Life and death of the villages

My return to the Waangleng village coincided with a ritual known as Daazaai. This is a Daoist ritual that summons the soul of the deceased, cries for them, brings the soul through to the underworld, then pays tribute and sends useful items to them. The soul in question was my grandfather-in-law who passed away last year in July. I was a bit surprised that such a ritual would be done over a year after a death, and didn’t ask whether a soul would linger so long for this ceremony. When I spoke to an out-of-town friend I learned that even he thought it was unusual to wait so long, but he was an urbanite and the ways of the village can be quite different between regions, and even within regions.

In the past 18 months, the Chinese villages who shape the family have lost our 99-year old great-grandfather (Aa-Gung), a paternal uncle (Daai Guzoeng), a maternal third uncle (Saam Kaufu) and a great uncle (Aa-Baak) who was a frequent visitor to the living room and others. Most of these bereavements happened in my absence from China but being remote made me very sad, not just for their passing as I knew these men and they knew me and that they were a part of my Chinese life, but also because they were a part of the life of the communities. 

Aa-Gung in particular was an amazing presence who I have already spoken about in a previous blog. But Daai Guzoeng was also a remarkable figure. We’d been to his home in the neighbouring village many times. He seemed an elder who chose his words carefully and meaningfully, just like Aa-Gung. When we visited last year before his passing, even in a barely conscious state, he recognised me. Village-style, he spent his final days at home.

Saam Kaufu, third uncle, was the older brother of my wife’s mother. He had battled with cancer for many years and while the cancer wasn’t what took him, the battles with it weakened him to the point that it was probably only a matter of time. I was close to his brother fourth uncle who was immediately open to talking to this weird foreigner. Saam Kaufu for quite a few years didn’t really know what to say to me or how to look at me, but by the end was very relaxed and we could talk. He was also a village producer of some really good, really potent baijiu, even though he himself was teetotal. Just like Daai Guzoeng, he too spent his final days at home. 

Aa-Baak was a good character. In the village where it’s quiet so often to have someone just “pop in” for a chinwag is essential. He was that guy. He often went barefoot, which was a bit rare, and a bit like Fourth Uncle, never hesitated to talk to me. His death was out of the blue – maybe because he didn’t want to talk about his unwellness. 

Driving down the roads of the villages at night you might be struck by how many homes do not have the lights on, that is, they are no longer inhabited. But the Daazaai ritual brought out the clan in force. The ritual itself was an overnighter; people started appearing in the early afternoon; things started in the evening and went throughout the night till sunrise. Almost all of the clan came and a lot of the associated family members, too. I finally put a face to quite a few names that I had heard so often. The village once again appeared the centre of culture and bustle.

End of the season

Turning off Mangatāwhiri Road into Rāhui Te Kiri reserve, I ran to the end of my 2024 campaign running. The final dash was along a particular boardwalk that I had enmity towards, with a familiar pacer turning back and encouraging me for part of the way along the 500m home. Whether it was his encouragement or just the sight of the finish line I managed to make to pick up speed and complete the mission of the Omaha Half Marathon in 1:29:27. 

It was my third fastest half out of five this year - not great but also a tricky one to be motivated for. It was a race I have really been too busy to think about, with Christmas events, family matters, and general summer fatigue getting to me. 

Omaha is also a deceptively difficult flat-out half. Everyone thinks they can do well but with 2km of sand, changing surfaces and the early summer warmth, it is also the one that catches people out. I may have gone out too fast but my slow-down late in the second half wasn't too bad. I did run pass two runners who were much better than me, who clearly "blew up". One I passed with a few kms to go and finished over 10 minutes behind me, showing he was exhausted to the point of walking. Others did do well too showing self-knowledge and mastery of those conditions. As it was, after the first third, I didn't feel confident of meeting my targets and by half-way, I knew that the main goal had to be keeping it below 1:30, which thankfully I could.

Omaha, as I have mentioned before here, is my bogey race, having got lost near the finish in 2017 and running a total of 27km trying to find my way to the end, then slipping on "that" boardwalk pre-race in 2018 and being a bit crippled after the race as an after-effect. And then after six years of not going there, I have finally run it the way it was intended. It wasn't completely uneventful - even with planning I still arrived late, queued for the portaloos but had to abandon them as there wasn't enough time, dashed over to the start line, forgetting my plan to take a gel pre-race, and instead being stuck near the back of the starting area. 

Now what? Well, some relaxing runs before I go to China, where I plan to do occasional runs to maintain my fitness and work on pace. Then in early February we have the first run of 2025, the Coatesville Half, which I hope is a starting point for a campaign that will lead to a good time at the Christchurch Marathon in April. 

Running that final straight

Today I ran more in 2024 than I did in the whole of 2023, which had been my biggest year of running. With another couple of reasonable weeks and I'll complete my goal for last year, 4,000km in a year, and I am pretty sure I'll make that. This running year is coming to a close. In two weeks, I'll have the Omaha Half Marathon and then it'll be a trip to China with some occasional runs and then it'll be 2025. My first race next year will be 9 February so it'll be quite a break after the frenetic running I've been doing this second half. 

The busyness of the last few months was increased by me getting an entry into the Auckland Marathon transferred to me from an injured runner. It's a weird situation because if I had decided to do it earlier, North Shore Marathon would have been a B-race, and I would have structured training for it. Instead, I had just a month to rethink things and motivate myself for a race that I could potentially PB. 

About a month before the marathon, and not long after accepting the entry, I proceeded to hurl myself head-first into the footpath, messing up my face and causing deep wounds on my hands and knees. It was on a morning with pretty comfortable dry conditions; I had done the hard part of the run and was just jogging my cool-down along a cycleway about 1km from home, and then I was crumpled on the ground. I lay there a while I waited for pain reports from the various branches of my body. I knew from the warmth in places that I had lost skin and was bleeding but not much pain. I initially thought I'd written off my new glasses because things were quite awry around my head, but it was just my headband and glasses getting mixed up together. I got up and walked - mechanically I seemed fine - and then jogged the last kilometre home. At home, I got to see the full extent. I was bleeding from my forehead, my nose, my upper lip, my shoulder, my hands and knees. We went to the doctor and had the damage properly dressed, and a tetanus shot to boot. With all the luck that I'd avoided a concussion, dental damage, joint damage, and other things, I was just annoyed because it wrecked my lead-in. The dressings could not get wet, which meant I couldn't shower, which meant I wasn't going to be running without being stinky and unhygienic. So I waited for dressing changes to go for a run, but it was never really more than just keeping my muscles loose and ready, and never readying myself. Seven days after the fall I got back to proper runs, which was already at a time that I should be tapering, not doing too many workouts. 

Despite all that, come the morning of the Auckland Marathon, I felt pretty good and was going to aim for 3:08. It was my fourth Auckland full marathon after 2017, 2018 and 2019, the latter being my PB of 3:23 that lasted until earlier this year when I ran 3:10:59 at Hamilton. 3:08 would be a lifetime PB, but I based that on the fact that Hamilton was a really tough course - Auckland wasn't easy, but not as challenging as Hamilton. I also believed I'd improved since June. But Auckland is hard to pace because the first half has all the hills, and then it's flat till the end. After some thought I decided on the pace I'd like to be at at the halfway point.

And come the day, we had almost perfect conditions and I had an uneventful morning. The only issue was a headwind on parts of the course including the crossing of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. As it was the first half went completely to plan and at the halfway point, I had managed to keep in the range that I'd planned ahead... However, it appears my plan was flawed - it was still too fast for my fitness for the first half. As the second half started I noticed fatigue dragging me slower and slower. From kilometre 32 to 42.2, I struggled to keep pace. Eventually I dragged myself home at 3:16, eight minutes slower than I had hoped. And I was not in the best way, I was exhausted to the point of nausea and struggling to keep food down.

