adidas Auckland Half Marathon - 30th October 2011

Kia ora everybody

I am very pleased to announce that this Sunday just gone, I completed the adidas Auckland Half Marathon!  Can I give myself a whoop whoop!!!!  Whoop whoop!!!   It was a fabulous event and I describe it as the epitome of walking/running events in NZ.

The way that this half marathon works is that you start across the harbour from the city in a beautiful little town called Devonport.   You head around  Takapuna, Northcote and walk over the Majestic Harbour Bridge.  The far two lanes of the Auckland Harbour bridge are closed off to all traffic from 7am to 9.30am.  So you have to be on the bridge by 9am or you get cut off. You then walk around the waterfront and finish at Victoria Park, downtown Auckland City.

All in all it was so well run and organised everything was sorted down to a fine art.  A for awesome!

Saturday 29th October 2011
I woke up at 7.30am and organised myself for the halfie and to drive the five hour trip to Auckland.  My cousin and fellow half marathoner was holidaying in the North for the two weeks prior to the marathon, so we had planned to meet up at the registration place on the waterfront.

The drive was a bit of a whirlwind, and I spent the majority of it listening to words of inspiration from my favourite author, Louise L Hay  and getting some serious self development done during the drive.

My ETA was supposed to be 2pm and my cousin's bus was arriving in Auckland at that same time, so we were sorted!  Except I mucked around big time and instead of packing my bags the night before, like I would normally, I left it all for the morning.  I text her that I'd be there just after 3pm and as it turned out her bus arrived hours early and she got to spend a few hours exploring the marvelous City of Sails.

I finally arrived and located her at 3.30pm and after a few round trips of Britomart, we parked up our car and walked over to the Registration office.

Walking through the viaduct, on our way to register for the event

One of the fanzones for the Rugby World Cup - it was being packed down so I didn't get to check it out :(

Arriving at Registration 

I was thoroughly impressed with the superior organisation of this event.  It was at this point that I truly realised the magnitude of this marathon.  It's definitely the biggest one I've every participated in and I'm pretty sure that it would be the biggest in the country.

Registration Central 

Outside the Registration building 

Goodie Bag and Gear Bag collection

As this was the third and final day that registration had been open, there were no big lines and we walked straight up the counters.  After receiving our bibs, timing chips, t-shirts and ferry ticket from the first desk, we were then shepherded to the goodie bag collection.  This is one of my favourite parts of doing these events!!!

Beside the standard assortment of sponsors' flyers and upcoming events this one also included:

1. A sample sized Dove mens bodywash (Guess what my man's getting when I get home)
2. A sample sized Dove men's deodorant (which I ended up using at the end and smelt like a man!)
3. A sample sized "One Square meal" bar
4. Compeed blister spots - I hoped that I didn't need these!
5. A sample sized Dove Bodywash
6. Healtheries "Focus" nut mix pack - that one went straight into my belt bag for on the walk nourishment and distraction!
7. Riolife - dried Acai berries - absolutely delish!  This one went into the belt bag too!  
8. A sample pack of Hubbards "Real" cereal
9. A pack of 5X chewing gum

When we collected our goodie bags, we were told that they also acted as our "post-race" gear bags so if there was anything we wanted after the race, (remembering that it started on the opposite of the harbour to where it finished)  we were to put it in the bags and write our race number on it.  Big courier trucks would drive them all over and have them ready and waiting for us at the end.  Now that's impressive!

All up, the entire registration process took less than 10 minutes, it was that streamlined

 Following that we walked back through the waterfront viaduct area and ended up paid $10 for a total of 20 minutes parking - Only in Auckland!  We navigated our way out of the city, onto the motorway and over the bridge North Shore bound.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge

Having lived a big part of my life in the City and Northshore, it wasn't a problem for me to get ourselves over the harbour.On the other hand the location of the Esplanade hotel was that obvious that we missed it and drove around Devonport for a little while before realising it was right smack bang in the middle of town.

Devonport is a really lovely historical boutiquey town and I adore it.  It is filled with designer homeware stores, fashion designer stores and an eclectic array of delicious cafes that serving all styles of cuisine.

