China dying

In mid-2023, Christy's grandfather passed away suddenly at the age of 100 (in accordance with the Chinese way to count age). It doesn't feel right to say that someone so old could die "unexpectedly" but in his case, it was against all expectation. My wife had made it over to China just days before it happened, and  Over a year later, as recounted in Crypticity's abound: Life and death of the villages.

This year, I have had the weird privilege of having attended a New Zealand funeral and a Chinese 葬礼 within a couple of months. My Uncle John passed in the first month of this year. For me, it was a surprise, but apparently his heart surgery three years ago had a three year warranty and that it wasn’t necessarily unexpected that he would pass. Though I in all honesty did not have much time with him as we always lived far from where he lived, he always impressed me as a vigorous, kind person. My second cousin Michael, his son, did a great eulogy, talking about his father, who had passed in front of an unnecessarily complicated jigsaw puzzle after making a dryer than usual Christmas cake. You could say it was a good death in that he had a clearly good life which was taken while enjoying life.

My Sam Gung was different. Sam Gung, A Gung's younger cousin, had been struggling for years. Sam Gung was literally a neighbour in the hometown so I knew him well. He was an educated man; he was the one that the village trusted to put into characters the words of ceremony. When big things happened, he was the one who wrote it in beautiful Chinese characters. He was one of the older people who didn’t have any hesitation in welcoming me and speaking with me. When I was back previously he had been struggling with more than one obvious medical condition, and his wife was in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s. And now, a heart condition had struck him hard.

When we arrived, he was expected to pass at any moment. On one day when I had planned to be out with a friend, his family had brought him home from the hospital, and I was asked to come home earlier just so I could see him before anything happened. The “bringing back from the hospital” element is something cultural – I am not sure how often it happens in New Zealand, where people don’t have as many qualms about the elderly dying away from home. That day I didn’t manage to come home much earlier, but still I saw him. Whether he knew who I was depends on how compassionately you ask.

He was expected to pass quickly, and as he was close clan, there was some caution about planning travel. His immediate family members had, three years earlier, dropped everything when A-Gung passed to attend the funeral. But a few days later he was still alive and, according to some, even doing better.  

Three days before our expected trip to Shantou, there was quite the kerfuffle where members of the family had got anxious and wanted him to go back to hospital if he might pull through and make it to the year of the Horse. There was a cultural practicality about this. If he were to die on Chinese New Year’s Eve he might have no one attend the funeral. And it might have the double blow, culturally, of being inauspicious to 探亲 (visit relatives) of a grieving family during the Spring Festival period. So the argument was either to stay the inevitable course with him at home so he can have a village death, and accept whatever consequences with the timing, or to send him back to hospital and hope to buy a couple of weeks but also have the risk of him passing in the cold sterility of a hospital bed.

The latter side won, an ambulance was called late at night and the very next day died.

This was the first time I had been in China for the full process of someone dying. The evening of his passing, proceedings began with the clan gathering at the family home, the following day the body was brought to the home so he could rest in state. The children of the deceased and their partners have white hats or belts, and the children face the body for throughout the day and the night. Guests come in, light incense, bow three times before the body and then stand the incense in a stand before the body. Spiritual money is burned, too. During the three days, there are no speeches, eulogies, no photo collections or songs. I always find it incredible that the village people have enough to talk about for hours and hours. I talked with a grandson of Sam Gung for about an hour, but I was lucky as I didn’t know him and he knew barely anything about me. All the while, people come in to burn incense and there are firecrackers to notify the dead.

The family would stay up through the night but we are distant enough to have a night of sleep. The next morning there are the road rituals for the deceased to be able to be removed from the house and transported to the crematorium. For the road rituals I saw again the Daoist priest from A Gung’s memorial ceremonies. He did his thing and we walked around the coffin three times, and then waited for the equivalent of a hearse to take the body to the crematorium.