The irony of the three marathons of the year are the comparisons of my time at the 30km mark and at the end:

- June 2024: Kirikiriroa Marathon (Hamilton) - 30k: 2:15; 42.2k: 3:10

- September 2024: North Shore Marathon - 30k: 2:14; 42.2k: 3:18

- October 2024: Auckland Marathon - 30k: 2:13; 3:16

That shows that I've been pushing myself faster in the first 30km in each race throughout the year, but my two later races always struggling for the final 12km.

I have always attributed my success this year to my focus on speed at the end of last year, and that's how I plan to spend the rest of the year. Even in China, I'm going to do speed sessions rather than long runs. 

My A-race for next year is the Christchurch Marathon in April 2025. Unlike every other marathon I've done, Christchurch is unsurprisingly flat. It should be the easiest to pace. With the platform I've built these two years, I hope I can get close to, or go under, the much admired 3:00 mark. It'll take a smooth first quarter of the year to do it, but not outside the realms of possibility. 

Head bowed, but still high

A maxim is often cited: History doesn't repeat, but it can rhyme. Well, sometimes it does repeat.

A year ago I wrote a blog about my effort at the 2023 North Shore Marathon. In it there was a section: "One annoying thing was that my watch recorded 20.6km for the first half. This means either it was shorter than a marathon, or my watch hadn't quite tracked it accurately and I was actually running faster than I should have been." I should have really read that report before this morning's race because history did repeat: On Sunday, race day, I was comfortably holding my target pace (4:35/km) for the first loop but when I came up to the half-way point it was clear this was all a fiction. I had completed the first half in 1 hour 33 minutes, a respectable time for a half marathon but about over 3 minutes earlier than planned for my full marathon. It was equivalent to 4:24/km, which I would like to think I could hold on a flat marathon but not when you're running up hills and on sand. Unlike the Kirikiriroa Marathon, there weren't kilometre markers so nothing to counter the bad intel from my watch until the mid-way point, by which time it was almost certainly too late.

I pulled it back a little but by the 30km mark, the fastest 30km of my life, I knew I had overcooked it, and by the 36km mark I slowed down a lot and the temptation to walk started to become strong. That I didn't walk was very satisfying in retrospect. It was hard, steely work to complete the last two beach sections and the last ascent over the hill to Milford. Having lost my faith in my watch, I had to mentally estimate the distance to the finish line and knew that despite everything, I was still possibly going to finish in higher part of my target range of 3:15-3:20. The last part of the marathon is a 800m section of sand and about 100m at Craig Reserve to the finish line, which I crossed at 3:18:49.

I was shattered at the finish line, ducked straight in for a light massage on my burning, tight calves and then struggled out. I started to tremble in shock and sat down for an extended time. Fortunately, I had other people I knew and could talk to while I gave my body some time to get back to equilibrium, otherwise I would have just found some damp ground to lie on.

To have done it with so much struggle is never nice, and the calls for a new better watch, which I almost bought pre-race, are only getting stronger. But I still got my target, a 24 minute improvement on last year, and the fastest I've ever done the course by 14 minutes (in my unofficial running of the cancelled marathon event in 2019). It's also my second fastest marathon effort. I can't be too sad about it. I'll stand by my words and stay out of this event next year, although I might marshal and gain a free entry into 2026's event.

Despite the shakes after the race, there were no niggles or tightness. I could walk around our hilly block without much difficulty in the afternoon afterwards. I'll keep a low profile for a few days before I try some easy runs. I have three weeks till my reunion with Northhead in the Devonport Half Marathon, and at some stage I will make a call on whether to go into the Auckland Marathon in November.

Before bowing before Northhead yet again...

This is the pre-run post that will inevitably be followed by a post-run post. The North Shore Marathon is on the coming Sunday and out of the four different events I've run, it is the one that has been hardest to crack. I feel I've never done it well. Even the best time, my effort in the cancelled event of 2019, was still a crawl to the end (and then a finish line vomit). I've vowed this year would be my last attempt (at least for a time) and next year I should try some that I haven't tried before.

Why is this course hard? Even though it is simply running back-and-forth, back-and-forth between Milford Beach and the top of Northhead, it has 12 beach sections (four times doing the same three sections), 10 hills (including Northhead twice, and with 500m ascent over the whole course) and all this spread out over the normal 42.2km of a marathon in between. 

Another element is the placement of the second ascent of Northhead, which starts at the 30km mark. For those who haven't trained and run a marathon before, the rarefied air beyond 30km is when the "Wall" lurks. Even on the flat, you can feel like a champion at 29km, hit the Wall and then uncontrollably slow at 31km. Last year I mildly slowed down at 28km, and then was crawling after my second time up Northhead. In 2019, my best year, the Wall started to hit at 32km, just after Northhead, and that is still with three other hills and three stretches of beach to run over the last 10km. Any strategy for running this course has to be to fuel well for the race and pace so that you still have enough in the tank on the descent of Northhead. 

But these weeks leading up to the event I had to ask myself what my purpose was in running the North Shore Marathon. This is a very good question - and it might surprise some that many people don't "race" to do their very best. This is not the course for a Personal Best, and it's not an "A-race" for me (i.e. the main targeted event), so it makes sense to think about what running it can contribute to my running and a base for other events. And as it may well be the last time running there, I like the idea of just posting a solid time, better than the previous efforts, but not risk trying to do a maximal effort, which could result in me pushing too hard and suffering yet again on the final 10km. I believe I should be able, with a maximal effort, to get close to 3:10km, and if it were the last marathon I were to ever run, I'd aim for a time in the range of 3:10-3:15, but I think 3:15-3:20 is safer, and be happy to fall back to 3:20-3:25, which would still be a course PB. 

It's been an awkward period of training since the Kirikiriroa Marathon in June. I had four little enforced training breaks. Firstly, post-Kirikiriroa, I had an irritated quad which took some time to go, then almost as soon as it had come right, I had a gastro infection, and not long after that a touch of ITB syndrome, and then finally, just when I was on what was meant to be my longest run in the peak of peakiest weeks, I had a hamstring niggle again. But even with these, I have trained and run pretty well since then and there have been sessions where it is clear I am at least as strong as I am from the first half of the year.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this run and seeing what my new fitness can do with this tough nut!

The speech that could have been and then was

Back in 2017, we had a party to celebrate my father's big 7-0. It was Peak Dad, Peak Warren, before the dramatic changes for him and the family. I spoke at that event and remember that, despite being a confident public speaker, that I didn’t really have the frame or the mind to really speak of my father from the heart. Maybe it is our stoic Scottish heritage. I find it dreadful that only in his passing does meaning clarify and the confidence to say something.

My father was a proud man. He was proud in his achievements, the life he had built, and I would have been proud too to have done in my adult life, the scale of transformation: He was first in my memory a sheep farmer, who became a market gardener. Then a market gardener who became an ice factory owner. He seemed tireless in finding new ways to be Warren, and to be Dad, whether it would be becoming a Drinkmaster franchisee or a liquor store owner, and then launching a take-over of the ice factory to own it once more. Call me traditional but I’ve been in the same industry my whole entire life, and to make these leaps I find extraordinary.

He was proud of family and, boy, his prodigiousness puts the rest of us to shame. Even though his love of family, and his idea of family, went too far at times, there was never any doubt that family is what made him whole and happy.

His approach to making a life and family was called “the Goudie Way”, which apparently was the name he first proposed for what became Goudie Road in Helensville. The Goudie Way was the disciplined, ambitious, and yes, patriarchal, approach to life that he could control with his judgement and wisdom. Unfortunately, his first three born Goudies were opinionated enough to challenge his views of the world, as soon as they were old enough, to whittle it down to simply, Warren’s Way. I felt bad that when I went to Ashburton the first time, that he prefaced all his comments with, “I know you won’t agree but…”

He was proud of his ability to bounce back. It was the habit of a lifetime. Even at the depths, at almost each stage of the last five years, you could see him calculating a plan, a way to restore order and his position. Even after his second major stroke and being put in hospital, he was keen to prove that he could live in the Chalmers Street home alone once more. When Christy and I were down last year, he insisted on visiting the house for old time sakes. We took him, but feared the whole time that he would refuse to leave; but no, he was really wanting to show that he could make it in the front door unassisted, a difficult right-hand turn and up a step. In that moment I knew he wasn’t proving it to us but to himself that he could have that autonomy once more, that he could come back.

