. He has literally only just started running after years of boozing and smoking and being a self confessed workaholic. Today marked a big turn around for him.

We got to the start venue and found that the car park was packed out meaning we had to drive around a bit to find a park. By the time we found one, got geared up and made our way to the start line there was about 10 minutes to spear - enough time for a last nervous pee ... Happily the toilets were right next to the start line, and (in my experience) for the first time ever there was no queue. Unbelievable yes, but I'll take it!

After wishing the boys good luck, I made my way a bit closer to the front to await the starting gun. The hooter went and we were off ... for a typically slow start, there were a lot of people trying to get onto the course. I spent the first 5k's working my way through the crowds who really should have seeded themselves further down the starting grid. But never mind, its all part of the fun.

At the 1k mark I was running below 4min 20sec (k) pace and kept that up fairly comfortably for the first five k's. The plan was to go out and run a pace that would give me a shot at a PB. The big question was always going to be whether or not I could keep it up as my training plan hit a big glitch when I got sick (I lost just over 2kg over the course of two weeks while sick and it put an 18 day break in my training plan).

The run was two roughly 10k laps, the first 5k was pretty flat, however the second 5k was surprisingly tough with a lot of small undulations. This ended up slowing me down a bit and put some unanticipated strain into my quads. With 7(ish) k's into the run you hit the major climb. Unfortunately yesterday when I checked out the course we got the wrong hill. The actual hill was both higher and longer than what we saw yesterday - no problem, love the hills!

I went through the 10k mark in 46 minutes. I shade off my goal pace, but still good enough for a PB - but once again the question, could I hold it?

I was still on pace for a sub 1.35 until the 15k mark, at which point I started to suffer - I was about to get my answer. Getting sick knocked my conditioning and my pace started to slip. My quads also started getting pretty sore on the undulations, and just to compound things both my shoe laces came undone, one after the other, resulting in two quick stops to re-tie them. This probably cost me a total of 30 seconds. "No big deal" I hear you say, but in a race like this every second counts!

I got to the 19k mark and watched 1 hour 30 minutes click by on my watch (plus a further 30 seconds) - sub1.30 will have to wait for another day I'm afraid.

Before you get to the finish you run a lap around a track in a stadium, which was a new experience for me. I managed to get into a sprint finish with another guy (which I won - yay) so it was quite a nice way to finish off.

End result was 1 hour 40 minutes and 25 seconds (see the 30 odd seconds I spent tieing my shoe laces may have meant the deference between getting a sub 1.40 - every second counts!).

Once I was finished I went back onto the course to wait for my mate and his friend. They turned up eventually and I ran along with them. My mates friend was doing it really hard and he was not in a happy place. My mate has stuck with him throughout the run to push him through, but with less than three k's to go, running a sub 2.30 half was looking questionable. With such a short distance to go his friend was definitely going to make it so he kicked on and I paced him for 5 minute(ish) k's to get him home on time. In the end he got home in 2hrs 30min and 57sec, close enough. He was pretty stoked and is already planning the his next race. He would have gone quicker as he was looking really solid, but he stuck with his friend - which is a really nice thing to do.


So the numbers (this should keep a certain Sub6 happy).

There were two distance options, being 11k and 21k (half marathon)

There was a good field of 1348 energised people

In my category there were 378 finishers

I finished in 74th place with a time of 1 hour 40 minutes and 23 seconds

My average pace was 4min 33sec k's (shade over 7min miles I think)


All in all a really worth while workout which should give a good kick to the upcoming Auckland Marathon (2nd November).