The Great Southern Marathon

After saying for years that I "would never run a marathon", I started pondering whether I should try one to really test myself.  You know, just to see if I could.  They say your goals should excite you and terrify you at the same time.  The marathon did that for me.  As it happened, my husband had been thinking pretty much the same thing, so we decided we'd run our first marathons 'together'.

We decided on the Hawke's Bay Marathon in May (main pluses of this event was it was close to home and we had someone to stay with!), and we started training.  

Then, in late March, COVID-19 forced a nationwide lockdown that had us 'staying at home, saving lives'.  It was a pretty anxious time for a lot of people, including myself.  I decided in that first week to back off on the marathon training and just take it easy.  I figured the marathon would be postponed or cancelled anyway so no point busting a gut and adding more stress to my body in those anxious times.

The marathon was indeed postponed, to a new date in September, so I took it easy for another few weeks then started my build again.  Training was going well.  I built myself back up to the 30km long run and was feeling good.  Then COVID reappeared, Auckland was locked down, and races started cancelling again.  Hawkes Bay was this time cancelled.

So, all this training, what were we to do?  Run a marathon anyway! We'll do it solo if we have to!

We chose a course, circumnavigating our home city of Palmerston North, including as much of the suburbs as we could, expanding the course where we needed to to reach that 42.2km.  We would run our own races, doing the same course at the same time, but at our own paces.  

The course map!

As soon as I said I'd be doing a solo marathon, my friends Michelle and Lewis jumped at the opportunity to be my support crew (and Terry's too!).  The event was named 'The Great Southern Marathon' - a great name suggested by our friend Gerry.

Michelle and Lewis created some epic race packs, bib numbers for us to wear, and even had a set of event rules which was brilliant.

The best race pack you ever did see!
Missing from this photo: the spray can of Impulse, not sure what they were implying by that?!

We showed up to the start line, on a cloudy and windy morning, a bit nervous about the mission ahead.  It was a lovely surprise to see Lewis and Michelle in "Southern Support Squad" tees and with official event signage!  There was even a wave start to allow for social distancing!  

"See you in a few hours, hun" I said to my hubby and off we went.  I stuck to my planned pace to avoid going out too fast, and watched as my husband gradually disappeared into the distance.

The route had us doing a reasonable amount of hills in the first 10 or so kilometres. I focused on taking them as easy as I could and recovering the heart rate on the downhills.  Michelle and Lewis popped up a few times, with encouraging chalk messages and cheers.  Michelle's husband Waero was out on his MTB, taking photos and checking in to see how we were both doing.

At the 14km mark, 1/3 of the way in, I was feeling good.  The wind had started to pick up and I knew the tough section was coming.  A brisk nor-wester makes the western side of the Palmy route a bit of a slog.  

14km done.  Settling in.  Photo captured by my wheely friend, Waero Tomlin

We had chosen the course carefully to circumnavigate the city, without having to do any out and back sections or double back on ourselves.  Of course, in a marathon event you would have regular access to portaloos along the way.  We knew of two toilets on course, at roughly 14km and 17km, with access to a couple of others off route we could run to if we were desperate.

I'm not sure if I could have made it through the whole marathon without a toilet stop, but I didn't want to risk getting caught out with nowhere to go so I opted for a strategic stop at 17km, in and out, a 'splash and dash' if you will!

That taken care of, it was onto y Mangaone stream walkway, starting around the back of the racecourse. There’s a reasonable distance of walkway around there and it’s usually pretty quiet. As expected, it was a fairly tough headwind that very quickly started to impact on my headspace.  I knew I would see Lewis and Michelle at the halfway point when I would pop back out onto the streets, so just focused on getting to them in the first instance.

There are a few gates along here to open and close behind you.  Quite awkward, as it interrupts your rhythm, especially when you run straight at one expecting it to open as you push it and getting stopped directly in your tracks!

"Yay! You're halfway! How are you feeling?" I was asked, I think my response was something like: "Alright, just gonna keep going!"

The next 5km were following along the streets, and while I had some relief from the wind thanks to the houses and trees, the sun came out and it got pretty hot! I slowed my place a little to keep the heart rate from climbing too much, and took the opportunity to dump some water on my head when I saw the crew.  "How's Terry going?" I asked, for the first time.  It wasn't that I wasn't thinking about him, and wondering how he was doing, I just needed all my energy to focus on myself!  "He's going okay, he's feeling a bit hot too."