Dad was a proud man, too proud to be disabled, disabled by a stroke, when there was no cure for the pain.

In his last two years, anyone could see he was not just struggling with his body, but his mind and his demons. It is a fault of the memory to have the recency of this time as the memory to represent him. It is not fair. He had the fullest life and happiness, and joy with being Warren and being with his family

The memories that I hold dearest is Dad’s exuberant laughs in the annual NRL rugby league finals parties at our Hobsonville home, swimming at the beach with him in Fiji when I was 15 - he liked to try things and be involved; his glee when hitting the oysters at Valentines restaurant, which I couldn’t understand then, but do now; seeing Dad with a cat at his side, and talking with him about his fruit trees at Redoubt Road. I never knew he loved plums!

In 2022 I used to call Dad from my work car as I drove between Auckland and Hamilton. That continued until his ears failed, and then the feeling of separation deepened, and it was only when I went down to Ashburton to visit him in his room that we could talk. But the topics remained the same. He was in pain but kept to Warren’s Way in his own obstinate fashion, refusing the food there, demanding his schedule and his freedoms.

Last Wednesday afternoon we knew he might not make it. I insisted on having a video call to see him and I thank goodness I did. Barely minutes after the end of the call, Brenda sent the message that he had passed and all hope of further Warren stories and memories ended too.

The last ten days have been difficult. I don’t want my father gone, but I know that the pain and confusion he was constantly in the thrall of was unbearable, and only getting worse, and that he was never going to escape that till his final day. That has come and I can only take solace that there is peace for him.

Winter words

This is our second winter in our "new" home. When we moved in last year, it was literally on the stroke of daylight saving switching back, we had dark, wet, cold evenings from the start, and the flaws of the house became evident straight away. 

Firstly, there were the leaks: one through the tiles of our roof, another from our washing machine pipes which soaked our garage, and the other into our lower floor lounge. Two of those were easy to address, the other is still a work in progress. 

Then there were the draughts. The joinery of the house was either aged or poorly done from the get-go, and when we lay in bed we felt moving air. In the bathroom, we felt moving air. In the lounge, we felt moving air. To think this was a renovated home, the original tenants must have put up with basically very little difference between the outdoor and indoor temperatures. I put in draught-stopping foams into almost every corner and tried my best to prevent cold moist air getting to the garage. 

During the worst of winter last year my wife was in China I did not really notice whether there was a big difference in temperatures because I am not that sensitive to it. But this year with the first of some really frosty mornings, I'm pretty happy with the general comfort of the house. Its advantage of unopposed sunshine helps of the good days and the general insulation and laminates mean that it never is too cold. We swing between thinking of further changes that we would like to make here as if it were going to be our "forever home" when in fact at a time that suits, we are likely to move on from here. Little changes and fixes are a stressor for me and weigh on my mind. Sometimes what seems like a straightforward thing like getting a shed requires a lot of work. Other things like pruning a neighbour's tree sometimes has more complexity than originally anticipated. Either way, some progress and wins are great, but there is always more to do.

Winter has me in a little bit of limbo. My general interest in current events has been dulled by my pessimism in the politics locally and abroad, specifically the US. While I have another academic administrator at school, there is more to do, so any advantage of time has gone, and there are always perpetual staffing issues, if not student concerns, which are still too early to have someone else attend to. We have an earnest, hardworking teacher who unfortunately likes to bring the topic of pay openly into every work discussion and conversation. It is a bit infectious with others and the talk constantly gets me down. I had hoped that with the relief of many of my duties, I would be able to think about getting back to competitive "over the board" (OTB) chess but it still hasn't happened.  

So pretty much my life is just working, resting and running and even running briefly was not happening. After the Kirikiri Marathon, I ambitiously tried to have a short recovery period, but after a gentle week had a hamstring issue, then had a nasty stomach bug, then just after I got back to it, I had my first re-incidence of ITB syndrome (Ilio-Tibial Band, aggravation of a band of fascia from the hip down to the knee). Fortunately, the later resolved itself with the guidance from youtube videos and I'm only seven days back into regular running, although so far it would appear that all systems are very much working, with three workouts going better than expected. I have resumed my plan of trying to beat my 10km personal best which rests just above 40 minutes. (To be clear, 10km is the only distance yet to be bettered in the last eight months.) I'll look to do a time trial at the track which will be the actual attempt to beat it, and then do a competitive 10km at Western Springs/Grey Lynn, which has a hill and where I'll try to get as close to 40 minutes as possible, but realistically won't be a PB. After that, I'll get back to preparing for the North Shore Marathon in September.

Fifth

A considerable monkey is off my back with a 3:10:59 time at the 2024 Kirikiriroa Marathon, my eighth official marathon. It wasn't the sub 3:10 I was hoping for but, in retrospect, that time was pretty ambitious on this course. Last year's 3:34 apparently was not fresh enough in my mind as I was again surprised with how much ascent there was. It is the second most hilly marathon I've run and I've run only marathons with hills (in order of metres of ascent: North Shore, Kirikiriroa, Auckland then Rotorua, last but famous for its hills). Compared to the others though Kirikiriroa's are insidious - there is no one peak to prepare for like North Shore's Northhead, or the Auckland Harbour Bridge; it just pummels you and your joints with a multitude of ups-and-downs.

The preparation and the morning of all went well. Despite occasional "why didn't I bring that" moments, I still had everything I needed just when I needed it. 

One of the slightly comical aspects of the morning was an incident with my collapsible cup. They promoted the event as a "cupless" event. For those not in the know, most events have water stations with volunteers generously offering runners cups of water or "electrolyte" drinks. Runners who need a drink would swoop in and attempt to drink it either on the hoof or with a brief walk, sometimes tipping it over themselves and almost always not managing to throw the cup in the collection receptacle. Anyone who has run at the back of an event knows that the wastage and incidental littering. Recently there have been more cupless events and fortunately I have a cup for the purpose. I wore a running belt with a zipped compartment and a "cupholder" part which has a particular bottle that matches with it, and in my gear planning chose this to store my gels and to put my cup in it for the run.

Anyway, literally on the starting area no more than 10 seconds after passing through the Starting arch, one of my fingers caught the cup flicking it out of the cup holder and onto the grassy area that was being trodden by my fellow competitors. I didn't see it happen but realised it straight away, quickly seeing it was gone, stopping suddenly and looking back to see it on the ground, then hesitating about going to get it: Did I need it? Yes, I did! And started heading back through the runners. Fortunately, I heard calls of "someone's cup on the ground" and people avoided it, and then one other runner swooped down with one had to bring it up to me, a really awesome act of consideration. (But did I need a cup? No, I didn't really. All stations had cups, but maybe just for the faster runners. And annoyingly they'd offer me cupped drinks instead of pouring it into my collapsible cup. I usually took their cups and emptied it into mine.)

With that start line faux pas behind me, I got back into the rhythm up the climb out of Hamilton Gardens and head south-east, up some more to a residential area and then down into a scenic boardwalked section away from the river. As was the case last year, it is hard to know whether you're running to pace because of the hills. But my problem was bigger than that: my watch's GPS tracking is next to useless. It was telling me I was going rather slow (4:45/km even when I was on the flats, and my target was 4:30/km overall). I was desperately scanning for kilometre markers but hadn't seen any during the first four kilometres. The 5km marker, however, gave me the news: I passed it after 22:00, that is 4:24/km pace, far too fast, especially considering I had gone up hills, too. My watch reported 4:51km, for comparison. So I tried my best to slow down and hope the damage was not done. 