The crematorium was a half hour drive from the village so we had two buses ride along with the hearse and then waited our turn. Unseen by us, the body is prepared with flowers and put in a crematorium casket, and after some time, we’re called to the Farewell room, where we walk around the casket three times, and then he is taken into where he will be reduced to ashes. The family wait in a building similar to a bus station waiting area for an hour and then are told it is time to collect. Some members of the family go to check the ashes and bones are his. I was not part of that. And then these were interned into an urn and wheeled over with an umbrella cover to a small concretion designed for final rites. (An umbrella was maintained over the urn until it was buried.) The family then again burn incense, before it is taken to the bus for the ride to the village burial spot where his ashes would reside for a year. (There would be another ceremony to relocate him to his final, final resting spot at some stage later.) It was an interesting hike to a non-descript space for the burial spot, through brush and up a hill. His urn was placed and buried then incense was burned, and then an odd rice throwing ritual. And then that was that. We walked home.

In the land of the living, there remains his wife and the thorny issue of how you care for someone with Alzheimers who relied on her husband at home, and has never known life outside of the village.

China Racing

Any given Saturday. Or Sunday. In New Zealand adults have running races to run, and groups to run in. It is normal for grown-arse men and women to put on colourful clothing, and supershoes, and neglect other important duties and run for themselves, with peril to their knee cartilage, and run with other adults, and children, early in the morning.

This is not so in China. There are prescribed ways to exercise: old ladies can dance together in “square dancing’. Taichi people do taichi things. Old people do back/front catching, and extreme hamstring stretching. And young people, now have gyms. Adults running in groups or competitions is not really a thing (yet). It is truly when you live in other countries that you can really your own cultural assumptions.

Oddly, running marathons is a thing in China now, but these are run by city councils to stimulate tourism. Anything shorter than a half marathon barely exist, because they are not stimulatory to tourism and there are no grass-roots organisations that would run them. ParkRuns don't exist (yet). 

To be clear, New Zealand itself went through a process where Athletics New Zealand used to run the show, and that it was focussed on producing champions (which China is too) but not organising anything beyond those needs, and potentially feeling challenged when there is demand and initiative from the broader society to have events beyond the youth and elite. In that time, other events struggled for recognition without the Athletics NZ approval. It was only after a lot of effort that non-Athletics NZ events would be recognised.

So, in China right now running events are mainly for the youth and elite, and now marathons for the tourism income for the general runner and tourists. But in a running sense for a general runner this is back-to-front: no one should have a marathon as their first event without having raced shorter distances, and ideally in anyone’s training they should have variety, and the chance to test themselves without the whole-hog of a marathon.

Before my current trip to China, I did look for any running events apart from the marathons that are springing up in all Chinese cities, and I was initially very disappointed. I just could not find a single event similar to what we have, a dime-a-dozen, in little New Zealand. I hadn’t been in China for the November Guangzhou marathon, and I wouldn’t be in China for the March Qingyuan marathon and it appeared that in province of Guangdong there was nothing shorter in between those two dates outside of elite running races. With some patience though, I found one single event, a 10km race “no less”, in Qingyuan where I was going to be, a week after my arrival. I told a running relative-in-law but he affirmed what I already knew in a very unencouraging way: it was a tourist thing, and that virtual races are where China was at. But I was not discouraged. I entered into a 10km race and thus on 8 February 2026, I ran my first race outside of New Zealand.

It is through my participation I gain new respect and appreciation for the event-craft of those in New Zealand, and realise that these often shoe-string or community oriented events are run on collective learning and culturally moving runners and organisers together to a better way of running. In China, they are not there yet. My race showed everything that I should have known about a race organised by a city council, not a experienced race organisation, and with runners long deprived of event.

