Auckland Marathon

I ran the Auckland Marathon yesterday.

It turned out to be a great day for it: overcast, and not too hot. It eventually started raining, but not until just after I finished.

The course is great, no major hills (the harbor bridge isn't as tough as it looks). It's completely flat along the waterfront for the last half. My only complaint is that the outward portion of the out-and-back along the waterfront felt like it would never end. That said, once we hit the turnaround, the trip back seemed to fly.

I'm quite happy with my time, considering my lack of training (again). I'd picked up a 4:30 pace band, but once I started running, I was thinking about pushing as close to 4:00 as I could. That lasted until just after 30k. Just before that, the split button jammed on my watch, so I have no split times for the last 1/4 of the race.

I did notice that I was just a few seconds over 3:00 at 30k. At 7min per k for the next 10k, my 40k split should have been about 4:10, adding 14 min for the last 2.2k would be 4:24. So the lack of training once again shows up in the last few miles. My actual finishing time was 4:28:16.

It was nice having the markers every kilometer, that's providing pace feedback almost twice as often as the mile markers I'm used to.

Physical damage was amazingly low. One tiny blister and legs that won't bend, but I'll probably be walking normally by Wednesday, maybe running again next week!

Here are the raw splits:

1  6:19
2  (5:42)
3  (5:42)11:24
4   5:29
5  (5:36)
6  (5:37)11:13
7  5:12
8  5:32
9 5:46
10 5:31           **Elapsed 56:28**
11 5:50
12 5:32
13 (6:22)
14 (6:22)
15 (6:22)
16 (6:22)
17 (6:21)31:49
18 (5:48)
19 (5:48)
20 (5:48)17:24    **Elapsed 1:57:05**
21 5:40
21 5:49
23 6:37
24 6:07
25 6:06
26 5:52
27 (6:28)
28 (6:27)12:55    **Elapsed 2:46:15**

**Button Stuck on Watch**
**Approximately 7:00 k's from here out**

Finish 4:28:16

Note to self:
Buy new running watch. ;-)

Here are the photos from the official race photographers:

www.marathon-photos.com - 533

and the official results:

www.enteronline.co.nz

No.  First   Surname Grade Group Overall Net Time
533  Robert  ENGBERG M0134 255   771     4:28:16

Next up: Rotorua Marathon, Saturday April 28th 2007!
With decent training this time. :-)

File Under: Training,