Taupo Half Marathon race report

I did a personal worst!!!!!!!! I knew it was not going to be a great run, but hell, it turned out to be a grovel fest of epic proportions....

The weather has been really really bad for the last 10 days. Storm after storm is hitting us, and it just rains and rains, and blows and blows. And last night, lying in our cabin in Taupo, I listened all night to the howling gale and driving rain thinking I had wasted a pile of money because I was NOT running in this crap!

We woke in the morning to much the same conditions. A few texts to other friends also competing, and we all talked each other into doing it. Might as well, we were here!!!

Miraculously though, the weather started clearing. The wind died down, the heavy rains stopped, and we only got a resonably light shower not long after the start. The wind did pick up again to make the last few km's straight into a stiff head wind, but other than that I think the weather gods made nice to us!!!

It seemed the running gods had up and left me though, as I was rubbish. The first 5kms was done in 31mins and I knew then that I was going to be crap. Half way in 1:05 and I knew a 2:10 was out the window. 15kms at another ridiculous time and I was struggling to make peace with the fact that this was the worst performance ever. Once I gave up and walked I was history. I couldn't run, I couldn't walk, my feet hurt, my butt hurt and I wanted it to be over.

2hrs 22mins later (almost 10mins slower than my old slowest time, and 16mins slower than my PB) and I was done!!! Literally done! There are a tonne of excuses - hardly any sleep listening to the storm; "that" time of month which means the body rebels against running (sorry boys but it is a womans reality); not enough long runs; wind & rain; grass tracks (which were in pretty good condition considering the rain); blah blah blah.....

*** Update as official results are now out - My time was 2:21.58. You can see I bombed as the 1st half was done in 1:05.30 and the 2nd half in 1:16.29 - oooops.

The Saint faired slightly better, missing his PR but not by much. If the weather had been better he would have nailed it, but even he was hurting by the end. Most of our friends who were there had a bad run actually. This was definitely one of those runs where you had to mentally dig deep and just finish, even if you felt like you were losing the plot.

So, that is half marathon #9 for me (not including half ironman runs). I will do #10 in the next 2 months, and that will be a cool achievement. I wanted to do one for such a long time but never got around to it, so to have now done 9 is awesome.

But hey - the new matra around these parts is AT LEAST WE WERE OUT THERE!!!!!!!!!! Plenty of people would not have made it to the start line this morning because of the weather, but we took our cement pills and hardened up!!!!! We are TUFF!