I arrived at the event, had my bags x-rayed and my body fondled with security wand, before doing my usual prep of bathroom, bag drop, bathroom, warm-up, bathroom and preparation to enter the starting chute. But there was a full stage act with singing in the process, with some instructions between songs. It was a cool morning that encouraged some hustle about the place. I heard that runners should hang out to the left and wait to enter the starting chute. I did while another song was song and 30 minutes before the scheduled start time, the gate suddenly opened and there was a charge toward the front of the start chute. I was pretty nimble but only got into the second row of racers, behind a lot of “Ayi” aunties and a guy with a flag with a long metal pole who had managed to react a bit faster.

In New Zealand there is both the implicit and explicit instruction that faster runners should “seed” themselves toward the front, and those who are going to have fun and potentially walk it to head towards the back. In the nascent running culture of China this was not the case. And the organisers indulged it: the event photographer took photos of the people at the starting line, and those aunties really could pose. Another bunch of twenty somethings pushed in front of everyone to take their own start line photos and then stayed there.

With thirty minutes to wile away in the cold, apart from giving the evil eye to those who have no place in the front row of a 10km race, you could only jog on the spot and discreetly stretch in a way that didn’t both others. You could also watch the security who had fenced a metal barrier about 20 metres away from the start line. They fiddled with it and then five minutes before the start line they dismantled it and then these adult men came forward and held hands to form a human barrier in front of the starting line, which was also a starting ribbon.

This is unthinkable in New Zealand where a starting line is a commonly understood line on the ground unobstracted by anything that you cannot cross until a start signal. In China, whether by unfortunate precedent, or suspicion of the common people, a barrier whether ferrous or flesh must be erected to prevent premature starts.

Perhaps for the same reason, there was no countdown to start, or so I thought. Actually the stage with the speakers was about 100 metres away from the front of the start chute. Even with my average Mandarin I couldn’t make out much of what was being said on stage. And I don’t think I was the only one with no clue, because all of a suddne, the security guards let go of each other, the ribbon broke and the aunties charged, and it wasn’t only be who was flat footed at the start. The event photo shows that about five seconds from the start a woman in jeans was leading and that was because she was the fastest to react to the sudden start.

Pre-race, I didn’t know who would be racing in such an event. The North River riverside, which is a beautiful perfect place to run, had sparse utilisation by runners, nowhere close to what you’d see on Tamaki Drive, so if only the local casual runners were running, I might do the awkward thing of winning. Alternatively, with a whole bunch of strong runners from over Guangdong, starved of races, the race could attract the best of the sub-elite best and I might be in the pack.

What happened? Well, once the initial charge was complete and the aunties’ photo moment was completed, it was clear from my watch that even at my initial unsustainable adrenalin-fuelled downhill pace I was in not in the top 30, it was more of the latter. In New Zealand you expect to see a few people who are far too optimistic in the start and such was the case, I settled into my race plan pace and ground my way to the mid-20s. The course was interesting: It started with a downhill section to a fairly flat road, with out-and-backs downhill then uphill back to the road, then a huge downhill, run-around, then running back up the hill, then after a bit of road, an uphill stretch to the finish line. I had thought my Glen Eden hill training would put me in good stead but these runners seemed hill-trained, too, and I only had a marginal advantage.

The intrigue came after the midway point I got to a point in the course where I should have completed three out-and-backs on side roads but I could clearly remember only doing two. I started to doubt myself, that I may have completed missed a required turn. Countering those doubts was the fact that I was never really separate from other runners, and also should have noticed a turn on a well-marked course. I did the final third with the thought that it was almost impossible that I would be running a full 10km. During that time I grinded past a few runners to find myself in 21^st, a single place out of the prize money. But about 500m out, one of those I’d bested earlier bested me, smoothly overtaking and leaving me in the dust. Another that I had grinded past I heard galloping behind me in the last 100m, the uphill finish. I probably put in my best ever sprint finish, uphill, I’ve ever done. This runner managed to do even better passing me, to some laughter from the spectators just to rub it in, and pip me by a few seconds.

