Even keel

The three months since China have flown by with a maelstrom of work, the health of my mother, maintaining running and an increasingly ambitious list of languages that I have been learning. Though time has been at a huge premium, I still haven't really thought about cutting back the discretionary time use (largely the latter two, running and languages) to allow a bit more rest and de-stressing. 

That being said, this period has been extremely productive, nonetheless. For the running, the time between arrival back and early April had seemed a bit of a malaise. My recovery from my fall in China was smooth once I knew that it was a mild strain and nothing more and I even ran 20km a few days after the last post without issue. But compared to last year, I just was not hitting my paces. It was disconcerting in fact to see what I was casually hitting in training a year prior - I almost hadn't realised for a while that I had been that quick. 

As my first event post-China approached in April, I knew I wasn't going to match previous year's effort. It was the Waterfront Half, an event where literally every time I had run it I had got an improvement in my lifetime personal best time. But this year was going to be the first time to fall short: 1:27:17, over a minute short of my 1:25:55, which was unbelievable for me at the time. 

As I had already low expectations, I was still satisfied though, and even thought it was a "win" because I only had a slight slowdown toward the end.

But the event seemed to have been just the tonic I needed. Almost all the training runs after it were popping; so much so that as I approached the first race of the Run Auckland 10km series, I was quite optimistic to match my race time of the previous year.

Last year, the Ambury Farm 10km had been my first serious 10km race in years. The course was flat, good, but almost entirely gravel, bad. I had locked into a pace, trying to break 40:00 for the first time, and was rewarded with 40:12, and a surprising 5th place. Even more surprising was that one second behind my time was a speedy 12 year old, who I'll refer to with his initials, AF. AF was even faster in the subsequent two races beating me and most of the field with ease. Only a few adults could consistently place ahead of him, which did not include me. He had a stress fracture half-way through the series but had recovered and was back running at pace.

This year was almost a re-run run of last year, but even faster. I locked in a sub 4:00/km pace and generally managed to keep it there: 

AF was leading for the first few kilometres but fell back slowly in the placings as the race progressed. At about the same point as last year, 7.2km mark, I ground past him, and held a solid closing pace to finish 38:55, in 7th place, this time beating AF by 7 seconds. 

Rivalry aside, 38:55 is my new lifetime PB for 10km. Previously it was the Te Atatū 10km, also last year, where I just managed to break 40:00 for the first time with 39:56. Now with this effort at Ambury Farm I have broken 39 minutes. Making a new PB in any category definitely shows I'm back to some sort of form and I can look to push other distances.

Back in October last year, I talked about my twin projects the second of which was language learning. At that time, I had already indulged in Vietnamese and Persian. Both languages have progressed nicely, especially Persian which I can now read fairly confidently despite the new alphabet. What I wouldn't have expected back then was that with my wife being influenced by me into starting to study Japanese on Duolingo, I also started re-heating old ability in Nihongo. Then, with the Vietnamese lessons running out on Duolingo, I started to learn Portuguese for fun. Then, in the same spirit as my Japanese study, I decided to reactivate Korean as well. I recently started getting Claude (an LLM AI) to make me the same story across my languages, and even got it to do a te reo Māori version too. So after a linguistic spiral, I find myself sustaining six different foreign languages that are not Chinese.

How long that can last, I don't know, but I am pleased that for the time being it's sustainable, and oddly, have not been too confusing to "keep apart". It would seem that the only cost is that I can't make huge strides in any one language - but to a degree you cannot go too fast with a single language, anyway. I'm enjoying it.

I am grateful for the spare time because any particular strand - my mother's health or work, or otherwise, could soak up all additional time with a change, and leave the other projects stranded.  

China curing

So, there I was lying on a massage chair with needles prodding, and then cups hugging me. Neither of these were the sites and experiences that I want to share, nor the best use of precious time. I've had these before and did not really wish to repeat them, but the final eight days of my China trip were slowed down considerably by a sore hip. 

Now, all of you will be thinking that I must have overtrained but it started when I was playing with the kids, as I do, probably a few hours after quite a lot of drinking and I tripped, as I do. At the time a grazed knee, hand and an incipient black eye were all I had to blush for. Overnight though I felt enough pain in my hip to reconsider even running the next day. In fact, even getting up was more than uncomfortable. It was an oddity because though my belly flop of the previous day was impressive, the impact was nowhere near where this horrid ache was coming from. It was not just a spot, but the whole lower part of my right hip and lower back were inflamed. 

