November Newsletter

How often can you hold you head up high and say ‘today I ran a 3 hour 9 minute Half Marathon’, even though your best is less than half that time?

Simple answer is when you ran it with your 5 year old daughter (Prudence).   Having embarked on my own mid-life crisis taking up swimming, cycling and running the family decided that they too wanted to run an event, so we chose the Keri-Keri Half Marathon. 

 

George (Aged 11) had run it before two years ago in a time of 3 hours and 20 minutes, but this year was different.  Two years later the family had witnessed many races, many training sessions and themselves became active, so how fast did George do it this year?  2 hours and 28 minutes, surely that’s a testament to a fit and active family.

Having one person fit in the family tends to have a knock on effect to other family members and I am so proud of them all and it’s at times like this that endorses the decision I made to change my own lifestyle for the better.

Sally (the wife) completed her first Marathon in Auckland a few weeks ago in a very commendable time of 4 hours and 33 minutes and I had the experience of running alongside her.  I was going to say pleasure, but pacing the wife is a recipe for disaster.  When I explained we needed to pick up the pace if we wanted to break 4 hours 30 minutes, her reply is un-printable and made for a very quiet hour of running afterwards.  Sally also completed the Keri-Keri Half Marathon in 2 hours 3 minutes, which was a very good time considering she had been sick all week.

Now there are 5 people in our family.  Estafana (Aged 9) also ran the Keri-Keri Half Marathon, she’s never ran any race before (except the 400m at school sports day) and her only other activities are running around the playground at school, swimming and playing hockey, but imagine my surprise when I got a phone call on the course to tell me my 9 year daughter crossed the finish line in 2 hours 20 minutes.

 

Jeez, I’ve just got another chapter for my book.

Thanks for all the support from friends and sponsors

 

Lardman