It is said that the halfway point in the marathon is not 21.1km (half the distance) but 32km because that's when the struggle begins. And it was in this race after a weird speeding up at 30km mark triggered slowing and at about 32km dropped my splits below my target average pace of 4:30/km. With all my training and fitness, this slowdown was still to a pace faster than I'd run all my other marathons, but it was gradually eroding the chance of getting below 3:10. One of the quirks of this course is that from 36-39km it goes through the riverside section next to the CBD section which has the most rises and drops. I had hoped to make it through this with a little bit of a buffer to cruise the last flat 2-3km but by then my calves were on fire and I was stiffening up quickly. I did the maths and knew I was going to finish after 3:10 so didn't push it at all.

 

I pulled in for 3:10:59, which was 11 seconds ahead of the next runner who was steaming in trying to catch me. Little did I know I was actually the fifth finisher for the individual runners, although 15 minutes behind fourth place. There were four sub-three speedsters, and then a long gap before my pursuer and I crossed the line... then another ten minutes before seventh and then a lot of runners came in at that point. 

I was exhausted. Even with a bit of a walk around to get moving again, I felt nausea before getting in the car and had a lie-down in the carpark, before getting up and back to the hotel for a quick shower before our "late check-out". The weather which was threatening to rain on the event didn't turn up so we got out and home to rest. All in all, mission accomplished and one for the wall at home.  

T minus 6 days

And in the blink of an eye, I have arrived six days out from my first marathon for 2024, the Kirikiriroa Marathon, which has organically become my "A" race. For the non-athletes out there, an "A race" is the main target race that your training is geared to peak you for, but that is not to say it is the only race that is amongst your training. Huntly Half was a "B race" for me, a race that was to be an indicator of progress. There are even races that you could regard as "C races", which are half-workout / half- race. Coatesville Half for me was a clear C race. Waterfront was intended to be a B race, but due to the niggle turned into a C race. All the parkruns are C races for me because I haven't been specifically training for them, either. So despite I've been making pleasing personal bests in the 5km and half marathon in the first half of the year, none of those are with distance specific training with them as an A race target. I say it has organically become an A race because the scheduled formed around it late last year despite having booked it much earlier.

Last year was my first time running the Kirikiriroa course and I did it with a 3:28-3:30 target. However, my lead-in was pestered by niggles and then I paced it poorly and ended with 3:34. Looking back, the goal was probably about right: my 10km time trial indicated a 3:29 time, and a half marathon time trial indicated a 3:23 time. Looking back at the paces on race day, I did all the same silly mistakes. My pace for the first third was actually as if I were aiming for a 3:14 finish. I slowed down in the middle phases but was still on track for a 3:25 time at the 30km mark (but as I was slowing it was not going to be likely). All of that shows that I had gone out far too fast, well beyond even what the most optimistic target required. Suddenly I'm not as disappointed by my actual 3:34, though I was in a world of pain for the last 12 km, as I did hold on to a vaguely acceptable time after the earlier stupidity. 

This time round my Huntly Half effort indicates I should be able to run a 3:04 marathon which, based on my history, is almost unimaginably fast. It would be an 18 minute improvement on my personal best. But I feel like I've made a breakthrough in my running this year and things have been smoother than any other lead-in. Bearing in mind that Huntly was flat and Kirikiriroa has about 400m of ascents, I'll be strictly targeting 3:10 and if all goes well till the final 2.2km (after the last grinding slope) to make a clean finish below that. If things are more challenging, 3:15 would also be a pleasing B goal, which is still a 7 minute improvement on my best ever. 

Those are all the training factors for success but external factors are looking quite good. So far, the extended weather forecast is for a warmer morning than the frosty start last year. Also, last year I was a bit stressed and overworked during that period of the race, whereas this year with a new Senior Teacher, and just one school to manage, I am feeling less distracted. 

One final external factor is that I bought a new pair of carbon-plated racing shoes, also known as "super shoes". As mentioned before, these are de rigeur in racing these days. I found a sale pair of Saucony Endorphin Pro 3, which had recently been superseded by version 4 so the 3's were prime for the picking. I had only run 5km races and two half marathons (Coatesville and Waterfront) with my old pair of Saucony Endorphin Pro 2's so this would be my first marathon in super shoes. What effect could this have? Well, it could mean that my target pace will be easier to maintain and if I need to ramp up pace toward the end, it may not be as daunting as in normal training shoes. We'll see though.

Overall, for this last week of taper, I'm hoping just to feel fresh and able on the start line. My body, aside from a returning tightness in my right hamstring, feels great. My calf issue of a few weeks ago is all gone. I started my training with tight Achilles but there is no sign of them either. And the hip flexor discomfort I usually get at the later stages of a marathon haven't been evident in my training. This week will just being keeping everything pretty light, with lots of sleep and good nutrition. I have also decided to not have alcohol in this period, too, which will help with the resting and lowering any inflammation in my body. So all the controllable factors are in favour of a good run.

The Huntly Half

As a race that I'd never run, the Huntly Half Marathon was mainly in my imagination till this morning. It had an evocative presence even from the assonance in its name. Its reputation was a fast, flat half marathon where PBs were made. Through the wonders of the running app, Strava, every year I could see others going down and running it with fast times; running great, John Walker, had won it several times.

I cannot think of a year, though, that I planned to run it. It always clashed a bit with other plans and ideas, or simply didn't occur to me. As alluded to in previous blogs, even my entry this morning was a bit of a side project. I just wanted a race three weeks before the marathon to estimate my fitness and pace. Also, I did want to see whether my 1:28:28 at Waterfront was really the best I could do, or whether my hamstring concerns had impacted it. 

My training since Waterfront had been really good right up to this past week, when weather, a family health issue and general bad timing foiled my planned lead-in. Yesterday, I switched to my racing shoes on a "shake-out run" (the run you do the day before an event to keep things loose) but about 6km in my left calf became unusually tight. I ran on and started feeling the starting of pain and pulled the plug. This was not what I wanted the day before an event. I walked and rubbed it. Stretching seemed to make things worse so I just walked for about 20 minutes. I thought for a bit before deciding I'd try and run home. The whole way the calf was tight and on a few strides again I felt pain but not consistent pain. I threw in some pace and did not feel any worsening. I finally completed the test by running up the hill home and got in without trouble. Generally after symptoms like this, you'd have a day or three off to let things settle but with everything set to race in the morning it became a dilemma. In the end I decided to go down to Huntly and run, but with a mind that if it got sore I'd pull the plug and walk back. I decided not to wear the racing shoes and went with standard training shoes. These days, shoes can be the difference between a good run, a great run and a PB so carbon plated shoes are now de rigor, such as my racing shoes that I ran at the Waterfront Half. Here, I was going to run in conventional shoes.

I got there early and this is the best way to race. You have a double-hit of some portaloo action; you have your coffee; do a jog with a few strides; do general stretching and make your way to the start chute without trouble. And it was a great day to do so. There was some morning fog and an apparent overnight temperature of 2 degrees, but when I got there it was comfortable with the morning sun beaming down. In contrast to Auckland half marathons that have you starting 8am at the latest, Huntly started at 9am which was plenty of time for people to travel in to run and for the day to begin. My warm-up runs made me know that I'd be feeling the calf on the run, and when I tried pace I didn't feel like I was able to crank up speed.

Then a misfiring horn squealed and we were off. Gladly I settled into a pace but by the 4km mark, I realised, again, that my watch was not reporting pace correctly. I had thought I had been going a touch too slow but hadn't minded doing so in the early kilometres. But when I saw the marker and divided my time by four, I was at goal pace, or slightly faster. By the fifth kilometre, I casually inquired about the paces on all of the runners that were in our pack and got a multitude of answers. Fortunately, this rate had markers reliably every kilometre and visible so I tracked myself mainly through mathematics. My calf was tight and present in every step, as expected but did not hurt, even at what was a fast pace for me. 

