In prepping for my half I have signed myself up for 2 race series, and it turned out that the first race in the Unitech Run & Walk series was on my birthday. And I aimed high, signing up for the 15km run.
Waking up on the morning of my birthday at 6am getting myself ready to hand out the door to Ellerslie for the race wasn't ideal, but it was nice change to the Sunday morning hangover that I usually deal with.
On top of running, I signed up to volunteer with registration before the race, so I was there early to help out. I ended up working side by side with another Canadian girl who was going to be running as well. All in all, it was a great start to the day.
With the registration table being so busy the morning flew by, and before I knew it it was time to get warmed up and head to the starting line.
The course itself was pretty good, no steep hills, but still challenging. I ran a good first lap, with a time around 30 mins, and the second lap went well as well. I felt that I had done around the same time as the 1st lap, which put me well on my way to the 1hour 30 min time that I wanted, but thought was a little too ambitious. The 3rd lap was a bit harder, and I felt myself slowing down. Thankfully the last 1-2kms circled around the race course, so the end was in sight, and that was the motivation that I used to keep my pace up till the end. Although I slowed a little I crossed the finish line very close to the 1:30 time that I had dreamed of.
The coolest part of this race was that the MC at the finish line was great. They knew who everyone was when the crossed the line to do another lap and finish, and they also knew it was my birthday, so every time I crossed the line I heard a happy birthday shout out, as well as some encouraging words such as 'what a way to spend your birthday'.
So I finished the race feeling pretty happy with myself, and when the results got posted and it was confirmed that I had an amazing finishing time.
My net time was 1 hour 31 minutes and 43 seconds!
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