I went through the finishing line in 23^rd place out of 1000 runners, and was greeted by a person putting not a finishing medal but a number around my neck. I was then greeted by a person with a QR code telling me I had to scan it. This I hadn’t seen before and I was unsure if this was part of their verification of result, which didn’t really make sense because the bib had a magnetic strip to record times. Nonetheless, while trying to catch my breath I complied, scanned, and then had to fumble to enter information: full name, passport number and then bizarrely my bank account number. It was at that point that Christy went over and relieved me of my phone so I could proceed up. In almost any race in New Zealand, next would be to grab a cup of water or electrolytes, if not a banana. There was none after the start line so I went to get my bag from the collection point. Apparently any drink had to be purchased, so we did and then did the walk down to the car.

My phone confirmed what my watch had already stated: I had only run 9.3km. I wasn’t sure if my 23^rd was actually the case until a lot of checking afterwards revealed that the course route had been changed at some point in a pre-race message, but without highlighting the change nor that the course would be 9.3km, not 10km. This was a relief – I didn’t miss anything. Even with the unexpected short course, I still probably would have run it the same way, and had paced it pretty well. In the end, I do think it was a so-called “peak performance” – I genuinely wouldn’t have been able to run it much faster than I did. The final 100m I would have been the fastest finish I’ve ever done in any race and it was uphill. So despite the head-scratching organisation and the “scare” of possibly having missed a corner, I’m very happy with my effort.

 

 

Running year 2025

2025 was the third straight year of consistent running. That might sound strange considering it might seem that I have been habitually running since coming back to New Zealand, but pre-Covid I had numerous injuries that derailed any momentum I had. I had been improving but it tended to get "kneecapped" (once my a knee niggle in fact) by issues. My first was a calf tear at the end of 2016, then there was a knee issue at the end of 2017; 2018 ended with a fall at Omaha Half Marathon which bruise a muscle and then hernia surgery; my best year pre-Covid, 2019 ended with a weird hip flexor issue that took me out for 5 months, and all of that nice Covid lockdown period. I was very superstitious about the end of the year as all of the above happened in Novembers and Decembers. 

2020 was a write-off running year with only 1,200km (the smallest year since 2016) - I just never got going. And then when I did at the start of 2021 I promptly sprained my ankle in March. That recovered to be a good year with 3,000km, almost matching 2019. Then something happened with the connection between my Achilles and foot arch and that led to a poor 2022 with not even 1,000km. 

But late 2022 and the change of residence to West Auckland started quite the sequence: 

• 2023: 3,850km
• 2024: 4,200km
• 2025: 4,500km (as at 24/12)

Improvements in running come from consistency and in March, I celebrated that and the benefits that came from it. For a bit of at it concretely, here are the numbers: 

Overall, 2025 has given some seemingly incremental gains overall but each has had an element of breakthrough. The 5km PB hooped under 19 mins, which was something I thought I couldn't do. The 10km time below 40:00, was great for the same reason. I know, with a good lead-in and on a reasonable course, I should be able to do it again. Seeing 1:25 feature in my time for the Waterfront Half PB this year was equally a double-take moment. 

The only downer has been that despite a lot of improvement, my full marathon time has only grinded a little lower. Both of my marathons this year were tough affairs that beat me up. But my Auckland Marathon this year I can be proud of despite it not being the PB result I was expecting.

Since recovering from the Auckland Marathon, I have just been maintaining fitness and supporting the new Parkrun at Parrs Park. The Parkrun opened just before the marathon and I got to run in its inaugural event during taper. Since then I have run at five of the events every Saturday and volunteered at several, and have managed to get friends running there, too. It's a very "different" parkrun in that it is on gravel for the most part, undulating, with multiple hairpin turns (six true hairpins but some other really tight corners) and also a grinding ascent that has to be done twice. My best time there remains 20:07 despite three attempts to really "push hard". It puts the whole 18:44 at Ōwairaka into perspective, which is flat, on concrete, with two hairpin turns and it is mostly flat except for a famous bridge. 