With the early jockeying for position out of the way, the packs and bursts therefrom became the rhythm of the race. My early pack fractured with someone I called Orange Guy burst forward and became a perpetual mark. Later from our pack, Frontrunner (which was written across the top of the back of his shirt) also broke, and then it was a small pack with me at the front. No one particularly pushed, and I was on pace. The plan is always to run your plan and then reel in runners ahead who did not plan well for their ability. And it happened first with Frontrunner. He had a very strong pace from about 4km-9km and then we just mobbed him. The course was an "out-and-back" with a turn at the halfway mark. I felt myself breaking away from my own pack in the kilometres before the turn and when I made it, I realised I had made a reasonable gap indeed and was closer to the Orange Guy than I was to them. I locked in a faster pace and surprisingly Orange Guy must have faded because within a minute I'd passed him, but still on my own. New marks were ahead, "Blackman" (at a distance he could only be a colour) and a female runner who was with him to form a minipack. 

I might have thought I was going fast but another runner, possibly a later starter, "Wanganui", burst past me in a rush to finish. He passed the my two new marks but strangely seem to have slowed down to around my pace because he never really left my sight, about 100m ahead. The female runner stopped all together to take a gel. She must have been struggling and wanted some magic to get her groove back. The sugar from a gel takes quite some time to get into the system. Either way, I passed her in a blink and not long after passed Blackman. I trailed Wanganui for a while, around the same time I felt myself struggle a bit to maintain my pace and around the 19km mark, heard footfalls behind me. My tail kept with me before hitting the gas around the 20km. I tried unsuccessfully to stay with him but that pumped up my pace for the final stretch that brought me across the finishing mats at 1:27:23, a 1:05 improvement on Waterfront. 

I went through the finish line and removed my tracking tag from my show, and soon as I rose from my crouch, my calf turned to stone. The runner who blew through finish line at 15km/hr one moment, limped slowly to collect his bag the next. Compared to Waterfront I held my speed for much longer and the pace fade was only a small loss of time. I won't be doing another half for quite some time as the two full marathons take precedence. 

As for my calf, I think it's a temporary thing and I hope with rest and some treatment it resolves itself. It is a wonder that something that feels so debilitating one day cannot impact much a lifetime best performance the next day. I'm glad though. It is one for the scrapbook.

Believing in dreams

It is perhaps not surprising that some elements of performance can become a part of identity. Like I always say that I am bad driver, as if I haven't improved as a driver in all these years. Or that I am digitally literate even though my capability is rooted in technology that is years old, and I could be reduced to a novice by changes in AI.

For running, for a long time, 3 hours 30 minutes was a part of my running identity. It took me three marathons to hit it but was a goal from the beginning. Even with later efforts, it had the gravitational effects of a mean to which everything will regress to. It is essentially a marathon you'd run if you kept just under 5 minute kilometres, another mean value with extraordinary gravitational power for me. Early on, based on my performances at other distances, race calculators boldly said that I could do faster, well out of the orbit of 3:30, but when it came to race day I was always doomed to underperform the expectation. My personal best at the marathon is 3:22, which itself was an underperformance on a well-trained year. In 2023 with a pile of mileage under my belt, I could only do 3:34 in my best of two performances. 

It is safe to say I've been burnt enough from hope, and while I do think that I will better 3:22 at some stage, there is an assumption in my being that I'm a 3:30 person. And while the benchmark for a serious marathoner is 3:00, that's a cake that does not have a slice for me.

Even with this fatalism, 2024 has come to possibly be the Peppermint Patty who has put a time in front of me to kick to goal. Every metric is pointing to a much better time than I have ever had before. My 5km time indicates 3:11 is possible. My half marathon time suggests 3:06. The marathon, however, is quite different to these events and needs different training to actualise these times, but even my training is indicating it possible. 

Six weeks out from the Kirikiriroa marathon I ran a 33km long run with three roughly 5km sections that were meant to be in the range of "marathon pace", the last of which was to be after the 25th kilometre, when you begin to tire, and should be the fastest of the 5km intervals. This can be hard to judge if the terrain is hilly because, while you have the pace showing on your smartwatch, you never know how the ascents and descents affect pace. This can be fixed with apps which can make adjustments for different surfaces and give you an idea of your "gradient adjusted" paces (GAP) once you're home in the analysis. For this reason, I chose to run along the cycleway by the motorway and return via a flat river valley through Henderson, I had planned to run the first at 4:40/km, then 4:30, and finally 4:20. On the run, I felt I nailed the first two but struggled on the third as expected. Back at home, I got to unexpected news: when adjusted for gradients, the three 5km segments were 4:30, 4:26 and 4:23 respectively. Clearly, the river valley had more undulation than the others and made what felt like a difficult section reflect that I was putting in more effort than the other two. 4:30/km pace, if it becomes my pace for the marathon would be a 3:10 result. 4:23/km, the final pace from the training which should be more reflective of my ability, if it were to become my pace for the marathon would be a 3:05 marathon result. This training run was also apparently the second fastest 30km effort of my life, only achieved before in race situations.

Of course, there is plenty of room for chicken counting. There is still plenty of training to do and improvement to make. But also factors beyond myself could sabotage these possible outcomes. There are three more peak weeks of training and currently I'm still intending to do the Huntly Half Marathon which will be the best indication of a target time. 

If I were permitted to do some chicken counting and blue sky dreaming, I would like to think that I could hit the 3:05 time on a flat course, and with more training, perhaps by the end of the year, I could hope to crack the 3:00 time. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Fortunately tomorrow is a rest day and it's time for me to let my body recover.

Observing a day

It's ANZAC day, which I do observe chiefly in my thoughts although very occasionally at a dawn service. This year I observe it in my usual way with a run with 45 days to go to the Kirikiri Marathon. Statutory holidays are interesting "islands" within a training block, like a little island in a river. A normal week would have its usual pattern of training, which for me usually is a rest day on Mondays, Tuesday to Thursday with a range of runs, Friday with a run if I'm in peak week, then two long runs of different lengths on the weekend. Workdays have a capping effect on distance and effort, with 15km being the maximum unless waking up super-early or leaving home late. But the "mid-week" medium-long run is really useful and fortunately that is what statutory holidays like ANZAC day can bring.

My ANZAC day running last year was a fizzer. The year had started pretty much the same as this year with consistent strong running and I had great hopes. But on the 22 April 2023, I ran with my friend Aaron J and he introduced me to a route called the Concrete Monster, which ascends steeply into the Waitākere hills. He is a natural runner of the kind that I'll never be - and when running with him I'm always trailing a bit behind and usually running faster than I would normally. The run itself is something I'm still pretty proud of, but the next day my quad was tight and sore and it took time to figure out that it was just a tight knot and not an injury. ANZAC day was thus a quite day at home in a week that I should be beginning my peak period of training.

It's 45 days to go to the Kirikiriroa Marathon so basically there are three weeks of "peak" training to go and then three weeks of taper. In 2023, Kirikiriroa was my sixth official marathon but my first since 2019, and the first time I had run that particular event. Training had been solid up to the Concrete Monster, but that quad issue, then an ankle niggle a few weeks later compromised the peak weeks. In the end I ran 3:34. I'd felt like a million dollars for 30km and then re-experienced "the Wall" that all marathon runners know so well with a struggle home in the last 12.2km. My target had been 3:28-3:30 but I shot well over.

If my recent hamstring issue was a reminder of anything it is that strength and conditioning are always going to be useful not just for the race, but more importantly for managing my way through the peak weeks without issue. None of the niggles in the last year and a half have been injuries fortunately but every niggle that requires days of rest and recovery takes away the momentum.

