September 2009: Aurora Marathon
By Brenda Herbert
Having opted not to do the Rotorua Marathon I chose instead to make my first marathon the “Aurora, Handicapped Marathon” on the 31 May. (You all remember the weather at Queen’s Birthday Weekend – Snow in Wellington CBD.)
For a handicapped Marathon when you enter you put in the time you think it will take you to complete it. Judged on this they give you your start time with the idea that everyone will finish at the same time. They allow you a time differential, which you have to finish in (this year it was 23 minutes) outside this and you are disqualified. The first to finish is the winner. The Aurora Marathon starts in Silverstream, Upper Hutt WELLINGTON. It has a small field, this year by the results 40-50 people. They have a Marathon Relay, the marathon and also have a 50km race.
Good points about doing a marathon are, and in this case I talk about a handicapped marathon with a small field:
- Prior you get pampered by your family and you don’t have to feel guilty;
- You get to eat what you like for two days using the excuse of “carbo loading”;
- No queue for the toilets.
- The Supporters, prior, during and after the race;
- For 6 hours you can eat all the lollies, chocolate, protein bars you like without feeling guilty; you can take drugs from people you have just met (“But officer, they said it was magnesium!”);
- The invention of the IPod and
- Crossing the Finish Line.
Bad points about doing a marathon are:
- Having entered a marathon then you read the course - “slightly undulating (I thought, I can handle that) Climbing gently for 38kms (WHAT, I didn’t know Mike Sheely had a twin in Upper Hutt) Downhill for 2kms, flat 2kms to finish.”;
- CAMERAS;
- Health - getting a cold;
- Weather forecast - not sounding ideal, (but hey, it wasn’t Tamati giving the Chill factor, so what do they know?);
- Waking up to torrential rain;
- Getting lost within the first 3kms and having the person you are walking with say that it would cost you 10mins - 10mins that you hadn’t allowed for in the splits written on your arm;
- Finding out the bad weather forecast was RIGHT!
- Standing at the start line.
The night before I went to bed on Lemsip and sucking a Strepsil with the Kiwi attitude of “She’ll be right”. Had a night of horrific dreams – in one I was 3/4hour late which is just not like me! Yeah Right. The alarm was set for 5am which gave us plenty of time to get ready, drive to the Hutt and arrive in time for the 7.45am start time I had been allocated.
Alarm goes off, Christine my sister and chief supporter and I are up, getting ready while listening to the rain persisting down outside and the one time I put my head out, the wind nearly blew it off. We sat there hoping that someone would call to cancel, but …No one did.
We found the Silverstream School without any trouble, it had a high of 0.05C that day. For me now came the scary part. By the general conversation other people were on the 87-100th Marathon, I later found out that they have a club for those who do their 100th marathon at Aurora. People asked me how many marathons I had done and just stared when I said it was my first. We were warned that Snow was down to 200m, we were climbing to 250m and that if you weren’t an experienced downhill walker to take it easy on the 2kms decline. (Thank you Richard and Mike for all those times down Chaucer Road and the like.) We were told that the kilometre readings on the road were out by 2 kms – that was really good to know. The way I was feeling thank goodness there were no queues for the toilet.
My name is called out and I was told I had 5 minutes to go. Next I’m standing on the start line thinking in the semi darkness “What the hell am I doing here?” while a stranger is counting “5-4-3-2-1- GO!” Right I’m away, I’m Lost, I’m back on the right road again. Supporter lets me know at 5-10-20kms how I’m going and tells me my time, (I had forgotten to put my stop-watch on!) Thank goodness for I-pod’s. Songs like “I don’t want to do this anymore,” “Move your body,” “Keep Walking” all came on at appropriate times. Just keep those arms moving.
I decided, as I had very close inspection, rain comes in varying consistency and directions but it is just water, Hail and sleet is water preceded by white balls coming from any direction. I still don’t know which one bounces off the road and hits you in your knee. Snow falls gently and you look up to a white landscape. You also see Transit signs flashing “SNOW, SNOW” on the side of the road. This is where my training let me down as I didn’t know whether to stay on the road or walk in the slush beside the road. I stayed on the road, to keep my shoes clean, and remembered Joff had said to take small steps for stability which I did, also stopped the muscles screaming. The scene was that of an English Christmas card scene. The only time you need a camera and where is it? Had one embarrassing moment when, just as you think there is no one for miles and you are doing a very bad Susan Boyle impersonation to “We are the World, we are the Children” a lone runner goes sprinting past – after which I muted my volume.
The downhill was exactly like a long Chaucer Street, and then flat, passed the school to just turn around and go back to the finish line.
YES THE FINISH LINE.
After that, I was shouted a massage. My legs looked like they had seen an afternoon of the Hawke’s Bay Summer Sun – RED. The prize giving was a couple of hours away and as someone suggested the Pub across the road, who was I to say no?
Thank you all for your support, helpful hints, getting me out of bed at 5.30am for those 36km walks. I thought of you at some stage of my trip.
I had finished my first marathon, with slight detour, in 6.06hours and have a set of bake ware to show for it as I was the 1st woman home closest my predicted time, but no one will see the certificate as they have our photo on it and I don’t do photos, especially as I had NO LIPPY!