The Esplanade is a glorious historical boutique hotel in a really prime location - straight opposite the Ferry building it has magnificent views of the harbour and the city.  It's very old school Victorian New Zealand and I imagine it catered to a lot of the early New Zealanders.

We located some free parking straight opposite our hotel and then carted our belongings across the road to check in.  Once we got into our room and stripped off a lot of layers of clothing, we headed out for a lovely stroll along the streets of Devonport.

Inside our hotel suite

Messy already!

We walked up to the top of town and called into the gorgeous retro Victorian cinema where we were delighted to find out that Jane Eyre was screening that night.  We purchased some tickets and went on our merry little way to discover more about this splendid little town.

Right in the middle of town was this really interesting sculpture.  Of course I had to get close up shots of such randomness

.

Then we walked back towards the Esplanade and bought us some yummy Gelato at a place we'd had our eyes on since we arrived.

I got mango and lemon- and the waffles were fresh off the grill - DELICIOUS!!!

Our gelato was devoured while checking out the start line on King Edward Parade. 

We went back to our hotel room at around 5pm and chilled for a while, arranging  some wifi access (which was free - score!)  to catch up with facebook, blog, and my WW site.  We also made enquiries into the "In-room massage service" which was $99 for one hour, "Um, nope I'll pass"  and proceeded to lax out before we went out for dinner.  

Thai fish cakes - our starter - being such the guts that I am I ate the main course (Pad Pak) before I realised I hadn't snapped a shot!

At 6.15 we set out to pick out a place for tea.  It was a bit of a difficult task given all of the choices we had available to us.  Thai fish cakes, Pad Pak all washed down with a thai beer, the perfect precusor to  Jane Eyre where we both indulged in a chocolate covered chocolate waffle cone!  (NAUGHTY!!)  We tried to justify our over indulging with the runners task of "Pre race carb loading"  but apparently that's just eating a banana and drinking some juice :)

The movie finished at 9.45pm, at which time we strolled back to our suite where we showered and organised all of our things we needed for the run.

A Half Marathoner's best friend - great running shoes and 3b anti chaffing cream :)

The race started at 7am and we set all our different alarms for 6am seeing as we only had to shower, pack the few things that weren't already in our bags and roll down the stairs.  We had settled our bill when we arrived so that we didn't have any impediments to a smooth start the next morning.  We were tucked up and in bed at 12pm, but being the consummate night owls that we are, we probably didn't actually drift off for another half an hour.

Despite the small amount of sleep we actually woke up at 5.30am - without the need for any alarms!  One of the reasons was we were completely amped about the race and secondly the hustle and bustle floating up and into our window from the streets below also roused us out of our slumber.

Here's the gear bag couriers - ready to take 20,000 gear bags over the bridge

My cousins bib

My bib - walkers represent!!

All ready and rearing to go - just about to leave our hotel room

Just having loaded our car up with our luggage.

Walking towards the start line

In place!

My cousin was running this and so we split up at this point.

As I mentioned earlier, you had to be on the bridge by 9am as they open it back up for traffic by 9.30am.   That gave me a total of two hours to haul my butt 14km to get there.  I am a beginner walker and my normal pace is 10 minutes per kilometre.  This would mean that it would take 2 hours and 20 minutes to get there if I walked at my normal pace.  Needless to say I was freaking out!!!

All I wanted to do was cross that bridge, so I made a pact with myself not to take any photos until I was past the cut off, hence the lack of pics for that league of the journey.  I didn't want to distract or slow myself down for any reason.  For those that didn't make the cut off, there were buses that took you over the bridge to recommence the race on the other side.  And I really did not want to be on one of those buses.

I struggled hard out with the hills in the first half of the shore side section of the race.  I wasn't at all prepared for them and didn't even know that there were going to be many!  Doh!  I kept thinking about my cousin and how she would be coping with them!!    My mindset was really great though, I constantly told myself that " I can do this, I've got this, this is mine, I'm doing it, I rock"  I was doing better than I ever had, averaging 9 minutes per kilometre

Crossing the start line 6 minutes after the starting gun

My positive frame of mind lasted for about the first 1 hour and 40 minutes. With only 20 minutes left and over 3 kilometres to go I realised that I wasn't going to make it to the cut off mark.