I did an x-ray, because in China it is quite easy, which ruled out a broken rib but the pain remained and kept me from sleeping well or running. On our trip to Zhaoqing the pain eased - I could walk and be active without issue, riding bikes was painless, but running was not. It lingered till afterwards and I did want some treatment akin to a kiwi-style physio which is almost non-existent in China. I opted for 推拿 (tui na) which is a method of Chinese massage. The result, worse discomfort. Any gains in comfort I had with a vigorous trip out to Zhaoqing were erased.

I dallied on booking a physio for my return and missed out on a booking for Saturday morning. And so the day of our return flight, I decided on the acupuncture route. I am not a big fan of acupuncture or cupping even though I have had dry needling at kiwi physios, too. It is just that what I wanted was some form of non-aggravating massaged, and some prescribed exercises, not for hit-or-miss Chinese medicine (from my experience). But I wanted some relief for the flight and wanted something to change the trend in some way.

The Chinese doctor in this case did not instill in me much confidence by not asking about my symptoms, taking my pulse and then saying I had kidney stones on the right. I had already indicated to him my pain was on the right but no one had told him the cause so it made me recall how cold readers tell fortunes. Middle aged guy, pain near kidneys, well, why not guess a kidney stone.

But we went on, the needles went in, the cups absolutely sucked but the pain I had was noticeable lessened and not just from the relief of not being tortured any further. Reading more about kidney stones though, maybe he was onto something. The early signs of them are literally what I have been experiencing so it will be the first thing I explore on my return, and possibly my spectacular fall were either coincidental to them or might have dislodged one or two that have now re-lodged unhappily. Either way, I really want an answer and really want to lace up my shoes again to run! I hope both of these can be achieved when I get home. 

China travelling

I was glad that this trip to China gave me a chance to travel. And prior to this trip, the candidate destinations were those I hadn’t been before. But as Sam Gung’s passing went into the mix and people had to make decisions, and bullet train tickets during the Spring Festival period became fewer, the destinations became Shantou and, later, Zhaoqing. Both places I had been before; Shantou I’d been to pre-NZ return but Christy had been unwell so apart from the riverside and a few trips out for the local cuisine, it was unmemorable; Zhaoqing, I had a history with having visited way back in my first visit in 2000, and then with my sister in 2010. That all being said, I was happy to stomp their ground again.

Shantou was interesting if only because others would say that there was “nothing to see” – plenty of people were asking why we’d go. But there was plenty to see, and more importantly for us and the two friends who we went with, people to see. Guangdong, although synonymous with Cantonese and Cantonese culture, is home to a multitude of cultures. The majority culture of Shantou is actually more akin linguistically and culturally with Fujian Province further up the coast. And those areas speak a dialect of Chinese that is not identifiable in any way to Mandarin, Cantonese or Shanghainese. It probably split at least two thousand years from other Chinese dialects which in a western respect puts it well beyond where the Romans unified Europe. Most of those Romance languages have some similarity to each other, say French to Portuguese to Italian, which is analogous to China’s dialects in a way. But Shantou language is more distant. And thus its culture too is more distant, too.

Culture though is not that readily visitable unless you can speak with people and those were some people were the key sites to see! Our main guide was a previous student who had kept in touch with our friends. She took us back alley eateries, baristas as well as the best restaurants for Shantou cuisine.

The barista element took me by surprise – although a tea city, the coffee was probably the best I had ever had in China. We got take to one superb café, but stumbled on another which matched it.

My runs in Shantou were the most interesting of the trip. Shantou being a port city, it is close to the ocean as well as estuaries, so my runs also went along these. One my first run, I encountered the most surreal scene: As I approached a bend in the seaside promenade, I heard shouting, but not the argumentative kind. It was like a primal scream or loud, visceral sighing from different voices. As I approached there were middle aged men, topless, who may have just emerged from their swim in the estuary, one was stark naked dousing himself with fresh water, others were projecting their qi loudly into the bay. I ran past them with a mutual greeting, one even ran after me obviously infected by exuberance for running. The scream/sighing continued but I realised it wasn’t just coming from the men behind me but also from the bay itself. I spotted heads bobbing around in the water to see multiple men slowly cruising to shore with a life preserver, one of the reading aloud a famous poem from Mao Zedong, each verse being greeting with the qi explosions from the men on shore. With a bit of distance I took videos of this and no one could explain the middle-age man primal screams to me. 

