Sabbatical IV - Hawkes Bay International Marathon

Saturday, May 18:  To be clear, I ran the half marathon.  I am giving the weird system that is my left thigh and knee as long as it needs to find a healthy normal.  That means 21 kms is enough.  As is not spending days of this trip recovering from full marathons.  Disclaimer done.

I picked this race for timing and location.  Why not?  When am I ever going to run a race in New Zealand again? 

5 am.  Napier.  Still a couple hours ahead of NZ time.  It’s 27 F in Havelock North, where the race starts.  WTF?  I anticipated 40 F.  Oh well.  I brought shorts, nothing to do about that.  I added an extra layer on my torso.  I thought, the sun will come up, I will get warm.  At least it was 39 F in town as I walked to the shuttle bus.  Lots of other cold, surprised runners in shorts – or maybe everyone is just more cold-adapted.  Chatted with a woman from Auckland on the ride.  She is a classic Kiwi type – probably in her late 60s, working in order to travel and curious about all of the world.  She’d won her age group in the Mumbai Half Marathon last year, plans multiple trips to Eastern Europe in the future. 

The start venue was cold.  So were the porta-loos.  When the sun rose, I found a spot to get maximum thermal input.  Ok, finally time to shed insulation and go to the start.  By the time I got there, I could not feel my toes.

Countdown, and off.  The Hawkes Bay region is agricultural.  It’s billed as wine country, but I’d say more than half of the agriculture we ran by was apple orchards (remember this next time you get NZ apples in the USA, they probably came from here).  Mile 4: I could not feel my toes, fingers, or nose.  The course was a mixture of well-maintained sandy granite trails and road verges.  The former were better, especially the long segment on a man-made levee paralleling the Tukituki River.  Scenic:

Mile 7: I could feel all my extremities, and hey, I was actually sweating!  Probably 50 F by now.  We were running from Havelock to the Elephant Hill Winery, on the ocean.  Mile 12: the Pacific came into view, and I was still feeling pretty good.  A really tall Kiwi dude, probably older than me, started chatting with me.  Eventually I said, wanna burn it?  He was game, so we picked up the pace to the finish.  Glad handshakes.

My chip time was around 2:03, my Garmin gave me 2:01, which is about the right difference given my photo ops.  Fast for the current iteration of my running life, no complaints.  After stretching, I wandered the venue trying to find my gear bag and the shuttle back to Napier.  I somehow got in the wine line and was handed a glass of something chardonnay-like.  I was parched, so drank it right off.  I did not feel the alcohol at all. 

This was half marathon #49.

Shuttle bus, trying not to worry that I’d be late back to my hotel.  I’d begged a late check out.  Made it, and of course, since I’m in New Zealand, after 5 minutes of pleasantries with reception, it was like, no rush, take your time.  Shower, pack, haul gear to MG.  I had told myself I had to have a look at Napier, which has the highest abundance of Art Deco buildings in the world.  Alas, I was too race-tired other than to appreciate that they were amazing.  A large Malaysian lunch didn’t help. 

So I did my big provisions shop and headed south.  I quickly realized I was too tired to drive, so I found a nice campground in Hastings, took another shower and figured out how to arrange the insides of MG to my liking – surprisingly straightforward.  Here's the nightime nest:

Enough for one day.