Auckland Marathon - 30 Oct 2011

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I apologize for the lack of updates recently. I have started a new job about weeks back that has kept me very, very busy. I now work for a supplement company in Auckland. I sort supplement pills for defects for up to 14 hours a day, 6 days a week. It is not hard work, but it can get really dull staring at the same thing for the whole day. The work is very manual, so there are no machines to roll the pills, and everything is done by hand.

Before securing this job, and after having made the decision to leave my job as an avocado packer, I travelled the Coromandel Peninsular for a week. After that week of travel, I already got a call to join this supplement company. I hope to share some posts and photos with you as soon as I get my off days (not very many).

Since I made the decision to come to NZ, I have always hoped I could run this country's largest marathon, Auckland Marathon. However, due to the nature of my work and the type of travelling -we do (backpacker style) and the fact that we do not often know where we will end up or when we would need to move on, I never did sign up for it. Landing this supplement job in Auckland itself was a blessing in so many ways. One because we had wanted to land a job that would offer us more working hours so that we could save more money for our South Island vacation. Two, it would allow most of us (Jie Min is the only non-runner amongst us) to run the Auckland Marathon.

Yet, even then I hesitated to sign up. That was because I have not done much running at all since coming to NZ. My jobs had too many long hours and the early mornings were just too cold to be out running. Then my final push in making my decision was that I knew people who actually travel from abroad to run this race, so being in Auckland and not running was such a waste. So I decided to sign up, with no LSD under my belt and no proper training.

So 2 weeks before the marathon, I made an effort to sign up even though registration was official closed to all. However, due to the fact that I was an international participant, the organizers were so terribly nice to let me register. The bad news was that I had to pay the late bird price of NZ$149 instead of NZ$129. Since I figured that people in Malaysia actually pay for flight and hotel on top of marathon fees just to come here to run it, NZ$20 was not going to be an issue for me. Of the three of us, only Lie Wei and I signed up for the marathon. Lie Yee did the half.

My final effort at some semblance of training was to run a 23.5km taper run on Monday, 6 days from the marathon. It felt okay to run that distance but, 42km was still a long, long way to go.

On the day of the marathon, I woke up at 3am. It seemed ridiculous that they would be starting a spring marathon at 6.10am in the morning. However, seeing that they would need to closed traffic on the Harbour Bridge for a good part of the morning might be the reason for this. I only had a light windbreaker on as I waited to board the ferry from the city that would take me to Devonport (north of Auckland) where the marathon would start. The temperature was a frigging 10C and the wind was a killer. I suppose the route planner of the marathon intended for runners to experience crossing the Harbour Bridge and be greeted by the amazing skyline of Auckland. A year back, I crossed another Harbour Bridge in Sydney's Marathon to similarly spectacular views.

Upon arriving in Devonport, approximately a 12-minute ferry ride, we started to get the important things like toilet breaks and hiding in a children's playground plastic slide castle to keep warm. We were lucky that we got to the portable loos early as a massive line formed very soon after. Logistically, handling 7000 runners must be tough.

We were so busy trying to keep warm that we narrowly made it to the start as we had to rush to take off our jackets and checked in our gear bag. The start of the marathon went off without a hitch, but there was much fanfare probably because they were in the heart of a residential area and I doubt the residence would have appreciated blaring music at 6.10am. I had one goal in mind since I did not train at all. I was still going to try and run a sub-5hour marathon and I was going to try and pace Lie Wei to get her to that as well. I took a 5-hour pacing bracelet from the Runner's World booth at the expo to ensure that I could get us both there.

The Auckland Marathon course runs about 12km in the Devonport, North Shore area before hitting the Harbour Bridge to cross over to the city. From then on you run along the coastal road from the city to Saint Heliers. The first 13km was actually a whole lot of fun (even though the increase in elevation was the greatest in the first 5km) because I still had a lot of energy and the residence of Devonport came out in numbers to cheers of us. We also were entertained by numerous performances along the course.

