1:53:15

As I mentioned in a post last week, I signed up for a half marathon with just over a week to prepare for the race, which was on Saturday.


I finished with a time of 1 hour, 53 minutes and 15 secs (you can check here). I was pretty pleased with this, especially given the lack of serious training.


The race was at a place called Matariki Forest, which is a couple of hours outside of Wellington. That meant that I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning. We were rewarded with a really nice sunrise as we arrived at the race site.

Three of us were running. Carina (on the left below) and I were in the half-marathon and Angela (centre) was running the 10km race. Carina's partner, Paul, also came along and was cameraman and, really importantly, driver on the way back after the race.

Pre-race smiles

The course was really nice, mostly through the forest meaning we ran under the shade of trees, with the occasional section along the riverside or with a view of the countryside. The last few km were tougher as we were out in the sunshine and by that point it was pretty warm.


I ran the first 10km with Carina, and we covered this in almost exactly an hour. I then upped the pace a bit to cover the remaining 11km in just under 55 minutes. I was pleased with the negative split!

Sprinting for the finish line, natch

Carina and Angela both finished there races in good times as well. Here we are proudly showing off our medals -

We got back to Wellington about 2pm. After an afternoon of mooching and a good nap, I made it out to a flatwarming party and was somehow still standing at 2am. Was very grateful for the clocks going back on Sunday morning meaning an extra hour in bed to recover.


Now I've got my sights set on the Wellington half marathon in June. A bit more time to train, but I haven't decided what time I should aim for yet. I might well be running against some serious wind and rain (to get my excuses in early).