Palmy is pretty flat, with the exception of the Summerhill suburbs and an elevated terrace in the north-eastern corner in the city.  At this point I was heading toward the high point around 35km, after which it was basically all downhill from there. Not hugely hilly, but enough to impact a bit on the pace, especialy when you're starting to feel a bit weary.

The Great Southern marathon - course profile.  Elevation estimated 200m.  (350m recorded on my Fenix & 150m recorded on Terry's Forerunner (non barometric altimeter).  So probably somewhere in between.

One more little section of the Mangaone stream walkway, then we're at the 'airport section' and approaching 30km.  I had a bit of stitch here and threw in a few walking intervals to try and settle that.  It did settle after about 3km.

All of a sudden, there was some noticeable tailwind running past the airport and it felt glorious!  I was still walking regularly - running about 1km and walking for about 50m to drink and nibble.  My left quad was feeling pretty sore - like it was seizing up - and a little bit of walking seemed to help.  Starting running again was even more painful though.

I don't know if I actually needed to pee or not, but I started thinking about it a lot around 32km.  There was a public toilet coming up at a park around 33-34km but I didn't fancy having to run up the hill to get to it!  I noticed the vehicle testing station was still open so I barged in, probably looking frantic, saying "Excuse me! Can I please use your toilet? I'm running a marathon and I need to go!"  I'm sure the staff had a giggle about the crazy running woman after I left!

One last catch up with the crew at 34km.  "I'm doing regular walking breaks now," I said.  Michelle's reply: "It doesn't matter how long you take, you just keep going.  This is the bit that's going to be really hard and you just have to keep going."

I had been looking forward to the sweet downhill section, about 1.5km worth of nice flowing downhill joy, but to my frustration, if made my quad hurt more!  From here it was roughly 500m running and 50m of walking - I think - could have been more or less of the other.  This continued all the way to the finish line.

Along and then across the state highway, down Te Matai road to the riverside walkway, and all of a sudden I'm at 39km.  Only 3km and a bit to go!  I run this section a lot as it's close to home, so it all felt familiar.

When my watch ticked over 40km, it really hit me, just how far I'd run.  At 41km, I felt really emotional, realising I was about to finish a marathon, and just around the corner I would see my husband and my friends waiting for me.

The best surprise! They'd even set up a finishing tape for us both!  And organised a gorgeous handmade medals for each of us.  Thank you to our friends Gerry & Wouna Le Roux who created these, and were also there to see us finish.

First female!  😉

4 hours and 22 minutes and 35 seconds!  I had estimated around 4:15 if everything went well, so I wasn't too far off what I thought I could do.  Very happy with that.

Hubby had suffered a bit from calf cramps toward the latter stages of the marathon and had slowed a lot, so much so that he thought I was going to catch up to him! (I was nowhere near it!).  He did really well, I am so proud of him.

 
Marathoners!  With our unique handmade medals and the best signage ever

Post-marathon, as I wait for the DOMs in the quads to subside (the stairs at our place have been fun!), I am feeling pretty proud of myself.  We all know how long a marathon is.  It's 42.2km.  Do a half marathon, then keep going and do another one.  But it is so much more. I expected it to be hard, and it was.  But the sense of achievement afterward was absolutely amazing and has me left wanting more.

I remember the same feeling that day I ran my first 5km non-stop.  And then later, my first half marathon.  Now - I'm not saying I'm going to go and run an ultra next!  I have no plans to, but I'm no longer saying 'never', well, because look what happened when I said that about the marathon!

People have said "that's so much tougher doing it solo".  It probably is - you don't have the runners around you, a managed course (so you don't even have to think where you're going, about crossing roads & opening gates, or worrying about loo stops!).  On the other hand, I don't know any different now.  I'm pretty sure I will do another marathon, probably next year, and this time in an event (COVID-willing!), just to see what that's like.

Thanks so much to everyone who sent encouraging messages during the training process and on the day of the event, and who messaged congratulations afterwards. It really did mean a lot to me.  What I love about the running community is that there is no shortage of people wanting you to win.  Whatever your challenge, there are people cheering you on, every step of the way.

So, what's next?  Not sure yet. I'm going to get back to the trails for a bit, and think about setting my next goal.  I'll see you out there.

💖 K8