My run today was a confidence booster. 24km with 10km at what I hope will be my marathon pace of 4:30/km. If I can achieve this, I'll have a sub 3:10 marathon PB and a foundation to look at the benchmark 3 hour mark on a flatter, faster route. Even without the coming weeks, training calculators with my recent Waterfront and Parkrun performances, I should already be at 3:10 fitness, so I think aiming for it would become a conservative goal and give me the chance to check myself after the last hills and push the time lower if I feel I can.

I have the opportunity to put another half marathon race into my schedule as a time trial three weeks before the marathon. It's the Huntly Half, a famously fast run, which I haven't done before. It can be done and returned from in a morning and, provided the peak weeks go well, will be a great barometer for what I should be able to achieve in Kirikiriroa. I am pretty confident I should be able to better my Waterfront time if all things are smooth with training if I did it. I would aim for 1:26-1:27.

Anyway, just have to do the strength and conditioning, avoid rakes and uneven pavement, Covid, cyclonic weather conditions etc. and hope for the best!

To live, to die

I am a reader, yet for the occupational tumult that I've been in, I've had to make prioritising choices not to read much in the previous few years. Whenever things got busy, reading gave way to working and running. In 2022 it was only audiobooks that I "read". But injury and holidays give me an excuse to get back to it. 

Over Christmas I read Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, and a Chinese book, The Chronicles of a Blood Merchant (许三观卖血记）by Yu Hua (余华), The latter was the second book I had read by Yu Hua; the first was during the start of the pandemic, his most famous book, To Live, that was made into a movie. It was a delightful almost child-like read of some very serious topics, and in some ways it was an echo of my wife's grandfather - the protagonist was the son of a landlord who lost everything in the Revolution. (But as opposed to A Gong, the protagonist was a ne'er-do-well who wasted his money.) The Chronicles of a Blood Merchant and another book of Yu Hua, The Seventh Day, had sat on our bookshelf for four years until the present period to be read. I'm glad that holidays and then this hamstring niggle have given me the chance to read them.

The Chronicles of a Blood Merchant is another child-like tale of a simple man who discovers that selling his blood can give him money to address the crises that arise in his life. China at the time did not do blood donation, and in fact the act of giving blood was considered expending life energy and not an advisable thing to do, hence the buying of blood for the medical system. That weird premise is just a background detail of the sacrifice he made as his life tracks the Chinese Revolution, the Great Leap Forward and then the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution, surely not some small moments, to get his family through. It is really the family focus that hits home in the most peculiar way in this story, as he discovers that his first firstborn of his three sons is not his. (The result of a rape by his wife's previous admirer.) And how he struggles with first rejecting him, then showing partiality, to accepting him as a son, then almost loving him at times beyond the sons that were his flesh and blood. Also it is a thorough exploration of how people see self-sacrifice and denial in their lives.

The Seventh Day was unexpected after these but it made sense by the end. It opens in the most peculiar way that, as a non-native reader, it made me question whether I understood the Chinese correctly: 

"It was thick and foggy when I walked out of my rental home, into a city that was wriggling awake in empty chaos. The place I was going was a funeral parlour, a place called a "crematorium" in the past. I received a notice to go there by nine a.m. The time of my cremation was half past nine."

It is a strangely beautiful book even if written from an ambivalently afterlife perspective on the life lived before and the affections with the world that has been. Again it was written child-like and the elements of surrealism that were in his other works are exaggerated here. 

I had read most of it before the Waterfront Half. My debilitating "hamstring injury" was addressed by a few specialised exercises and stretches, and just like my hamstring after Coatesville, it has not made a peep since. But I had new reason not to run much. In a great display of irony, the ankle on my other foot caused me a lot of angst. It started just after the race when I had a massage at the venue as a pre-emptive especially for my hamstring, but coming of the massage bench I put my left ankle on the ground and a bolt of pain almost sent me to the ground. I could walk but it felt as if I had sprained it. After a little walking I was manageable. My arch was sore and my upper ankle tight. The rest of the day was fine, I felt it tight the following morning but could still run 10km, but at work I couldn't walk naturally. The next day was the same, and on the third day, and another 10km run it finally felt a bit more normal. I managed to read a few more pages of The Seventh Day and got to the end tonight.

I ran 24km up one of the steepest roads in the Waitakeres with no trouble to my hamstring or my left ankle. My hip, well, it was cranky on the way down the hill. Looks like I've got some strengthening and conditioning to do!  

On the water front

Even in this scientific age, some feeling of superstition is hard to avoid. People talk about not jinxing things, and whether it is to avoid the risk of reputational damage, or just not to feel stupid, we don't generally state things in certain terms about the future. My last blog was published on a Sunday two weeks ago with a lot of expectation about an event, the Waterfront Half Marathon, which was beckoning to be yet another performance ceiling breaking event. Everything was auspicious for this - a clean sub-90 minute half marathon. My big talk was of a sub 1:28 result which would be a cathartic breaking of the 1:30 barrier that had always been such an issue for me. 

Well, if I had a decent memory, I should have the lead-in wasn't actually so auspicious before the last blog: my Coatesville Half run was marred by a hamstring issue. And I should have recognised that as a bad omen, or at least an important issue to work on, because just three days after the blog, and eleven days before the race, I set out in the morning on what would be my last real effort run before the event and promptly had an issue. The run had initially felt really good as my body demonstrated that it could handle pace and sustain it. But then just as I was about to take my foot off the gas that feeling in my hamstring returned, a tightening, the feeling of something bunching up, and then pain. It was exactly what had happened last time. So I stopped, stretched, and then as it was a work day tried jogging back the 4km home while not trying to aggravate it further... The whole return journey I was bothered by the fact that this was happening just eleven days before the Waterfront event and I would be losing some of my preparatory running.

Thinking back to the Coatesville hamstring issue, it had got better quite quickly with a post-race massage, a rest of a couple of days and some light running. So I tried repeating this treatment plan this time and while in Ashburton three days after the issue returned, I tried running gently and felt the issue come back on the run, and the sensation linger for a day. I tried some of my own exercises and stretches and on the following Wednesday, one whole week after the recurrence tried running but gave up after just 2km. I "gave in" and went to the physio. It was just four days before the event and I was feeling rather negative about the whole thing.

But the physio was great and she reminded me it was two years since my last visit! There was a good logic in my understanding of the injury (it was aggravated by pace and braking going downhill) and the treatment (strengthening at the lowest point on the hamstring which was not strong enough and improving flexibility). There was a nice new exercise, the neural stretch, that I enjoy doing and I'll probably include it into my strengthening regime. This whole episode made me think that I was very resilient physically last year but had upped my pace pleasingly in the last three months, but that I hadn't really done much to improve my tolerance of these kinds of efforts. 

So anyway, Thursday I did the prescribed exercises, Friday again. Saturday morning I went on an 8km fitness test/shake-out run. The tightening was there after two kilometres but I continued to run and found it didn't get any worse. I put three "race pace" 400m sections and it still didn't worsen. On that basis for the first time since the injury, I was positive to run the Waterfront Half, which was actually just this morning. 

Having run it before, I knew what to expect pre-race: in a word, pandemonium. They close Tamaki Drive and all the parking along it so when you add the vehicles of the 2500 runners and event staff, it makes for a stressful parking spot hunting expedition. Similar to Coatesville, I was a bit rushed, but fortunately managed to do everything I needed to do, and get into the starting chute through a side-branch. 

Ever since my recent fall, the GPS tracking on my watch had become very finicky. On this occasion, when 0700 hours ticked and the race began, my watch was still searching for signal after two fruitless minutes. I sprung my way through the early bunching, although a traffic island almost took me out (it looked like a clearing ahead - just didn't see the reason for it). My pace still looked slow on my watch but I knew from some familiar faces around me that I was going pretty quickly. Slightly worrying at the time was that I could feel tightness almost straight-away but it didn't affect my gait or pace. And in fact, not long after I didn't even think about it at all!