However, on an easy run to Parrs Park, after a rest day with no reason to have issues, I felt a gradual tightening in my right calf to the point that I had to walk. As I walked it got worse though and I had to bus my way home. As regular readers would know the classic runner dilemma is: Niggle or Injury? Injuries are those issues that basically force you out of running for a long period, whereas a niggle can be something being or feeling "funny". This tightness remained for days, even after feeling it was fine, a small 2km run was enough for it to retighten afterwards. However, a little while later, after another fitness test, it did not happen again, and I backed that up with 100km in 7 days with no issues again. 

I have still left a lot of room for changes in 2026, with only entry into a 10km series booked, but possibilities of the Wellington Marathon, Gold Coast Marathon and the Taupō Marathon (and also the Auckland Marathon, if I can relieve someone of an entry). And I'll probably do the Waterfront Half again to see if I can keep that PB going down.

Beating the Bridge

Out of any race route I've done of any distance, the current Auckland Marathon would be in the top two that I have run the most, and on Sunday I ran it for the fifth time on a beautiful Sunday morning. 

My peak weeks and taper were completely as planned, and with a 5K PB just a couple of weeks before, there were many good omens. I compared my peak week training for this event with that I did with Christchurch and was pleased to see that I had in fact been qualitatively better. I had wondered why I had thought that I might be able to break three hours at Christchurch apart from glasses coloured with pink hope. The training in the lead-up Auckland Marathon, I had hit the paces regularly required to go under three hours.

But this course that I had traversed so many times physically and mentally is not a docile loop like Christchurch. Christchurch is just four 10.5k loops with barely a rise, and that was too much for me at the required pace back in April. Auckland starts with constant undulation for 10km and then the crossing of the Auckland Harbour Bridge and surrounds before flattening out for the last half to St Helliers and back. 

This time round I tried to hold myself back on the first half hills but a breed of marathon mind virus snuck into my brain, saying "if you hold back on the first half, the second half you will need to go much faster than the pace you trained for". It raised a good point, and it is hard to know exactly how much slower I should be. My 5km splits for the first half are below (with the measuring stick of 21:15 would be right on pace for just under three hours):

- 0-5km: 22:04 (emerging out of Devonport - 49 seconds given to the hills)

- 5-10km: 21:52 (processing Takapuna - a further 37 seconds given to the undulation)

- 10-15km: 20:33 (finally on the flattish area, the motorway to the Bridge, claiming back 42 seconds)

- 15-20km: 22:19 (the Bridge and surrounds - 64 seconds given to the Bridge)

So in total, almost at half-way, I would have to run the required pace for the rest of the race at least and get back the now 1 minute 48 I had "given" to the first half. It doesn't sound like much but it means the required every kilometre about 3-4 seconds faster than an already fast pace, 4:12/km.

- 20-25km: 20:37 (flat as a pancake to Hobson Bay, maybe the excitement of the flat, this was 4:07/km, clearly now going too fast)

- 25-30km: 22:11 (flat as a pancake to Kohimarama, and now the legs and brains have realised the game is up; what should have been in the 21s, and the physical struggle is becoming more apparent)

- 30-35km: 24:31 (the St Helliers turn and back to Bastion Point; the dream is over but the hope of a PB is still on; but another demon has emerged: cramping, first in calves and then hamstrings)

- 35-40km: 22:29 (a bit of a second wind pace-wise as the end grows nearer; I had to stop for a a little while to stretch my hamstrings toward the end)

- 40-42.5km: 12:41 (and into Victoria Park, my watch actually shows me as having a sprint into the finishline which briefly hit 4:00/km speeds)

And that brought me to the time of 3:09:21, outside of career PB but still a significant course PB for me. I was a bit of a shivering mess at the end, enough for them to think I was worthy of a golfcart ride to an overcrowded St Johns, which was overwhelmed. The final long hour was when the temperature rose pretty sharply which was a factor for me and others. I pretty much discharged myself after getting more fluid and electrolytes into my body. 

