Alastair Hines, Motatapu Marathon
Alastair Hines
Wow! What a cool run the Motatapu marathon is, tough but awesome. I think you would really struggle to find a run or bike race with the scenery that Motatapu has. I have competed in the mountain bike race three times previously and always wanted to run it as my first marathon.
Running her first marathon was my wife Mel’s key goal event of the year and since I had completed my key event at Coast to Coast a month earlier my mission was to complete my first marathon while supporting Mel to achieve her goal. So I decided to run with Mel the whole way so we could share our achievement together.
The morning dawned early for the runners much to the disgust of the bikers who were staying in the house with us who weren’t starting until 11am and thought they should still be asleep at 5am! As usual for the Motatapu the weather was just stunning, clear calm and not a cloud in the sky. Good weather helps with a challenging course like this with the first 30km or so of the run uphill, a steepish downhill section, so many river crossings you loose count. I don’t think I can ever remember running through water so damn cold in my life before…
I wasn’t really quite sure how my body was going to hold up considering that after coast I seemed to become very lazy, eat every bit of rubbish I could get my hands on and beer and wine had made an appearance back in the fridge. But thanks to the Oracle and my training programme prior to Coast the legs and dodgy ankle held up.
Mel’s target time was between 5:30 and 6:30 and we knocked the first 10km’s out in just under an hour. As it turned out this start took a bit more out of the legs than expected and progress while steady certainly dropped off. We crossed the line in 6hrs dead so mission completed.
This race is a definite on the calendar for next year and now we have times to beat.
Alastair Hines
Well done to my fellow CP team members supporting us and competing over the weekend. You guys rock!