My biggest piece of luck was a running friend, Aaron J, noticing me and ran beside me. He is definitely in a faster class of running, and was unnerved that we were apparently in the same bunch so I asked him what his watch was giving him as a pace, to which he said: 4:04/km. (My watch was still finding its bearings with 4:29!). Now, for reference, 4:16 was my Coatesville pace. 4:10 was my goal pace for this race to get to 1:28, and I was going significantly faster than those times. It felt easy - and despite trying to slow down, the objective timings after the race showed I wasn't decelerating at all. I did 5km in 20:28, a pretty good parkrun time, and ran the second fastest 10km of my life, 41:08, in the first 10km of a 21.1km race... Aaron, though a very fast runner, had not been training much but is the kind of runner who can more or less, roll out of bed and run faster than most. He had humble goals and was happy to run with me while he found what pace worked for him. After about 10km I told him I'd drop back and until about the 14km I found it easy enough to sustain pace (which turned out later to be 4:06/km pace, which would have been a 1:26:30 finish if I had the gas to maintain it!). 

But after 14km my pace started to drop, at first without my feeling any difference. My watch started to indicate it and I was a bit worried that I might really start to decelerate. My hamstring was not even perceivable, although another quirky issue (my right hip flexor) did start to have some impact. Fortunately, though about 15-20 seconds per kilometre at times I still managed to recover and push towards the end. I cruised in the finish at 1:28:28, a personal best by 1 minute 30 seconds.

Now, 30 seconds faster would have gotten to my pre-injury goal of sub 1:28, but just getting to the end of the race without issue was the real prize. The PB was the cherry on top. I have confidence that my running has not been derailed and with continued conditioning I can build up another string of training for the Kirikiriroa Marathon in June. But I'll leave prognosticating about how that will go to.... after the event this time. 

Milestone

On Thursday, I crossed an interesting in my running, the "1000km for the year" mark. 1000km annually is not a big amount - for context, you can achieve it with just 20km a week and have two weeks to spare. In 2017, my first full year of running I was proud to break 2000km by New Years Eve. But with aspirations of being a 4000km a year runner, the 1000 mark is quite a critical one. In 2023 I crossed it almost right on pace, 1 April, which was a personal record. The years since 2017, 1000km has come up at a wide range of times:

2018 - 30 June

2019 - 6 April

2020 - 22 September

2021 - 27 June

2022 - Did not run 1000km

2023 - 1 April

2024 has so far been a wonderfully smooth start to the running year and on Thursday 21 March, I again crossed the 1000km for the year mark. Of course, it is an empty record if it doesn't confer any actual ability or potential with it. 2023's record did not translate into a faster marathon for me at either Kirikiriroa or North Shore, but the solid year that it was is probably the reason I performed well with my mile PB in December, Coatesville in February and the Hobsonville Point Parkrun. 

Since my performance at Coatesville, I have been very solid. I shook off the niggles quickly and stacked three weeks of mileage over 100km and kept working on my speed. The Waterfront Half awaits me in two weeks where I hope to translate this work and training into something symbolic.

I've only done the Waterfront Half once before in 2019 (see here). It remains my Personal Best time for the half marathon distance, 1:29:58. That is a speed of 4:16/km, which though I more or less achieved that at Coatesville, daunts me numerically. Based on my fitness now though, I should be able to beat it by two minutes with an average pace of 4:10/km over 21.1km. It is one of the mentally difficult things about running that you are preparing for something you never do in training. Every peak performance is in effect a leap of faith. If I am to go under 1:28:00, from beginning to end I will need to be right on, or thereabouts, a pace I have not maintained for more than 10km at any time in my life. On my run yesterday, I ran a 3x2mile run - this is where within a long run there are three segments that are specifically faster for 2 miles - and the fastest of the three two mile segments, on the flattest part of the run, was run in just over 4:10 pace, and once it was done, I was pretty done, too. So 4:10/km stands in my mind as a challenge. 

The secret sauce though is the taper. It is important for me mentally to think that the run yesterday was (a) a good run; (b) done while my body is still coming down from a fatiguing three big weeks; and that come race day, my body will be fresh and peaking, loaded with adrenalin and with fast people racing alongside me keeping me pegged to the target pace. That was the magic of Coatesville, too. In my head, a 1:30 on that course was not possible till I was on course, disbelieving my pace, and then still somehow managing to keep it going till (almost) the very end.

For perspective of what taper is looking like:

The week starting 26 February: 102km (6 days running)

The week starting 4 March: 114km (6 days running)

Last week: 115km (6 days running)

This week: 92km (5 days running)

Next week: 80km (5 days running)

Race week: 50km (4 days running), prior to the Sunday race day.

Fingers crossed that all works and my body rests well and is ready come 7 April.

Another record falls

Two weeks ago I ran my best effort but didn't record a numerical "personal best" for a particular distance. Yesterday, I ran my 13th ever parkrun, this time at Hobsonville Point, and carved 10 seconds off my previous record.

Parkruns are 5km timed runs that occur in parks all over the world (well, 23 different countries). It is a delightful story of organic growth of a good idea. Most runners, myself included, train for "big" events and are not primarily interested in the social side of running. Parkruns were started by an Englishman, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, who just wanted to have a regular, timed 5km run. The early advocates had volunteers to record times, but since then it has become more organised happening without fail at 8am on Saturdays, and now you can get your personalised barcode that you can take anywhere there's a parkrun, run and get your time. For serious runners, that's great but the unexpected benefit is that people who did not have a time as the main goal, but just wanted to have a routine social run. There will be people from all walks of life, some running, some walk/running and others just walking, chatting before, during and after. 

I have friends who are regular parkrunners. Some have it has part of their purpose. Others are just in-between a focussed training plan and just want to keep the legs turning over. Others are "retired" from focussed training and just want to maintain their fitness and identity as a runner. It hasn't really played a role in my running as evinced by my meagre 13 events in almost 6 years. For me it barely had a function in my running. Saturdays were the days I wanted to run long, and if I were to do a "race" I wouldn't just participate, I would want to do it as a time trial, or if a friend was in town. This occasion it fulfilled both of these purposes.

I have run several parkruns, Cornwall Park, Owairaka, Western Springs and even in Hagley Park (although unofficially). Hobsonville Point literally had its inaugural event on the same day as I recorded my previous 5km PB on the same day at Cornwall Park, 19 mins and 54 seconds. I was always planning to check it out but almost five years later, mainly with the motivation of running at the same event as a high school friend, I went. But it also fit well in my training. I was not yet cranking up my mileage on the weekends, I wanted a bit of a measure to consolidate my understanding of my fitness and generally felt I might be in a good place to break the five year standing PB. 

Before you start a 5km race, you need to have an idea of the pace you think you can maintain. For a runner, the margin of error with pace gets more difficult the shorter the event. There are calculators to figure out, based on a previous event, how fast you should be able to run. Based on Coatesville, I should be able to run 5km in the range of 19:00 to 19:30, which sounded surreal for me, maybe something in my mindset that I need to challenge. It demands a sustained sub-4 min/km pace for almost 20 minutes, when even for 10 minutes it'd be a challenge. The last kilometre of a well-paced 5km is very close to suffering.

But I had to trust my training and the information I had gained from my previous run. So after finding the course, chatting with my mate, under perfect conditions I started the run. I had imagined Hobsonville Point as a flat coastal track. I was a little bit wrong, though not hilly, it's got its fair share of undulation. And there are six sharp turns, which slow you down and force you to accelerate back to your pace. My pace for every kilometre were: 3'46" 3'59" 3'53" 4'01" 4'07" The last two kilometres were in the suffering category but I'm glad it didn't balloon as it can easily do. The final time, 19:44, just 10 seconds off my Cornwall Park PB of 2019. This was a relief but I was disappointed not to be able to hold on better to get it into the 19:00-19:30 area. But, as with my Coatesville effort, as long as I stay injury free, the signs are good for the rest of the year. I have a great foundation for all my events.

