Nine months….

You can accomplish a lot of things in nine months …

heck you can even create a human!

However I’ve been there, done that (as have most of the other FB’s) so what else is there to do with nine months but prepare for the Auckland Marathon.

Which at the time seemed like a lifetime away, little did we all know it would be upon us in what seemed like a blink of an eye!

The FB’s were gunning for the half marathon and James was going to attempt the full. The conversation I had with James went something like this ..

“Wanna do the Auckland Marathon?”
“Yeah why not”

I guess that is where our “Once upon a time” started and like most stories their were casualties – Yumes was ruled out because of her back, Clare was out because she hated running (I love someone who admits they are not doing it because they hate it!  Why waste your life doing something you despise), I hurt my knee (then the other knee and then finally my achillies) and Oss went down in sympathy with me by doing in her knee in!

So we were left with two FB’s doing the half, me hobbling the quarter and James going for the marathon (on little to no training I might add)

The full and half marathoners had to catch a ferry over to their start line in Devonport so they left super early …

The picnic crew picked me up at slightly less stupid o’clock, set up the picnic area and walked me over to my start line (we were a little late but the event was timed by chip so no biggie) ..

Before the event our goals were as follows –

Me sub 1:30 (although my main goal was to jog as far as possible and hopefully *fingers crossed* the entire way).

The half marathoners ..

Robin – Sub 2:30 and Amy – Sub 3:00

And our sole marathoner was aiming for 5 hours

I made it 3.5 k’s before my knee swelled up like a balloon and I ran on it another 1.5 k’s before it hurt to lift it, unfortunately it hurt just as much to walk, so I did a mix of both.

As I was heading back towards town on Tamaki Drive the first lot of marathoners were on their way down Tamaki Drive to their turn point in Mission Bay.  I kept scanning all the marathoners looking out for James (which also kept my mind off my knee) and I spotted him bounding down the road, big grin on his face near the ferry building.

He ran across the road gave me a high five and a kiss and off he went.

In the meantime our supporters were killing some time, patiently waiting for us ..

I limped home first because I had the least distance to cover in 1:31:34.

Which incidentally is a slower time than the epic adventurer Anna did her half marathon in!  She came in fifth overall in the half .. then ran straight to Ludus!

I have come to the conclusion that there will be no more running in my future until I get these old knees sorted out *sigh*

Robin came storming in at 2:09:44 smashing her goal!

Next in we had Amy who also came in faster than she thought she would!

Amy completed the 21k in 2:31:38 – AMAZING

Then we just had our marathon man to wait for.  We thought the safest place to wait for him would be by the gear bags as he wasn’t running with his phone and well let’s be honest since he didn’t have me to marshall him, he could end up anywhere 😉

While waiting Yumes and I “raced” to see who could find the “random racer’s” gear bag first – those marathon runners brains don’t work too quickly after running 42k’s so in a way it was our good deed for the day.

Finally we saw James heading towards us, he got to the far side of the bag drop and then couldn’t make it any further, we walked over and found him like this ..

Which is no surprise considering he KILLED his time. 4:27:56 I honestly don’t think I have ever been so proud of him. 🙂

He was exhausted but pleased to see me with his gear bag as obviously that meant he didn’t have to move any further 😉

I “picked James up” and we hobbled across the park to FB picnic headquarters, because why else would normal sane people run! And the FB’s do know how to put on a picnic!

Next on the agenda? Well I heard talk of Coatesville .. you remember the one we did last year? With the huge hills … I might be glad I’m out of action for that one 😉

Well done FB’s you guys are O for Awesome!

Till next time
(Which there will obviously be because these girls rock!)