The five efforts at least show progress:

2017: 3:46:47 (first ever marathon)

2018: 3:29:55

2019: 3:22:54

2023: 3:16:07

2025: 3:09:21

I am still in the post-marathon recovery week and still thinking about the possibilities for 2026 and assorted little challenges that I want to attempt.

Boom!

Habitual running is a lot about goals, both short term and long, the latter which can span years. Round numbers lend themselves for goals. Some of them are arbitrary like the "Three hour marathon", "90 min' half" not to mention things like "four minute mile" (which I will never be able to do). Often when you start (or restart) running, you might knock off landmark times quite quickly and need to reset them, or adjust the long term ones to the new information you gain from your efforts.

As a runner, I run and race any distance between 5km and a marathon. 5km is the most accessible distance for most amateurs and as I've mentioned before there is literally no reason to enter "races" when you can race it at a ParkRun on any given Saturday morning for free. As a runner who prefers the longer distances, I only sparingly race 5km, and had been very reluctant to give up or interrupt a long run on a Saturday morning to go to a ParkRun. So my relationship with the 5km distance started mainly in my own personal runs, then a race or two for the Run Auckland Series, with a sprinkling of ParkRuns, in fact in my eighth year of doing ParkRuns, I have only done it 24 times! But of those 24, seven have been this year. Almost all of them have been "sandwich long runs" where I run about 10km to the venue, race the 5km and then run home, which is exactly what I did yesterday. 

My battles with the distance are reflected in my moving Personal Best:

2017:  21:22

2018: 20:20

2019: 19:54 (first time breaking 20 minutes at a ParkRun)

2020-2022: No ParkRuns due to Covid and not much running

2023: 20:23 (only one attempt)

2024, though, was a big year where I was truly fit and was training for speed and I was fully expecting to go under 19 minutes at some stage. My times over various locations, however, were: 19:44 (new PB), 19:36 (new PB), 19:23 (new PB), 19:42 and finally a casual 21:28 at Western Springs.

2025, I've been even fitter, and until yesterday my times were: 19:51, 19:25, 20:10, 19:17 (new PB in June), 20:16, 20:05... 

When you have been running for a long time the improvements in PB tend to be gradual. That I moved from 19:44 to 19:23 over 7 months and was a 21 second improvement is not unexpected. 21 seconds at race speed is a lot.

Yesterday though I did what I always did, I ran the 10km to Ōwairaka, arriving about 5 minutes before start. Then we were off. I felt for a speed that felt sustainable and ran over the "the big, beautiful bridge" an Ōwairaka feature, which you have to run over, run for about one km and then come and run back over, so pacing can be a little tricky. Racing is always better than running alone because you have people to pace you, and also the ability to make targets of the people in front. Both before and after the turn around point, I made the move to grind past some of the people in front of me. One of them tailed me though up the bridge and eventually past me, then I got him at a corner, and then he got me on the straight. I usually faded towards the end but perhaps because I had this guy on me and had a little left in the tank, I went at him and past him with less than 50m to go and scampered in for 4th. 

The time? 18:44. I had just ripped 33 seconds off from my previous PB, not just scraping under 19, but healthily under. It was almost unbelievable to myself and weird to think only three people were in front of me. (To be clear they were under no threat - I would need an extra 20 seconds to catch third.)

The ridiculous thing of course is that clearing one ceiling just leads you to the next one. Since ParkRuns are almost never flat, I might do what I did in 2024 which was to see what I can do on a flat track, but that's for another day/month/year. The marathon in two weeks is my priority and I want to make sure that my expectations there are also in check and met.

