Half Wit

Several months ago I got the idea in my head that running a half-marathon in New Zealand would be fun. I'd done a couple in the states and thought having a competition t-shirt with New Zealand emblazoned across the front would be a nice memoir of my trip. I was already running a 10K loop around town several times a week, so making the jump to 21.1K didn't seem that onerous. It's unfortunate that my mind didn't have the same reasoning skills to deduce that 11.1K is a slightly bigger hurdle then I anticipated. Despite my poor leaping skills, I persevered this past weekend.

The Levene Lake Taupo Half Marathon, set along the edge of Lake Taupo in the central plateau of the North Island, was the setting for my temporary misjudgment. Occurring on August 6th, I figured there could be no better way to spend my birthday weekend then accomplishing an athletic feat. Some might call it sadistic, some might call it masochistic, I call it the greatest anti-depressant endorphin rush known to mankind. What can I say, I'm an athletic extremist. I will fully admit this fact.

I arrived in Taupo on Saturday afternoon under cloudy and gray skies. I heard some rumbling around the registration center that it was to rain the next day. No worries, I thought, I'm a Seattlite, I'm used to rain. After picking up my packet, I made my way back into town for dinner, reviewing the race materials over a protein and carbohydrate load. I headed to bed early, figuring a restless night was ahead of me in anticipation of the next day. Fortunately, I only awoke once during the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it was to pounding rain.

Sunday morning proved no less dry then that prefaced by the prior nights rainfall. Taking a quick step outside, I judged the temperature to be around 9 or 10 degrees Celsius. I dressed in multiple layers, including my polypropylene rowing shirt from Head of the Charles, hoping it would inspire me to greatness. The goal was to finish in under two hours. Wearing my new GPS wristband pace monitor (thanks mom and dad) while listening to my iPod shuffling through the various songs of my life, I thought I might just be able to accomplish my goal. Adorned with all my electronic equipment, I headed for the start line and quickly lined myself up amongst the thousands of competitors. Apparently, this is the most popular half-marathon in New Zealand.

The gun went off promptly at 9am, releasing the first wave of runners. I let myself fall back a bit and eventually went off in wave five. Guided by my pace monitor, I knew not to go out too fast and quickly found a good rhythm. By 5K I was only a minute behind my goal pace, an amount I thought I could easily make up throughout the remaining 16K. By 10K, I was three minutes behind and starting to realize my goal might not be attainable. At this point, the rain was still coming down. Despite my reservations, I took a quick swig of energy Gu and psyched myself up for the second half of the race.

The course is favored because it's relatively flat and follows the edge of the largest lake in the North Island. The terrain consists of road, walkway, and firm farmland. Relatively easy ground for the average runner, unless it's been raining all night and all morning. At kilometer 11, when I had just regained my confidence, I hit the not so firm farmland. I glanced at my monitor and watched my pace drop quickly as each step was placed carefully so as to avoid the next slip and slide scene. Okay, so I wasn't going to finish in under two hours, but at least I could beat my best training run. Two kilometers later, when I stepped back onto firm ground, I re-centered my thoughts and picked up my pace. That's when the last atmospheric element, the one I had been subconsciously avoiding and hoping would not appear, reared it's ugly head: wind. At kilometer 16, as I turned back onto the main road, a Northeasterly, the same one that would probably blow the rain through later that day, came at me with gale force. Great. The catch is that I live in Taranaki, purportedly the windiest region in New Zealand, and I was prepared. I had trained in Southerlies, Northerlies, Westerlies, you-name-erlies. I was ready. Putting my head down, I dug into the wind for those last 5K, praising each kilometer sign that brought me closer to the finish. Cursing through the last 500 meters, which included the only true elevation gain in the whole race, I crossed the finish line and stopped running. I had finished! My head still swimming with exhaustion and delirium I grabbed my free water, banana, chocolate trout, and cup of dried soup. I never would have thought reconstituted soup could taste so good, but after two hours of facing almost every meteorologic element possible, it was the most heavenly thing to cross my lips.

Oh, and if you're wondering (which I'm sure you are), my final time was 2:07:41. Not my goal, but definitely a personal best. Makes me wonder what I could do on a dry, sunny, windless day. I guess that means I'll have to run another one.