Saturday had been the day of the “weather bomb” – which incidentally wasn’t as bad as they said it was going to be. The worst of the weather seemed to hit us overnight Friday, we lost power at some ungodly hour (I know this because a frightened child arrived at my bedside) but it was back on about 7am, just in time to start the day.

Anyway I digress .. Saturday was windy, wet, windy, sunny, then windy – Sunday? Glorious! The morning was cold – I mean so cold even my English bloke had on a hoodie as we made our way to Albany, however the sun was out and it was going to warm up pretty quickly once we got moving.

This event had completely sold out by midweek and the organisers had gone all out to make this the best race of the three run series. The organisers had rejigged the course route so that we got to run through Westfield and we were able to run on the field at North Harbour stadium and once again Ian Jones ran the finale to raise funds for charity with $5 being paid for each person he past.

At the siren we were off. I felt comfortable even though my pace was a minute faster than my usual pace but even so Ian Jones past me even before I hit the stadium! Oh well that’s my contribution to charity .. 😉

He is just about as tall as the stadium so I shouldn’t be bummed that those legs overtook me .. he even looked like he was jogging.

Running through the stadium was pretty cool they even had cheerleaders doing tricks and cheering for everyone which was a nice touch the only downside was that the grass was wet so it was a little slippery and I didn’t really have time to “soak in” my surroundings.

The same can’t be said about running through the mall ..

Inside the mall it was stifling hot – absolutely no air con and it wasn’t like we just ran through it, we had to run through, then turn a corner run up the length then back down and out the door on the opposite side then back through the mall again. The ONLY positive was that you only had to do it on the first 5k loop the second loop they created a dog leg up near the stadium.

It was a little confusing knowing where you were on the course and exactly how far you had to go, but thankfully they seemed to have more kilometer markers out than usual and when I hit the 8k mark I knew I really had to stuff up to not get my goal time of  59:59 or better.  The  8th kilometer was probably the hardest because it was uphill but amazingly I still had some gas in the tank for the final k and even mustered what to me felt like a sprint 😉

Official time?

56:48

Which is over four minutes faster than the last time – must have been my “go faster” knee high socks. However even though I did amazing for me a certain someone I know had time to stretch, have something to eat and drink a cuppa coffee ..(not that he actually did, but he could have if he wished) 😉

42:14

And although he was slightly slower this time around he still finished top 25! *so proud* and the boy is a fighter he’s coming back next year to make the top 20.

All in all it was a good day for the Nash clan ..

Till next time