Twin projects

It's been about 6 months since my last blog, which really reflects what has been a pretty intense period, where my school moved campus, a busy period of care with mum, ambitious running load and a new linguistic project, which detracted from writing. I had a draft for a while to talk about the similarities between Trump's MAGA movement and Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, but I didn't finish it and the situation in the States moves far too quickly for a slowly gestating blog post.

My linguistic project was to learn a completely unfamiliar language (or two) in my forties. Part of this is because it is something I have always enjoyed yet have not really done, and another is to see what works as an older learner, like many students are. My two target languages are Vietnamese and Farsi (Persian). Vietnamese is the language with the easier access to resources so I have been using what is available to me to learn as much as I can over the last two to three months.

I might not be the best example having learned several languages before and may have the "neuron pathways" that allow me to connect faster with unfamiliar words, grammar and pronunciation. So far I have found that I can learn it for reading and listening at quite an easy pace. The harder thing will be when I have a class or tutorial to start speaking, which has been the more difficult aspect for me. One of the tools I have used most was one that I had derided in the past, Duolingo. I had tried it in the past to keep my Korean language fresh but immediately thought it was using European language expressions and grammatical sense on a non-European language and gave it up. 

This time round, I recognise that there is variability in the quality across languages and time has served to improve them. Secondly, it is very good for vocabulary acquisition, which is a good place to start, and also sound recognition from the listening. I am enjoying it and will try to use it until there is a better way for practice. 

Running-wise, since my last post, this period has been the most intense of my life. Probably that's a sentence I could have put in almost any previous post because there is a ramping up effect at work. Since April where I managed to improve my 5k, half marathon and full marathon personal records, I went into a 10km race series for the first time since 2019. It is good to alternate goal distances during long training periods so the body gets different stimulus to improve. I was pretty competitive in the series, almost always in the top 10. In one race in Te Atatū I finally broke 40 minutes for a 10km race, and was pretty happy with my training trajectory. I was looking to break 40 again in the final 10km race but the day before while attempting a box-jump in the garage at home, I fell backwards and gained a suspected broken wrist instead. It knocked me out of racing and put my training on hold for 10 long days. Fortunately, a second x-ray confirmed it was not a fracture but a sprain, and with the cast removed, I could get back to training. The finale of the series was a half marathon. 10 days without training should not have decreased my fitness to any extent but I still felt like it took some time to get back to the freshness I had before, and in the half marathon, I went too fast, struggled, missed a turn (costing me about 20-30 seconds) and then eventually dragged myself home just under 1:30, which was not what I had expected. 

After the series I had no particular races in mind. But a person on Facebook needed to offload their Auckland Marathon entry, so I decided to help and thus I have a new goal, which is now just 3 weeks away from completing. Knocking on a fair amount of wood, my training since the cast came off and up to the marathon has been the smoothest of any lead-in and a few training runs have been immensely confidence building. I am used to having things "come up", whether they be niggles that knock out key weekends, or incidents like last year's "face plant" which happened four weeks before the Auckland Marathon and affected my peak weeks. Christchurch Marathon lead-in was fairly smooth, although I was not quite hitting my targets. For this lead-in, I am averaging about 100km a week, which is nailing my plan, and really lifting the bar in the training runs. So I have reasons to be confident. 

I hope this isn't the last post for the year. I will aim to update the progress of these two projects and maybe talk about the Mao/Trump analogy.

Christchurch Marathon Race Report

Just after 9:35am on Sunday morning, I had the realisation that I was not in fact going to achieve my stated goal for the Christchurch Marathon of going sub-3 hours. To be clear, I knew this over a month ago, at Maraetai or two months ago at the Coatesville Half. But it was at about 9:35am, just over two hours into the race that the reality of it was becoming very apparent. In between those races and that moment, there were a few factors that gave me reasons for hope. 

The first factor was that my training had gone almost perfectly through the peak weeks. I had done the mileage, avoided injury and nuisances, and had generally started to "peak". I have had weeks of feeling that high pace was not difficult to reach and easy to sustain. I would accidentally hit really high paces without realising it. 

