14km in under two hours, 01:55:44 to be exact. And let me tell you, it was tough but also feels really good. But let's start at the beginning.
The event was at Waitakere Trust Stadium, which is about 15km from where I live. The run started at 9am but as I still had to register and wanted to make sure I had plenty of time, I made sure I arrived early. So I got up at about 6.45 (on a Saturday!!!!!!!!!) and left at around 7.30. I got to the stadium just before 8am and it was still very quite and only few people around. I went to registration and picked up by number and timing chip (this little thing to tie to your shoe so they can take an exact time for you) and then spent some time figuring out how best to attach both of them (it's not that simple when you're doing something like this for the first time). But I just observed how others did it and copied that. I then spend some time just walking around, eating an energy bar, stretching etc.
At 8.50 the organiser did a quick event briefing to make sure everyone knows what's gonna happen and then at 9am sharp of we went. As I am doing a mix of running and walking I started in about the middle of the back half, sort of behind the runners and before the walkers.
The track was a 7km loop which I had to do twice. I've inserted a map of the loop below. The quality is not so good, so it you want to get a better look, follow this link.
There was only one bigger hill at the beginning, the rest was just slightly rolling - typical for Auckland. About the first 4km we were running through a residential area. I felt good in the beginning and was happy that the good night sleep I got meant that I felt much better then yesterday. After 4km the track went along a river, first on one side and then on the other for about 2km. That was the nicest part of the track with the river on one side and trees and bushes on the other. After the river track we had to walk/run uphill to the stadium again, then once around the stadium round and then of into loop two and do the whole thing again.
I was having a low towards the end of loop one and running past the finish line knowing I had to do the whole thing again was really tough. I finished my first loop around 55 minutes so I knew I was on goal to finish in under 2 hours. At the same time, however, I also knew that the second loop could not be much slower than the first. But to see that I was on track motivated me and I started to feel a bit better again. I made good time in the first half of loop two but then from around km 11 it got really tough. The longest run I had done so far was 12km just two weeks ago, so everything longer than that was really stretching my boundaries. And the fact that it started raining a little wasn't really helping either.
I had to walk quite a bit in that second half of loop two but wasn't too worried because I could see on my watch that I was still on track to finish in under 2 hours. Once I made it up to the Stadium I pushed myself a bit harder again and was able to run most of the last km. Most importantly, I RAN across the finish line (I was a bit worried I might be crawling over the finish line, so that's a really success).
And here is what I looked like after I finished. (I do admit this picture was taken after I recovered a little and was able to smile again)
Overall, I'm really happy and proud. First of all that I was able to actually complete a 14km run/walk and secondly that I achieved my goal to finish in under 2 hours. That means I'm on track for the half marathon!
After I got home I took a shower and went back to bed (with a BIG cup of coffee of course). My legs were feeling really heavy and I was sooo tired. But they all say you have to stay active on the day of the race and NOT just be lazy to avoid muscle soreness etc. Well, luckily I got the long awaited message yesterday that my iPhone finally arrive and what better motivation to get out of bed than to go and pick it up ;-)
OK, honestly I'm too tired to write anymore right now, but I might add a few race details tomorrow.
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