River swimming is a thing, even in this so-called winter. You saw people swimming in the murky waters in Qingyuan and Zhaoqing. But it was Shantou that turned me into David Attenborough, trying to fathom where this all came from. And still do not know.

On another run, I bumped into another runner and had a nice conversation – the first I had with a fellow runner since arriving. The difference was probably that he too was a tourist having arrived a day later than me and also randomly looking for a place to train.

Our Zhaoqing trip was of a different nature because it was with family, ten of us in total, and we stayed in a 民宿 (minsu), which translates directly into “homestay” or “boarding with a local” but it’s more akin to Airbnb. We all went into a three storey renovated old building with all of us fitting into the four bedrooms. It had a “lounge” which was a table that you could play mahjong on. Since my trips in 2000 and 2010, it has developed quickly – no similarity to the place I went on each occasion. The constant was the main site, the Seven Star Crags, a series of large limestone towering peaks that emerge out of a lake area. Our minus was on a peninsula opposite now with a multitude of really good restaurants and cafes. The first day we mainly ate, drank and scoped out the place, especially Paifang Park, which we used hireable bikes to go to and from. Being a family trip, it was a good time to talk and I heard our niece, who is now an adult talking much more than I had ever heard before. The following day was a big day on and around the Crags. Christy and I were the only ones to climb one, the rest of the family happy to walk around them and use the boats to explore. One advantage of going with a family group is it took me out of my usual minimalist approach to parks – I would never usually shell out for a full ticket with all the boats, bells and whistles, but there was some benefit in this. The boat ride into a cave was actually worth it, and with older folk in our group, boat rides were a good way to break up the exertions.

Our final day was a site I had not been to, Dinghu Mountain (鼎湖山). It was a significant mountain because of it having a lake at the top, and also a significant Buddhist temple. For the average foreign visitor, it is not that interesting unless you really like temples. And although you can walk the whole mountain, we did this mountain with three shuttle buses up and three shuttle buses down. It is quite the carry-on with buying tickets, queuing and getting on and off.

We still have travel dreams in China. Despite an untold number of trips to China, I have not been to the North-East, home to some of my favourite cuisines, Xinjiang, deliciously dangerous, and we both want to go to Xi'an, me for the second time, Christy for her first. She also wants to see Qingdao, which is another city I have not visited. And we have barely scratched the surface of Hunan province. At this time still, travels outside of Qingyuan cost quality time in so the parents or family are either with us, or we travel closer to home. There is no rush though, even with an incredible four weeks of holiday we did not achieve all we wanted to do. The rest will wait for another day.

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.

Breaking through

Last blog I talked about some of my self-doubts in my recent running performances. Most of this was fuelled by knowledge that I was training better than I had in 2024 but still had nothing really to show for it. Racing both half marathon and 5k distances resulted in no movement in my PBs (personal bests). In fact, on similar courses and routes I was performing the same if not worse. 

I didn't mention my one "excuse" for this, and that was almost all of those runs were not target races, during which I was cranking up training, and could be a reflection of some tired legs. I would usually train the week of these non-target races pretty much the same as any other week, with some challenging pace workouts, but with Friday off, a short run on a Saturday and then the race on the Sunday. 

The recent two weeks though were the taper period, where my training volume decreases from its peak before a big race. The biggest race is the Christchurch Marathon on 13 April, so to show you what a taper looks like you can see it this way:

- Week ending 23 March: 123km run

- Week ending 30 March: 100km run

- Week ending 6 April: 80km run, including the Waterfront Marathon.

- week ending 13 April 67km planned, including the Christchurch Marathon.

Today's Waterfront Marathon was after two weeks of much less training volume (but still some pace), and that should put me in good stead to run stronger. After all this training my Garmin watch was claiming I had it in me to run a 1:25:15 half marathon which sounded overly optimistic, but persuaded by that I was strategically thinking of aiming for 1:26, more in hope based on the previous performances than actual confidence.

This morning's conditions couldn't really be any better: dry, sunny, negligible wind and I got to the venue early for all the necessary pre-run stuff. Unlike last year, I got into the start chute early, too, which meant not much dodging and weaving in the first kilometre, and before I knew it we were off.