While the Waterfront Half was poorly timed, and I didn't have to race it, I was lifted by the Personal Best time, and while it wasn't a time that indicated I could do a sub-3 time, it showed I wasn't far away. The "maths" for translating a half marathon time to a possible full marathon time is to double it and add 10 minutes, which would lead to a time of 3:01:55.

And finally, the usual technology messing with the mind: my Garmin watch's analytics had indicated that my Race Prediction's time for a marathon had plummeted since those half marathons. In February, it said 3:08 was my time under optimal conditions; in early March, 3:07, in late March 3:04. After the Waterfront Half, 3:01:15, and on the morning before, 3:00:59. (Amusingly, the day after it now says 3:00:27.)

To achieve a sub-3 time, you need to average 4:15 per kilometre, or 21:15 for every five kilometres. You can see how the races went by the times for each 5km below (the time between the circles).

My 30km in 2:08:05 is faster than my previous best 30km by 5 minutes - it is a huge improvement. But still slightly behind the eight-ball. Then, everything after that point was slower than everything that came before it. 

Why? Well, number one was that I wasn't fit enough to maintain those speeds beyond 30km. I was giving what was a sustainable effort but only getting slower paces. I was hitting the wall despite feeling that I was well fueled. Particular muscles were just worn out and not responding despite my entreaties. 

Then some tired and sore muscles became more vocal. One factor, which I don't want to be an excuse, is that I managed to roll my left ankle twice. It was an "unfortunately, fortunately, unfortuately" tale. The first time was on the first lap. There were several parts of the course that had us going from concrete to some (pitiful) grass and whether it was the change in surface, or the usual dodging around people, my ankle rolled. I righted myself and cautiously strode a bit. I had a concerned runner ask if I was alright and I said I was though feeling it a little. I kept running and he asked if it had settled and I said it had. On the second lap, around an "aid station" I again rolled it. Aid stations are where runners can get water (and often toilets and first-aid), if needed. But they can be perilous places. You have runners swooping in to grab water and streaking out. There is water on the ground, paper cups everywhere and it is generally a bit of chaos. For me, it was the paper cups that was the problem. While moving around people and obstacles I stood on some cups that moved underneath me and again my ankle rolled. I held my breath again as I took a few more strides and again it settled. The third lap was uneventful from that perspective but as I tired the discomfort increased. I slowed down a lot but it still was aching with each stride.

By the end, I came into the finish line without any illusions at a time of 3:09:01, a personal best but well slower than I had thought would be the case. I had thought that I would be able to hold pace until the later 30s and could afford a few slower kms if I ran out of gas (like I did in Hamilton last year). But it is improvement and I learned a few things along the way.

After crossing the finish line I was in a bad way. I was limping due to the rolled ankle, but completely spent, too. In nausea, I decided to lie on the ground, which was good except for the fact that I couldn't get up without my hamstrings or hip flexors cramping. It took time to finally get off the ground, attend to some needs, and then slowly walk to the transport home.

Even though I might have been sold some dreams by my watch, I know that I had a sub-3:05 time in me, and have that fitness even right now. My plans are becoming crystal now. I will do the recommended rest post-marathon and ensure my ankle and arch have no lingering effects; I'll volunteer at a ParkRun this weekend to "pay it back/forward"; I'll prepare a 10km training plan for the winter months that will transform into a marathon plan in Spring. I'll run as a pacer (if needed) at the North Shore Marathon, and see if I can relieve an injured runner of their entry in November in the Auckland Marathon, as I did last year. (There are always injured runners... and if not, I'll enter late.)

Auckland Marathon is more challenging than Christchurch Marathon as a course but maintaining my progress, it is still reasonably possible. I'll ignore my watch's optimism for the meantime and focus on the fundamentals of training well.