I didnt sleep much last night. I spent most of the night worried I would not hear my alarm. I had set the alarm to wake me at 4am so I could have some breakfast and then again at 6.30am to get ready for the race. I didn't need to worry as everything went to plan and I got to have my weetbix and some more sleep!!!!
We headed down for the race and caught up with lots of friends. I watched the Marathon start and cheered on my friend who was running it for the first time and then it was time to line up and start myself. I squeezed into the group of runners standing by the 'average' sign. (I had asked at sign in if I could please start with the runners and when I told them my projected time they explained the signs to me....avg meant 2hours - 2.30......) suited me just fine. So I quickly jumped into a spot and within seconds we were counting down and the gun goes off.
The first 3km was on the paved walkway along the Taylor River, then it went to groomed gravel walkway for about 2km. It was from here until 8km that things got a little "adventurous" for the first 2km it was a stony road with large stone sticking up (I tripped on many!!) then we had a river crossing which involved walking over 6 large squares of concrete that moved as you stepped on them....add a photographer saying "SMILE" to that....yeah right!!!!! was all I could say..............then you popped up on to a grass walkway that had a little sheeps trail cut into it - I tried to walk in the sheeps trail but it ened up a bit over grown. At the end there were two short but very sharp mounds (cant really call them hills) but that ground you to a halt pretty quick and you could only power walk up that. I cant tell you how relieved I was to pop out onto the tarmac and know that it was all just road from then on.
It was along here that I started to pass a few of the runners - much to their own disgust..hehehe - the course popped us out on to New Renwick Road - this road went on FOREVER!!!!. It was along here that my Mum and Erle had parked. My Mum has not seen me walk and was so excited to see that she had made it out on the course. I called out and had a very short chat and carried on my way. Finally we crossed the bridge and headed back on to the gravel walkway to rejoin the paved walk way. I knew now it was only 3km to to the finish. Dig it in I said to my self......I must have said this out loud as the jogger beside me said "I am trying too!" lol.....
Seeing the officals at the end of the walk way never looked so good!!! I zipped up the stop bank and then rounded the corner and could see the finish line. I could hear my name being called out and I saw my friend cheering me on......so I pushed hard for a good finish. My Mum saw me and got so excited she pressed record on her camera instead of photo and took a very short video of my finish...lol.....glad she did as poor Shane had trouble getting a park and missed my finish by 3 mins!!! So here for my mums blog and video site address http://glennisphoto.blogspot.com/
I am please to say that I won this event - I was First walker. They gave out medals for each age group for the walkers so sadly it was not recognized as First walker...just first in my age group. But I got a medal!!! Yay me. My time over all was 2:11:40
The great news was as we made our way back from prize giving.....all my friends were waving at us and motioning for us to come quickly...so I walked over to be told that my name had just been call for a spot prize. I went up to the trailer and said "I am Nyle" ......oh he said...fashionably late I see... you have just won Oysters and a tee shirt. Then he handed me this huge polybin. I grabbed it and went back over to everyone...we opened it and inside was 6 or 7 bags of Oysters still in shells...approx 12 oysters per bag. Now Oysters are a delicacy here ..... but not in my house....I dont mind the odd deep fried one...but raw from the shell....it like swallowing a large snot ball....UGH!!! so I grabbed one bag out for my Father in Law...(sorry mum but we couldn't get them to you!) and gave the rest to my friends who were more than happy to share them)
I have lots of video to put up and will make that a separate post with links to You Tube.
Marlborough Half Marathon GPS DATA
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