My return to Parkrun coincides with a controversy. My description above I hope shows how wholesome it started and how most people would take it. Unfortunately, any platform can be contested ground in the culture wars. Parkrun had built in records for male and female participants for their general metrics. Even though registration at Parkrun allows a range of responses to the gender question, either from suspicion or actual events, transgender females were believed to be recorded among "biological" females, which was thought to be biasing average results, taking records and introducing an element of unfairness for those who valued their statistics and standing.

I pity any organisation that suddenly has such quandary cast upon them because of the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't aspect to it. Parkrun opted out of it completely by taking away the gender aggregated statistics altogether. The topic came up with my high school friend but I hadn't followed and just said that transparency is always the best approach. After writing this, I felt more about the participation focus of such events and now think Parkrun did an appropriate move. Individual records are viewable, just not the course records by gender, or your standing within your gender. But in saying that it is silly that everything has to be contested. Those who reject transgender participants self-identifying taking part in a range of events might not have realised that since you don't generally confirm any of your details against a birth certificate, all categories of information for all but the Olympics is trusted when it is submitted. 

One critic however tweeted: "Rather than give females their fair sports results from parkrun – where it would be very easy to add course records for non-binary categories, they have removed all records, I hope parkrun will listen to the fact that the vast majority want a fair sport for all based on the biological reality of the bodies we run/race/compete with." Being a cis male, I am only speculating from the sidelines, but there is no compulsion for someone who identifies contrary to their birth certificate to put "non-binary" (which would be inaccurate, anyway) and not just put what they identify as. 

Back on track

2023 was a strange year in my running. It on one hand was the year that I ran the most, 3850km, more than the 3,111km in 2019; yet on the other hand, a year where I ran only two events and did not run my best. To be clear, I wasn't looking for personal bests - I was looking for a consistent year of running, and had two goals: a mileage goal of 4,000km in the year (not achieved) and a climbing goal of 52,000m ascent for the year (achieved) and that good performances might be a by-product. When the mileage goal started to slip out of reach, I switched to a new goal: pace.

For most of the year, I had been noticeably slower at the fastest part of my range compared to other years. To put some numbers to it, at my best I could run 5km in less than 20 minutes, but in late 2023 I would not be able to go under 21 minutes; in a half marathon at my best I could go under 1 hour 30 minutes, but I would struggle to go under 1 hour 40 minutes in 2023. These margins might seem small but the work to get them down would usually take a long time. So, I switched to pace training in December. The implications of this are that mileage comes down a bit and very specific work-outs are used to sharpen up. Such an example might be 10x400m, or 3x2mile runs, where you run particular distances at fast paces with rests in between. 

The surprising thing was that the fruit came quickly. I ran a mile in 5:49, a lifetime best. At the end of the year, I almost broke 20 minutes for the 5km park run (where humorously all runners had to squeeze past a van and its trailer on two parts of the route). My pace training continued into 2014 to prepare for my main target event, the Coatesville Half Marathon. 

I have a lot of affection for this event. Early in my running in 2017, I ran the Coatesville Classic (8km), which I described here: Crypticity's abound: Comeback and then the Half in 2019 (Crypticity's abound: Mark). Quoting myself for brevity: "The Coatesville Half course is notorious. It is the hilliest course of the series with one significant incline at 3km, another at 10km, another at 14km and another at 16km." In 2019, I ran 1 hour 37 minutes, which was a solid performance in what would be my best year in running, so I was looking for the run this year to be a bit of a bellwether for the year ahead.   

The lead-up through January was very good. In a time-trial I ran 1 hour 35 for a flat half marathon distance. On the Saturday eight days before the run, I ran two training runs that surprised me in pace that exceeded what I thought I was capable of, a 5x1mile and a 2x4mile. Unfortunately on the last one at the very end of the last 4 mile I felt a tightening in my hamstring and I jogged home very gently. I gave myself a two day rest and then did some light runs to test it out again. I felt OK so continued with my normal "week before" taper runs. And then we come to the day of the race.

After a poor night sleep, I woke naturally at 6:12am with a start. My shock at the time jolted my heart and mind into action. Somehow, my 5:30am alarm had not vibrated me awake. In fact, it claimed it had and was doing it every eight minutes, as if self-snoozing itself without any fuss. I had to leave by 6:30am to realistically get to the venue and be ready for the 7:30am race start, so I exploded out of bed, changed, coffeed and threw everything in a bag and left the driveway at 6:32am. So far no speeding tickets have been received, so my arrival in the Coatesville Pony Club car park at 7:07am can be said to have been smooth and without issue. I grabbed my racebib and then to the back of a very long queue for the portaloos. I tried my best to do some dynamic stretches while in the line, and then after a quick prep in the loo, jogged over to the middle of a tightly packed starting chute at 7:27am without any real warm-up. 

Perhaps due to the adrenalinised chaotic start to the morning, I was much faster than my race plan, which was to aim for 4:30/km pace (which would have me on a 1 hour 35 min finish speed) until the downhill speedy finish and go sub 1:35. I had to first push through the mid-pack runners to the front 10% to find people of a similar pace, and that meant my speed at the start was a bit reckless. Fortunately for me there was an easily recognisable Zimbabwean female runner, Ketina, who usually is about my pace, so I used her as an initial measure where I needed to be and I caught up to her and dropped a bit of pace for the hill. 

There began the very familiar pattern of my usual strategy: slow on this hills (letting my pace peers pace me) and then reeling them in on the flats before passing them on the downhills. Ketina disappeared after the first such iteration, and once I was at the top of the first hill, I sped up and didn't slow down. Looking at my watch, I was clearly in the 4:10-4:25/km range - too fast but feeling strangely comfortable. I kept going pulling past more pace peers to the halfway turn when I had a rather cruel realisation that I should have anticipated. My watch had measured my distance 200m short of what the marker was indicating. This was a problem because that meant I was going even faster than my watch was telling me. I could have been going 5 seconds per kilometre faster than I was reading off my watch. 

For any race, the best indication of whether you are going too fast is your breathing (and also one of the best ways to know if your running companions might be entering into a struggle phase). I checked myself and thought I was still breathing quite evenly so I held my pace for the last few hills and then made the final turn onto the downhill home straight. It was then that I knew that it should be just a matter of cruising to the finish line, a certain PB, probably a couple of minutes under, and done on one of the more difficult courses.

It wasn't to be though. About 2km from the finish, I felt the tightness in my hamstring return. I couldn't but cut pace just a little; then, a pain radiated out from that point, and I shortened my gait and cut pace once more. By the time I had entered the Coatesville Domain I was not enjoying running and would have had a noticeable limp. Only one person passed me though and I got over the line at 1:30:12, my third fastest half marathon time. 

For perspective, despite the niggle, I would say this is my best performance. My other two fastest times are 1:29:58 at the Waterfront Half, the flattest possible course. and 1:30:04 on the trickier Millwater Half. But none of them are like Coatesville. It's kind of amazing that after all these years though all three PBs are clustered within 14 seconds of each other after different 21.1km races.

I gave myself a break of four days from running and then ran 5km on Friday evening with hamstring sensations but no pain. This morning I ran 22km with only mild sensations that never amounted to anything and then a massage and some strengthening work. I hope the hamstring is just an oddity that with a bit of rehab I'll get back quickly onto a regular routine.

So the omens are bad/good. Bad that I picked up a niggle/weakness of some sort. But good in that I have the best foundation for a year of good performances. My next chances to race are:

- Hobsonville Point ParkRun 24/02/2024 (goal: under 19:30)

- Waterfront Half Marathon 07/04/2024 (goal: 1:27)

- Kirikiriroa Marathon 09/06/2024 (goal: under 3:20)

- North Shore Marathon 15/09/2024 (goal: under 3:15)

All with ideal training...