Run Auckland 1 (with manflu)

Yesterday I did Run Auckland 1 (10.15 km) with what I would describe as "manflu". Bit of a temperature, cough, general achy, and headache. In general not flash and if it was a training run would have canned out before I started.

Still I wasn't going to register a "Did Not Finish" on race day. :)

Run Auckland 1 is two 5.08km loops around Grand Drive and Waiatarua Reserve in Remuera. Some gravel, some footpath, a couple of bridges. Its a nice course on rolling terrain. The hills aren't too bad but certainly would be interesting for someone who has done no training (like my sister found out!)

The morning started out eventfully. I had organised to pick my little sister up on the way with plenty of time to get there. The race was due to start at 9am, but on getting in the car at 8am discovered a completly flat tyre :(. After some dramas trying to get alternative transport arrived at the start, or rather at the back of start, at 8:58. On the plus side this meant no time to get nervous.

In a complete random moment bumped into someone I know through work. Weird!

The event is turning out to be very popular with 621 people in the 10km event. So the first km was quite congested. Probably spent maybe the first km moving up through the field. According to the run pix race stats on the second half I passed 13 and was passed once - presume the calculation is done using split times and finish times.

In the run I took it conservatively and walked through the drink stops at 2.5km and 7.5km. The second loop was pretty awful - just wanted to go home and lie down - so was pretty pleased to get through it.

For events going forward I'm going to do a list of positives and negatives to try and learn from each experience.

Positives:
- starting and finishing!
- hill training is paying off, rather than shuffling up a hill have some legs now
- the weather was nice

Negatives:
- feeling like crap and not pushing the pace
- pretty slow time for a 10km race (given I do 4:30 pace in regular training) but I'll take it.
- get there early and seed nearer the front. Maybe in first 20% based on results.

Finally Run Auckland this year are providing some nice run-stats courtesy of RunPix.

Results:
49:40 (net), 51:41 (gun)
4:53 min/km average.