Marathon Day!

Cliff's marathon
I'm normally a bit nervous before a race. I don't know why, it's not like it's the Olympics, but I get the whole lot - butterflies in my stomach, dry mouth, jelly legs etc. But today there was nothing which was somewhat surprising as this was my first ever marathon. We got to the start with about 10 minutes to spare, just time to answer a quick call of nature, slip on my trainers and say goodbye to Elaine and Liam before hopping over the barricades into the queue to join the masses of eager runners.

I hoped to finish with a time of 4 hours or less - the equivalent of running 26 and a bit 9-minute miles - but an experienced local trainer told me that the hills made this a demanding course and that I might want to adjust my target by 15 minutes or more.

The start was quite exciting - a Maori haka and cannon fire set us off on our way to "take on the lake" with the added assistance of a light shower.

The first few miles were pretty good, the rain faded away and the weather alternated between sun and clouds with a strong breeze for the rest of the course. The route took us away from the lake and it was fairly flat. At about 6 miles I had to take evasive action when the guy in front of me ran into a traffic cone and sent it flying into my path! Somehow I sidestepped it and carried on my way. Roughly 8 miles in on a climb was the first real full on view of the lake and it was something else, it certainly took my mind off the aches and pains that were starting to take over my legs. After about 10 miles I was feeling the effects of the hills but my pace was inside the 4 hour target, but I could feel the resurrection of a nasty blister on my one of my toes (it's the toe next to my big toe on my left foot. Do toes have names? I'll call it my index toe for now). Unfortunately the hills kept coming and I slowed a bit (with the help of a toilet break). At the halfway stage my time was 1hr 59 min, but the 4 hr pace group was 2-3 minutes ahead, still visible thanks to the yellow balloon tied to the lead runner but increasingly unreachable!

Just about everyone has heard of THE WALL, that invisible barrier that lies in wait, ready to ambush marathon runners somewhere out on the course. I stumbled into my wall at about mile 16. For a couple of miles my vision got a bit blurry, and I was starting to think "oh God, I'm going to pass out, please don't let me pass out!" I've seen people in races passed out or receiving oxygen and it's not a pleasant sight and I wasn't overly excited at the thought of joining them. I was starting to regret not bringing a tube of M&M's, a staple of my long training runs, and I was getting more and more jealous of supporters handing out solitary bananas to their mates. And there wasn't anybody giving out sweets! After quite a long descent (which was of course, preceeded by an equally long, arduous climb) I was in the finishing straight - only 7 miles to go! The 4 hour balloon was still in sight but my legs were disobeying orders. "Speed up" said my brain, "No!" said my legs. Come to think of it I don't think they even bothered to respond, and I'm not sure they could.

At this stage of the race, a lot of people were taking walking breaks, and it was quite tempting to join them. But I didn't. I kept running. What a hero. Actually it doesn't matter how you do it, if you set out to do it and you do it, then my hat is off to you.

About 4 miles left and I got my first sweets! Hooray! And they kept on coming after that (thank you to everbody who handed me sweets). I can't believe what a difference it made, I got faster after that although any hope of running under 4 hours was long gone.

The last mile or so was heavenly. I knew that (barring a major catastrophe) I was going to finish. I was passing people left and right so I was finishing relatively strongly. Then in to the finishing straight, I heard my name broadcast over the PA - "And here comes number 1672, I've heard about this guy already, that's Cliff Purtell from Lancing. I think that's in Western Australia." What? Everyone knows its in Western Sussex! Outrageous.


As I flew down the finishing straight, I spied Elaine and Liam in the crowd and slowed down to wave before I crossed the line. And I felt okay, I could have kept going but I definitely didn't want to. And the blister I mentioned, it was so big that when I got my sandals on it wobbled when I walked. And they gave me bananas and tea and coffee and blister plasters and a finisher's t-shirt and more sweets. But no medal. I wanted a medal! Turns out they only have medals every 5th anniversary and this was the 46th race, so I missed out on medal by a year. Maybe I'll come back in 2014 for race number 50. Or not.



Here's the St Johns people looking at my blister, they've never seen one quite as big.



By the way my time was 4:11:42 which I hope to beat in Brighton in 2011. They give out medals too!

Elaine's 5k
When Cliff realised he really was not going to be able to do the Brighton marathon, he immediately got online to see which one he could run in NZ. It was either the Rotorua on 1st May or June in Christchurch. As we won't be on the South Island until at least July, it looked liked Rotorua was the favourite. They were allowing late registrations and he also noticed that they were running a 5k event. I've done a couple of the Races for Life so I knew I could probably do it but that had been years ago and I wouldn't have much time for training and I didn't have any running shoes or gear. Well, we were in Hong Kong so shopping for running shoes was not a problem (I got the running gear cheap in Hamilton) and I resolved the issue of not being able to do much training by not doing any at all. This I'd not recommended in any way. It was hard but clearly not as hard as the marathon that Cliff was doing at the same time. Put it this way, I will probably do another although it might be a long while before I extend to a 10k. My time at 46.27 was slightly longer than the fastest men in the field (17 mins) and the women (20 minutes) but I can live with that; I didn't stop and I didn't walk although I was overtaken on a couple of occasions by people who were walking the course.

Liam's 5k
Saturday morning - not really the day to be getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to compete in a 5k race. But that’s ok because 5 kilometres is not a very long way, especially compared with the marathon my dad is running this morning.

On the starting line, the rain’s dripping down onto my head, I’m waiting anxiously for the big boom of the starting cannon. I’ve been waiting for 30 seconds, it feels more like 5 minutes. The cannon is off I’m running. Fast. But not too fast, I’m preserving my energy for the rest of the race.


I’ve been running for ten minutes now. Probably. I daren’t look at my Nike ipod timer for fear of losing my precious momentum. Then up ahead I see the volunteers handing out water and rethink my ten minute theory as I remember on the map I saw earlier the water station was very near the finish of the 5k, and ten minutes would have to be a world record of some kind. The water’s throwing me completely off my stride and I’m feeling like my momentum can’t get any worse. I look at my ipod: 32 minutes, I was aiming for 30 but under 35 would be just as good, so using my last morsel of strength I stampede on to the finish line and am awarded a satisfactory time of 34:14.

I did not find it very hard ( I've run a 5k race before) and will be taking on many more in the future.