September 2009: Walking the Rotorua Marathon:- May 2nd 2009.
By Eugene O’Sullivan (originally published in the Pan Pac newsletter)
I used to run reasonably regularly and even participated in the odd ½ marathon but after doing a PB at 1hr 29m at age 42 I decided to take 2-3 weeks off and rest. The weeks off became years and several went by very quickly as they do when you age. In order to hold at bay the ill effects of age and cab savs I decided to get my A into G and get back to running........ the body said that aint gunna happen and promptly started to break down. What to do instead became the quest. Cycling..... Lycra bike pants! Not a good look I thought. I enrolled at a gym in Onekawa and stuck with that for 5-6 months but got bored with it and the next lots of subs were due anyway. It was very good for toning etc but I decided it wasn’t for me.
My wife Sherry walked with people from the Marathon Clinic, now Run Walk HB, more about this club later. This group became good friends and we socialised a lot with them, still do, to excess at times, still do that too. Sherry was regularly walking ½ marathons and full marathons so it was time for me to have a go at this walking. I thought safety in numbers, if I saw anyone from work and I was doing that stupid looking walking style I could hide in the crowd. It worked until I realised Alan Foulds from the Pulp Mill joined us occasionally. I felt exposed.
Casual walking is easy but walking quickly and correctly is a lot harder. Two rules apply to race walking, (a) 1 foot on the ground at all times, (otherwise you are jogging or running) and (b) the leading or advancing leg must be straight or locked at the knee when it contacts the ground and must remain so until it is vertical under your body. It is allowed to bend after this point. (b) is the reason we look stupid out there.
The walking groups are formed on an ability basis, casual, slow, medium & fast. I started in the slow group and progressed to the medium fast bunch over time. As I said earlier it is very social and walking for 2 hours on a Saturday morning usually meant you found out a lot about people. Conversations started about children, advanced to politics and ended up on sex... in 20minutes. Then there was the cafe & coffee afterwards to advance the friendship stakes.
A reasonable portion of these people walked ½ marathons and they threw down the challenge to me. “Don’t be a girl or what are you a mouse”.... I think they became too friendly. The challenge was accepted and my first ½ was completed after what turned out to be not enough training. Learning curves were invoked as my wife beat me in. How do I get faster.
Not everyone in the club aspires to do competition walks or runs so they are usually our supporters, invaluable members.
I read about race walking, got a DVD on it and tried to put it into practice. But as I found out all I had to do was talk to the guns and they are very willing to assist on technique and training. Armed with all this info I put it into practice. I trained smarter and with a better style began to get faster. I finally could beat the wife (wasn’t arrested either).
The harder I trained the more successful I got at these ½ marathons. I have won the open class for the last 2 years for the Napier half and done pretty well in age groups in away events. Then the voices started again.....” don’t be a girl, what are you”.... No go away, I am not doing a marathon. You have to be nuts to do that. I know what the time commitment is to training for these because I see what my wife goes through. It must be addictive she has done 15 to date and not stopping there.
I weakened and committed (should be committed I reckon) to the Rotorua Marathon. 4 months of training, slowly increasing the distance walked each week to about 80kms. It is strange but going out for a 20 – 30km walk became no big deal.
I entered the elite group as this is judged on style, just a bit more pressure to make sure I walked correctly. The day arrived, cold and a bit windy. The gun (cannon) went off and so did the all of us walkers (the runners left about 5minutes ahead of us), too late to back out now. I won’t go into detail about the race suffice to say it is a long way and has to be treated with respect. Go out too fast and you will come to grief, go too slow and you may still come to grief!
The last sentence is like the race, the blurb before is the training. If you get the urge to try a marathon try to fight it will you.
My results were 4hrs 59m, 2nd in my age group and 15th overall.
