21 Today.... Arthur's Half...

The next weekend brought another double-header and the first leg and #21 was a race I had heard a lot about... although more about it's big brother... Arthur's Half is the half marathon of The Legend Marathon... Total Sports flagship road event.

So with an event Sunday I once again decided to try to latch onto another runner on Saturday, someone who would drag my time back to one that wouldn't kill me... while at the same time I would hopefully drag them up to a time they were happy with... seems like a plan....

Except that, like most of my 52 in 52 plans so far, this one didn't work... but in the end that was a good
thing!

So back to the start, it was a wet miserable day in Auckland, I arrived just in time to see history being made... Mal Law in his first (and he assures me last) road marathon. Prior to him coming through I saw Steve Neary, Matt Gummer and the of course Lesley Turner Hall, back to defend her ladies title... if I had stayed a bit longer I would have seen Michael Dall who had started at some silly hour and had already completed one Legend Marathon that day and was en-route to his second... and they say I'm nuts!

Inside everyone was jammed in as the rain was pelting down and I finally met Vera Alves, a lovely young kiwi lady full of smiles (she says she is Portugese, but she is too nice for that, so I'm claiming her for us) and we had a chat and decided to run together - well I decided that I was going to
run with her and she didn't argue - I told you she was lovely! She was hoping for something around 2 hours and that suited me.

Eventually they pushed us outside and the rain miraculously stopped... Total Sports do organize things well!

So off we went, nice pace, talking away...the nice thing about running with company is that the time just flies and that happened, Vera's friend Leon was running with us as well... but he soon realised that we really were going to run easy and away he went.

And about then I started to realise that things were not great with Vera... turns out she gets exercise induced asthma... first time for a long time she said. No problem says I, just get your inhaler out... ah.. ok.. no inhaler. So let's walk for a bit. Which we did, "you go" she said... and selfish me said no way... I could see the headline, "DEAD SUPER HERO WAS ABANDONED BY CHARITY RUNNER!"

I suggested that we give her partner a call to bring the inhaler out to her, but that was a no-go.

The rain came in bursts, sometimes heavy and then it was fine for a while. The Aid Stations were doing a fantastic job as always and had smiling friendly faces despite being out in terrible conditions.

And actually it was fine... we ran a bit, we stopped to give kids hi-5's, we talked to other runners, we laughed and we worked our way around the course. Every now and then while running I would hear a wheezing noise from beside me and that was the sign that we should walk for a bit.

I was really impressed with Vera's whole attitude... many a runner would have just DNF'ed but she was happy to knock it off a chunk at a time with a smile!

Photo by Photos4Sale

I don't remember too much of the course, except that I really like the last few km's as it was through semi-bush. Towards the end we were able to encourage a few runners doing their first halfs and a few who were really struggling... then, all of a sudden we were there.

Down onto the mats and over the finish for one of the highlights of my running career... yes, my slowest ever road half in 2:15 - which was pretty good considering the day and yes, I meant highlights. Running, walking, laughing, wheezing and talking our way around one of Aucklands toughest halfs, this will go down as one of the very best. I made a friend I will treasure and had an experience that cannot be beaten.

We bumped into Rebecca Edgecumbe who had finished a very good marathon and all of the usual suspects I mentioned earlier... but for me the winner was my dimunitive friend who beats the odds and finished!

Thanks Vera... but bring your bloody inhaler next time!