As you cross the Harbour Bridge, you are greeted by some magnificent views of the Auckland city skyline. It is always so motivating to see such amazing views in a marathon. After, descending from the Harbour Bridge, you run up a small hill before making a U-turn down to the Viaduct area, marking the 16km mark of the course. The course pretty much flattens out after this.

During this course of the run, Lie Wei and I saw a guy collapse on the opposite side, but when we made the U-turn he was safely being attended to already. From the Viaduct, you run past Britomart and the Auckland CBD before heading down the coastal road towards Saint Heliers. I would say that the coastal road remained scenic for me up until 25km when I was just waiting for the turnaround point. At that point, I have managed to build us a comfortable 7-min lead of my intended sub-5 target. As I had not done any research on the course, I did not know when to expect the turnaround. The coastal road was also such that it curves in a way that allows you to see far ahead and to catch a glimpse of train of runners that still keep going on and on and on. At this point, it was tremendously demotivating and I was losing patience.

The turnaround point finally came at 31.5km (my lead increased to 9 minutes) and I was greatly relieved to see it! However, it was not good news after that when my body just started to give out and I was just clinging on to a sub-5 pace. I was struggling... the kilometers were not ticking by fast enough as I glance at my watch every 2 minutes to check my pace and the distance. I was crying to see the km markers. With 6km to go, I felt a very painful pull in my left Achilles tendon. At around the same time, Lie Wei also started to develop a cramp behind her left knee. We both struggled to hang on. I counted down every 200meters of the run. I was in a lot of pain and so was Lie Wei. She was willing her muscle not to cramp and I was willing my Achilles tendon to stop pulling.

We both shuffled our way past each km. By then the 9-minute lead I had build had trickled down to 8 minutes. Finally, the Britomart came into view after the agonizing 4km. That would mean that I was just two more kilometers to the finish line. I encourage Lie Wei and we push on. We ran past the Viaduct, one more kilometer to go. And then we turned the corner and there was the finish line area at Victoria Park. We made a charge for the finish and crossed the line together with a net time of 4:52:11.

I was so superbly happy that I managed to not stop running and I managed to hit my goal of a sub-5 hour marathon. We treated ourselves to some massive burgers from White Lady and bumped off some free Steinlager Edge beers from the marathon finish line.

Auckland Marathon was such a satisfying marathon because I was able to achieve my goal even though I have not been training since arriving in NZ.

I am not posting any running photos here as they come from Marathon Photos anyways and have that ugly watermark. If you wish to see photos you can go look up my bib #5120 at:
http://www.marathon-photos.com/scripts/event.py?event=Sports/2011/Auckland%20Marathon

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Photos

Bib and chip
My lucky number and my timing chip. The timing chip is very different from those used in Malaysia.

Running partner
Lie Wei and I barely looking awake at 3.30am.

Goodie bag!
The Goodie bag was actually not bad. We got Dove products, cereal, nuts, gum, Powerade (which I already drank) and an official event Adidas Climalite T-shirt.

Finish goodies
Sadly, no Finisher's T, but the medal looks great. The thing in the blanket is a heat sheet from Panadol which allows you to keep your body warm in the cold weather after you have completed your run. It works wonders!

Medal
The front of the Finisher's medal.

Medal
The back of the Finisher's medal. Notice they leave you a space to engrave your name.

Comments

[Alan]

Woo hoo! Congrats!
Well done! Impressive results as usual. The medal design is awesome.

[starbuck1979]

Thanks a lot, Al. It was a nicely organized one... the marathon expo is quite as good.

[Jimmy]

Good job!
Good job Chin Chin! Congrats and the medal do look awesome. I was just sitting in my room here in Adelaide and I was wondering how is Chin Chin doing in NZ. And then I got an email notification from Yahoo that you updated your blog. It's so nice to read up on your experience down in NZ. Glad that you are doing well and thanks for taking the effort to keep us updated on your life.

[starbuck1979]

Thanks a lot for keeping up-to-date with what I have been up to, Jimmy! Hope life is good in Adelaide. How is the wife and kid?