Rotorua Marathon 2008

I completed the Rotorua Marathon last weekend (May 3rd).

I ran 4:07:03, which is my fastest New Zealand marathon, and way better than Rotorua last year. However it's a ways off my best marathon time (3:48), and probably not quite fast enough to keep me ahead of Craig when he runs the Marine Corp marathon in October. Fortunately, the Auckland Marathon is just a few days later (2 Nov), so I've got something definite to shoot for if Craig does beat me. ;-)

Anyway, conditions were just about perfect for Rotorua this year. Sunny, slightly cold, dry, and partly cloudy. It was an all around fantastic day for running. The only possible compliant is a little bit of a headwind along the open stretches around kilometers 25 to 35 or so.

My splits are surprisingly even. I can't come up with any issues with this race: Weather was perfect, the course is fast, and my nutrition/hydration felt great this time. I just need to do some training and run faster next time. I think that 8:01 for K35 is a misplaced marker. I did take a food break around there, but not that long, the 5:30 before that makes it doubly suspicious. I think that 5:30 probably ought to be about 6:30, with one minute off the 8:00 and about 30-40 seconds of the remaining 7:00 going to slacking off at the water stop. That would make the last kilometer my slowest at 7:06 (pretty much to be expected), and my fastest that 4:57 on the big downhill on the back side of the lake (also no surprise).

Km  Elapsed  Split
1      6:06   6:06
2     11:56   5:50
3     17:17   5:20
4     22:54   5:36
5     28:15   5:21
6     33:35   5:19
7     38:38   5:02
8     44:11   5:33
9     49:31   5:19
10    55:04   5:32
11  1:00:36   5:32
12  1:05:56   5:19
13  1:11:09   5:13
14  1:16:35   5:25
15  1:21:57   5:22
16  1:27:54   5:57
17  1:33:59   6:04
18  1:38:56   4:57
19  1:44:30   5:33
20  1:50:20   5:50
21  1:56:33   6:13
22  2:02:05   5:31
23  2:07:27   5:21
24  2:13:27   6:00
25  2:19:29   6:01
26  2:25:04   5:34
27  2:31:01   5:57
28  2:36:28   5:26
29  2:42:19   5:50
30  2:48:06   5:47
31  2:54:06   5:59
32  3:00:30   6:24
33  3:07:27   6:56
34  3:13:01   5:33
35  3:21:02   8:01
36  3:27:28   6:25
37  3:33:55   6:26
38  3:40:24   6:28
39  3:47:06   6:42
40  3:53:36   6:29
41  3:59:58   6:22
42  4:07:03   7:06