Southland Half Marathon (New Zealand)
DunedinSo if anyone has ever wondered whatever happened to the guy who disappeared from the club in mid-February, I’m here to tell you. I went to New Zealand, and, 9 months into this year long disappearing act, I finally managed to run a race.
Since February I have been struggling pretty badly with injuries, and having sprained my ankle in April, I had really been struggling to get any organised training on board to support my racing addiction. During this 9 month hiatus I have managed to see a lot of the country and have been spoilt by the variety of landscape New Zealand has to offer. However during the past 6 months I have been primarily based in Dunedin (twinned with Edinburgh apparently) and during the last 2 months I have begun to do something resembling organised training, as a result I decided to enter the Southland Half Marathon last Sunday.
SouthlandThe Southland Half Marathon is run in conjunction with a marathon and a 10k and I have to say the decision to enter the Half was most definitely one of the more sensible running decisions I have ever made. The race itself though, from an organisational point of view, was quite disappointing. The half marathon cost $50 to enter (about £22) and as far as value for money goes it was easily the worst race I’ve ever run. But I’m not going to spend the entire report moaning about how I got sent the wrong way and didn’t get any water at the finish. Honest.
The race started at the uncomfortably early time of 8.30am, so a bus departed Invercargill at 7.30 and brought the runners to a nearby rugby club for a half an hour before ferrying us all to the start. Southland is a very flat area located, predictably enough, at the south of New Zealand but is exposed to a variety of weather patterns due to its exposed location in global terms. Though on the day the wind wasn’t bad at all and conditions were near perfect.
Now it has to be said my other comeback races have nearly always been short, low participation events, usually in fife (the Beveridge Park 5k being a good example), that allow me to safely evaluate my race fitness without the danger of failing to complete. This on the other hand, I had told far too many people about and managed to spend most of the week worrying about possible injury scenarios that would have me walking back to Invercargill a broken man. Thankfully none of these were to come to fruition.
The race started and I found my pre-race plan of ‘take it easy for the first 4 miles’ ruined by the fact that the course was marked in ‘kms to go’. Regardless, I managed to spectacularly ignore my own plan anyway in an eager attempt to test my own fitness. I managed to get to the first water station only to discover only PowerAde on offer, and having declined that offer I went on jostling for position with people from running clubs I’d never heard of. Just as I approached half way I decided that pushing on was the best policy and set off chasing whoever was in front of me, despite the fact that they were just about out of site. As I approached a bridge I was directed down the side path which veered right, so right I went. Only for 10 seconds or so to pass and shouting to tell me I had indeed gone the wrong way. This annoyed me greatly, because the course itself was full of traffic cones and marshals and I really couldn’t see why there was nothing at this point clarifying which direction to go. It was probably my mistake primarily but I felt I shouldn’t have been in a position to make a mistake, anyway a few expletives uttered, a few positions lost, on I went.
The next water station did indeed have water at it. A relief, and I pushed onto the last 10km. At this stage the lack of proper training definitely came into play, but it certainly wasn’t as bad as it could have been and the runs along the beach in Dunedin safely got me through to the finish in a time off 1.24.52, although the organisers seem to have added a minute to my time in the official results which I cannot clarify as I wasn’t wearing a watch. I suspect the official time of 1.25 is correct and I’m not massively bothered either way, but I still think it’s a fairly basic mistake to be making. In addition to this I received an empty water bottle and a bottle of PowerAde for my effort. No medal, t-shirt or even water on display was slightly disappointing. I later discovered from a marathon finisher that he didn’t get any water either, the marathon costing twice that of the half. Personally I thought this really wasn’t good enough. Plenty of PowerAde on display though.
Running in the Helensburgh Half in 2008Despite the disorganisation on display here I was very glad to be back running. The running calendar in New Zealand is massively inferior to the Scottish Athletics version but this is mainly due to the dispersed population which makes organising events outside of the big cities difficult.
As for me, bizarrely I am not going to try and push myself to improve my times too much until I get home (February), because at the moment I lead a very nomadic lifestyle which makes structured training difficult and I don’t want to pressure myself too much with no main goal to aim for and although it’s a bit early for new years resolutions all I want next year (from a running perspective) is a injury free year, although if I was being greedy I would love to run races like the Edinburgh to North Berwick race and the 7 hills which admittedly are months away at this stage but are races I’ve never run.
Still looking for water...Anyway hope the good people of Portobello running club are doing well. I do still miss running in Edinburgh at this time of year even if the concept of having summer in December is something I am becoming increasingly comfortable with.
Roving reporter Michael Geoghegan
Wanaka
