I had a relaxing start to the day, the half marathon started at a very gentlemanly 8:45, so I was up at 7 for breakfast, then walked the 1km from the hotel to race start. Conditions were perfect. Blue skies, light winds and about 10 deg C (50F). I lined up at the 8 min/km pace marker and got myself ready to go.



The first km, getting out of the stadium and onto the road, was a bit slow through some tight corners and weaving through walkers who didn't understand 'walkers please start at the back' But once out into wellingtons CBD I settled into an easy pace of about 7:45-7:50/km. I stuck to that pace until the first aid station 3.5km in. I grabbed a cup of sports drink, walked for around 80sec while drinking it, then back up to my 7:50ish/km pace.



At 8km I got to the 2nd aid station, had 1 of the gu's I was carrying, some water to wash it down and walked for another 90 secs during that process. Straight back up to my easy pace, which was feeling comfortable but the pace was slightly dropping to 7:50-7:55/km.



At the half way turn around I tired to asses things. Over all, I was feeling good, and in control. So I decided to try and speed things up to 7:30/km with 10km to go. So, at the 11km marker that's what I tried to do. I got a bit carried away, and struggled to settle into a nice rhythm at 7:30/km. Kilometer 12 came in 7:09/km way too fast, and a recipe for blowing up. Km 13 at 7:28. Much better. But I did feel I was speeding up and slowing down too much, rather than a constant pace. at Km 14 I went through the 3rd aid station, had more water, my 2nd gu and another walk break.



Km's 15, 16 and 17 were run at a 'comfortably hard' 7:35/km. Although the average was about right, I felt my pace was still up and down too much, rather than consistent. The final aid station was at 18.5km, where I had electrolytes and a final walk. By this stage however my 'comfortably hard' pace had changed to just 'hard' so the plan for the final 3km was just try to hang on.



Km's 19 and 20 were 7:47 and 7:54/km respectively, feeling like I was really starting to struggle. At this stage I was looking at my watch, doing some mental math and realized that I was heading for just over 2 hours 45. Now, 2:45:00 is a meaningless number, but it is a nice round number so I made one final push to try and get below 2:45. Kilometer 21 was 7:40.



Finally I got to the last corner, I could see the finish a few hundred meters away, and 2:44:xx on my watch, so I emptied the tank, gave it all I could and stopped my watch at 2:45:06. Damn.



Fortunately, I must have done a terrible job starting my timer, because my official net time was 2:44:55. The final push was worth it.

Overall I am really happy with how the day went. Although I was not fast by any stretch of the imagination, I met my pre-race goals. I felt I paced myself well, had my first ever negative split in a half marathon and spent the 2nd half of the run overtaking people rather than being in a death march myself. Maybe I could have pushed a little more, but when I look at how I was feeling/slowing down and heart rate rising in the last 3 or 4 km I think if I had started out much faster I would have ended in a death march.


Really to go faster I need to be doing a heap more training, closer to 50km/week than 25, and carrying a heap less weight. But I knew that going in. And that is the plan for another HM towards the end of the year.