Cross Country

Auckland Quarter Marathon

I was awake really early, not to get prepared for the run, but to watch the All Blacks win the world cup back to back. After that had finished my dad and I had no more than 20 mins to get ready and to be on the road. We left Papakura at about 7:15, I really wanted to just fall asleep on the way there but I just didn't. We got to Smales Farm, which was where the race was gonna start, we got there with plenty of time till the race is going to start, we had time to go to stretch and warm up, toilet break and go back to the car cause my dad forgot to get a rag for his glasses.

We have been ordered to go to the starting line, also told to get the runners in the front and walkers in the back. I started to walk to the front slightly leaving my dad somewhere in the middle. There was a count down with a guy on the loud speaker counting down every two mins. Lower and lower he got the more nervous I got, he finally got to the 10 seconds and going all the way down to 0 and the 12km race to Victoria Park. I started to run a little faster than everyone else and I soon found out that was an issue. I was closing in to the bridge and I heard an unfamiliar voice off my left shoulder. I was starting to slow down but this guy was telling to keep going, I ran as far as I count up the Harbour Bridge, but I struggled so I walked a bit up it and then coming down on the other side was a lot easier. Also the walkers from the half marathon were still going and I was swerving to get through them all.

We got off the motorway at Shelly Beach Rd and continued to follow the bridge that was over the motorway. We did a loop so that we ended up under the Harbour Bridge and followed through on Westhaven Dr, with people all dressed up with Barfoot & Thompson signs all over the place, urged me to push myself myself for the rest of the course. We went down the there was a drink station on our left, I took a couple to slow down to actually get some sort of liquid down. I was coming up to a 'U' turn and we had to take a left onto Jellicoe St, I could hear music, but I wasn't sure where it was coming from, at first I thought it was somebody that a had speaker, it was actually people that was cheering on the next corner had a speaker and everything going at that time.

I was coming up to the final straight, with around 200m to go until I could actually stop running. With everyone around me at either a walk or a slow jog I was running as fast as I could and finishing with a time of 56 minutes and 4 seconds. At first I wasn't sure if that was a good time. But when I got home I checked and the results had been entered and I found out that I came 38th out of 1,965 other participates. My dad on the other hand he ended up coming 560th, also with him being sick I don't think he mind that result.

Thanks for reading this story, any help on what I could improve on would help thanks:)

Lastly I'm not expecting you to know where any of these places are, cause I had no idea just followed everyone else.