As with every race, I start far too fast without even feeling it being fast, and then dropped myself to my planned pace, 4:05mins/km. Usually in training, I wouldn't usually go this fast for more than a mile, perversely after four kms, my pace started to pick up. Somehow during the middle stages, there was a 5km period that I ran in 19:51 (less than 30 seconds slower than my 5km race last weekend), and not long after that, I ran my fastest ever 10km stretch (39:50), faster than any 10km race previously. While this all happened I was worried that I'd pay for this speed towards the end, but while I was fatigued, I held on without a dramatic slowdown and cruised to the finish in an official time of 1:25:55. I am astonished at myself for being able to have a time starting in 1:25, it is a 1 minute 30 second personal best, and easily makes up for the frustration at the other events.

With the success in the bag, I can open up more about the dilemma of how to run this event. The conservative view is that one week before a marathon you shouldn't do an all-out race as there is a risk of injury, and also your body will take time to recover; that it would be better to use it as training with shorter efforts focussing on marathon effort rather than going hell-for-leather all the way for 21.1km. The liberal side might advocate for a race because at least you will truly know your form as close as possible to the race. I did choose to race this rather than use it as training, mainly because I felt I wanted to achieve and get confidence back. I now know I can run at speeds close to and under 4:00min/km and that is something that encourages me to think I could hold 4:15min/km for a marathon, which would have me doing a potentially sub-3hr marathon in Christchurch, or sometime soon. 

Anyway, I can finally celebrate a bit and get my head ready for my first marathon since November last year.

Consistency

Everyone who knows me reasonably well knows I'm a runner. Not all know that I only started really trying to be a regular runner in 2016 when I plotted to run my first half marathon. It was a learning experience for me, making lots of mistakes, learning about ITB syndrome (Ilio-tibial band), different kinds of run and the basics of hydration and nutrition on the hoof. 2017 was when I really started to race a bit more, running my first marathon and scrapping over 2000km for the year on new years eve, but it was 2018, just seven years ago when I really got the hang of it. One month I got to 400km which was unfathomable in 2017 where even in my runniest week of them all before my first marathon, I didn't break 300km. 2018 which is the first lump below was a fun year but not necessarily hitting goals. It ended with hernia surgery shortly after getting a 3:29 marathon PB. But it set the foundation for what for a long time was my best year, 2019, the second bump. It had me breaking 1:30 for the half marathon, 20:00 for the first time and brought my marathon PB down to 3:26 then 3:23. 2019 ended with me slipping on a boardwalk injuring myself and then Covid happened. There was only one solid year of running in 2021 with injuries and niggles blighting any consistency until late 2022.

The end of 2023 started the most consistent period of my running life, and consistency is one of the most key factors in running success. The body makes changes over time to be more efficient and stronger. With strengthening exercises and rest, it should be possible to run regularly without injury (apart from face-plants on concrete paths). 

The far right of the chart shows my training to prepare for Christchurch Marathon that will be in two weeks' time. It has some monstrous numbers: February I cracked 400km, and March will be over 480km with some running tomorrow, a new record month of mileage. 

This consistency has brought me to a new plateau: while my best before 2024 was 3:22 in the marathon, my three marathons were all 3:16 or under in 2024 including a 3:10 best; while my best half marathon before 2024 was 1:29:56, I have now run under that three times with a best of 1:27 and crucially never over 1:31 (even a "poorly paced run" has been a pretty good time). And in the seven 5km parkruns I've since Jan 2024, I've run six under the 20 minute ceiling that took me so long to break. (For the record, the only one over 20 minutes was done within a 33km long run and was a pretty respectable 21:28.)

But there has been something irksome in the numbers. I ran a 1:27 and a 1:28 half marathon in the middle of 2024 but have run all four halves since that between 1:29:30-1:30:46, metronomically consistently slower than my best. Since my 3:10 marathon breakthough in June 2024, my following two were 3:14 and 3:16 respectively. My watch tells me I have the fitness to break 19 minutes in the 5km but my parkrun times are as follows: 19:25, 19:51, 21:28, 19:42, 19:23, 19:36, 19:44; the 19:25 was yesterday morning and I felt pushed to my limit and with my current fitness should have been a PB, but wasn't. 

So I'm in a plateau despite the hard work put in. Next weekend is the Waterfront Half, which just like yesterday morning's race should by any measure be a good time, at least better than the same event last year where I got 1:28, if not a PB. And the marathon the following week should be better than the 3:10 that is my best in Hamilton. But both may not be, too. 

How the body performs can be so fickle. I hope that with a good taper and a smooth few days before, both will reach expectations.

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.