That's when I got into my ugly zone and started swearing internally (and at one point externally too)  Now that I'm writing this I'm wondering if I hadn't of got my "negative" on I would have made it?  Who knows?!?!

Yep - you guessed it, I didn't make the cut off - 6 minutes late!!!  Argh!

There were at least 8 bus loads of us that had to take the "Bus of Regret"

While I was on the bus, wallowing in my sadness, I remembered a really cool sign I saw in a window the day before:

So I decided to appreciate the beautiful view!  What a wonderful world we live in!

We got put back on course just over the bridge

Once I got off the bus, I saw these guys with this awesome sign and it cheered me up!

Mmmmm?

Samoa!  Represent!!!

I'm smiling again!

That's me and the elusive beauty of the harbour

Add caption

Yay - I was really happy to see this sign

See?  Really happy 

And even happier to see this one :)

19km Marker

I was completely overwhelmed by the massive amounts of supporters on the sideline - the last 200-300m were at least 5 people thick!  It was crazy!  I felt like I could run the last 1km but of course as a walker I could have run the risk of being disqualified!  So I just tried to walk as fast as I could.

Just after the finish line

I DID IT!!!!

I walked into the transition zone and grabbed a banana, then as soon as I could I took off my shoes - I had pins and needles in my right foot for most of the walk!  It was there that the full marathon runners received their medals - completely inspiring!    After I hobbled around in my socks I heard "CUZ!" and it was Leanne - yay!  I walked through the departure gate of the transition zone, collected my free powerade and found Leanne in the huge crowd.

Reunited with my awesome inspiring running cousin - she did it in great time!

 Leanne and I chilled out for a few minutes, stretching, hydrating and then we decided to get on the road and get back to Devonport to collect our car.  We walked along the Marathon course all the way to the Ferry Building and yelled words of encouragement to the marathon finishers.

Some people are just straight up mad!

Stoked it's all over

Post race reward - coffee bean gelato - mmmmmmm - again I had half wolfed it down before I remembered to take the shot!

Queuing up for the Ferry - Leanne and myself were most impressed we were going on a "Cruise"

The ferry ride took all of ten minutes, and it was really beautiful all the same.  We disembarked and saw this super cute public art work which involved covering the entire railing of the Devonport Ferry building with cute knitted art works.  So super cute!!!

 We drove around for a while trying to find the Takapuna Aquatic Centre so that we could have a hot soak and showers.  We found a Chinese Massage place instead and enjoyed 30 minutes of getting bashed up by small people.  When we eventually located the pools, we found out that there was not hot water because of the maui gas leak .  Not wanting to risk muscle seizure, we flagged the idea and ended up Takapuna lake side by the pump house getting changed out of the car!

After we refreshed up with baby wipes, we discovered the most glorious French cafe by the name of Rendezvous.

After what seemed like a degustation feast, we hopped into the car and got on the motorway.  The sun was shining and we were happy - life really is great!  

Then I remembered that I promised to get my daughter a lil sumthang sumthang from my trip away.  So we ended up at Sylvia Park - NZ's largest shopping complex.   

Then I realised that my feet seriously hurt!  I don't think it was from the half marathon, but more from my poor choice in post race footwear (high heels)  So we found one of those asian nail bars and indulged in some more pampering.

We got matching nails!!!

All in all it was a fabulous weekend - a mini holiday of sorts.  The event was awesome despite my set back but I didn't let it keep me down, I just picked back up and carried right along with myself and I'm quite proud of that fact.

My cousin Leanne did really well and is such an inspiration to me.   I just love being in her company.  One of my many goals is to run alongside her in a FULL marathon.

Things I would do better next time:

1. TRAIN
2. Learn the course before hand
3. TRAIN
4. Utilise the gear bag option - I could have really done with a light dress and a pair of jandals to change into straight after the race
5. TRAIN
6. Come up to Auckland on the Friday and stay on the Sunday night
7. Get and wear a really good sports watch/heart rate monitor
8. TRAIN
9. Work to a pacing system
10. TRAIN SOME MORE

So until next time my cyber friends  I'll be training this butt off!

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